First off, this is something that I struggle with, just so that can be understood up front. Sometimes, personal evangelism scares the crap out of me. And by personal evangelism, I mean sharing your faith and Jesus with others.
I don’t want to be seen as one of those crazy idiots that doesn’t care about people and just wants to beat them over the head and tell them that their wrong and I’m right. No thanks. I’ve met plenty of guys like that before and no one likes them. They are always “that guy” and no dude ever wants to be considered “that guy”. But I also don’t want to compromise whose I am in Christ, to appease people and to simply gain praises from others.
Here’s the conflict: We have the Savior of the entire world as our Lord and Savior and there are people on earth that don’t know Jesus and are far from God. How can I ever keep my mouth closed and not share this with others? How can I not share with others the transforming power of Jesus within my life?
If I do care about someone, I want to share Jesus with them. I care for them and I want them to allow Jesus to complete and fill their lives just like He has mine. I simply can’t keep my mouth shut about it. When I have a relationship with someone it is so much easier to share with them. Yeah, it takes courage to share your heart with someone that you are close to because we don’t want to harm the relationship. But I would venture to say that showing Jesus to others doesn’t really hurt any relationship that is worth having.
One of the biggest (if not the biggest) reason i believe we don’t share Jesus with others is because of fear. We are scared. We are scared of what others will think of us. We are scared of how others will respond to us. We are scared that we aren’t sharing Jesus in the “right way”. Sometimes, we are simply flat out scared to open our mouths and share about Jesus.
I know it’s frightening to share about Jesus sometimes, but HE BLED AND DIED FOR YOU! If Jesus had the crap beat out of him, bled, and died brutally on the cross, can’t we at least share with others what He has done in our lives?
Good post. You know where “that guy” most often goes wrong though? It’s when his actions/demeanor/whatever you want to call it doesn’t reflect the words that are coming out of his mouth. What’s the St. Francis quote? “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.”
Share Christ with your life and with the things you do. In your relationships, you’ll see opportunities come up for more direct conversation about Christ and who he is to you. I tell my people all the time to go make new friends and to share their lives with them. That’s the most effective personal evangelism I know. Cold call evangelism is a relic of days gone by, in my opinion. The post-modern world is full of too many skeptics that are turned off by a full-frontal conversation.