Gospel Sharing Pains

So, I thought I would address this issue as simply as I can.

Perhaps you are like everyone else and find sharing the Gospel with people extremely difficult. You may have been a believer for years and never even really tried, or maybe you’ve tried and had people make you feel like a bad person for doing it.

I can remember being in high school and trying to share the Gospel with a few friends and having them get mad at me and having them tell me not to push my beliefs on people. I stopped talking to them about it immediately but they stopped hanging out with me completely.. I didn’t say anything all that offensive in fact I was trying to be very sensitive to the fact that they didn’t have the same beliefs as me.

After that incident for several years I was afraid to share the gospel with anyone. I felt like a jerk for trying to push my beliefs on them. But then I realized something..

Why should I feel bad for trying to inform someone of the love and grace of Jesus Christ? If I truly believe that Jesus is the WAY and the only WAY, then wouldn’t I not sharing the Gospel just show that I don’t care enough about you to save you from going to Hell?

We shouldn’t hold back the Gospel just because we might offend people.

I would rather offend a million people and save one person from going to Hell than not offend anyone and have everyone go to Hell. I would rather have someone going to Hell thinking “Man, I should have listened to Isaiah” rather than having them be someone I’ve known and having them think “Why didn’t Isaiah just tell me this would happen?”

Christ loved us enough to endure the cross and defeat death. He didn’t do this for us so we could keep his message a secret.

Jesus has a The More The Merrier policy in heaven. So in Matthew 22:37-40, when Jesus tells us that the greatest commandments are Love God and Love People I think he had sharing the Gospel in mind. When you share the Gospel you are showing that you love God enough to let other people know that He exists and that He loves them and He wants them with Him. You are also showing that you love those people enough to let them know that the void they feel in their hearts can be filled with the love of Jesus Christ and that Hell is a very real place but the Good News is they don’t have to go there, there is another way.

All I’m saying is, if you believe in what Jesus did for you and you love someone, then there is no reason good enough to hide the Gospel from them. I’m not saying go out there and tell everyone that they are going to Hell unless they repent, have some tact, but find a way to share the Good News, because you never know when you’ll have another opportunity and you might run out of time.

Don’t go out trying to offend people, but if you love them, you should be willing to risk offending them if it means you could save them from going to Hell.

I pray that this shed some light on the topic of sharing the Gospel with others and I pray you have the courage it takes to do it.

God Is Not Ashamed of Who He Is

I was recently listening to a leader of a college ministry speak and he said something that really caught my attention. He said, "God is not ashamed of who he is." He went on to talk about how God presents himself in Job 38. For those of you who never read Job, in chapter 38 the Lord appears after being virtually silent as Job has all of his possessions destroyed, his whole family killed, and is cursing the day he was born as he is ridiculed by his friends. So, God appears and basically says that He is God and Job isn’t. He talks about how he controls and created the entire Universe, and also mentions the fact that Job can’t even comprehend the things He does.

This got me thinking about my own life, because God isn’t subtle about how great He is and how small Job is in this passage. God tells it like it is.. but how often do I chicken out?

If I truly believe that Jesus is God and is the only way, then why do I try and act “normal” so often? Why do I constantly strive to be accepted and to fit in with this world, when Jesus himself tells us in John 15:18-19 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to this world it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”

I’m tired of chickening out.

I think there are far too many in-the-closet Christians out there today. If you truly believe, like me, that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that he died on the cross for your sins and then three days later rose again.. I don’t see any reason to hide that from anyone.

We shouldn’t fit in this world because we don’t belong here. We should let everyone who comes into contact with us know exactly what we believe, because if we do truly believe it then what do we have to fear here in this world. I think Paul says it best in Galatians 1:10 “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I still trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

So, all I’m getting at here is, be bold about your faith, because you have nothing to lose. If you truly are a follower of Christ you already have the disapproval of this world. If you aren’t willing to be bold about your faith in Jesus Christ I think you should take a step back and take a good hard look at whether you truly believe in Him or not. I’m sorry to inform you that there is not half way. You either believe or you don’t, and I think living it and believing it go hand in hand because if you believe it then you have absolutely no reason to not live it.

Anyone who disagrees should read the book of James some time.. (assuming you still think the Bible is a legit source to go to)