for the past few weeks, I've been 'pondering' what evangelism is and what this term means for christians today. I'm not sure where this post will go....but any feedback is welcome!
i guess evangelism, in its most basic form, is a christian telling people about God. its a direct command from Jesus, in :
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
So its not a choice, its not meant to be a gift given by God for other people to do, or something we can do once or twice and think thats your evangelism box ticked for this year. If we truely love God, we should therefore have a burning desire to see others saved for Him. Such a desire can't be turned on or off....it should burn within the heart of every christian. We should be praying as much as possible for opportunities to talk about God!
I've noticed there are a few 'excuses' people give for not engaging in evangelism. These are given below, along with my views:
1) I'm not confident enough to talk about God.
Well....lets look to the bible...Moses didn't want to speak to Pharoah, and God replied:
The LORD said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD ? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
Then Moses still refused to go, and we see in verse 14 that the Lord's anger burned against Moses. I doubt many of us would be comfortable with God's anger burning against us.
2) I don't need to actively engage in Evangelism, the way I live is my witness
Firstly, I have no doubt living a 'good' life is an excellent witness, however, we run the risk of when we make a mistake, we are more quickly judged by non-christians. Also, as Jesus said, no-one is good but the Father(Mark 10:18). Also, I have found that non-christians can live lives a lot of christians would strive to live, based on a 'good upbringing', or similar ideas. In my opinion, such a statement has problems, as it is no longer obvious just by observing how a person lives to determine the christians.
3) I am afraid people will mock me, laugh at me, ignore me etc.
Luke 10:3
Luke 10 is an excellent passage regarding evangelism, check it out! but from verse 3, we see we are like lambs among wolves when we evangelism, but, God has given us the power to overcome all the power of the devil....such a promise!
4) Everyone I know is a christian
Such a statement, I find it hard to comprehend. Looking at my own life, i have over 80 in my class, maybe 200 work colleagues on a busy day, 100 on the train. Say I know 5% of these personally, thats 20 people I can evangelise to each week!
If you truely know no non-christians, make a bold decision to talk to a random person about God each day...trust me...it is easier to talk to a stranger about God....and if they reject you, well you may never see them again...but a seed is planted.
As in Isaiah 55:11
In conclusion, evangelising is not an option, its not something we can do once a week and say 'that'll do me this week', nor is it something that we can ever do too much of! There are constantly new people in your life, and our primary aim in life is to Glorify God, and to seek others for His Kingdom. It should occur without you deciding to, eg before you think 'oh i should tell this person about God!', it should already be happening.
The verses below kinda sum up what I'm feeling....
N.B. I am not perfect at this...I struggle a lot with this...I'm not constantly evangelising as I'm recommending. I feel its important to be honest, however I just have been so full of thoughts over this, that I thought it might be useful to do up a blog about it and pray it makes sense and is useful!
