In InterVarsity we talk a lot about doing evangelism as a natural outflow of our love for Christ and a step into maturity for the Christian. What is our mindset about sharing the Gospel? I confess that up until this point I have been treating Jesus Christ as a theological concept instead of real person. I have been acting as Jesus defense in the trial of life to all skeptics of His existence, divinity, and relevance to their lives.
The New Testament is full of examples of disciples of Christ given their testimony to the skeptics and the nonbelievers. Upon a fresher look at these examples I realized that somewhere along the way I forgot about Jesus role in evangelism. That I am not inviting someone only to subscribe to a set of intellectual beliefs but to the real and ALIVE person of Jesus Christ. York Moore, an IV evangelist, actually phrased this Truth better than I could by saying that God is inviting us to take part in the work His is already doing in the hearts of nonbelievers and skeptics all over the world.
These Truths of God already doing the work of evangelism and the person of Jesus Christ as who we invite people to meet, should change our mindset of evangelism. We should be excited about who God must have set up to talk with us about the most amazing Truth in the whole world. We should invite skeptics to wrestle with the claims of Jesus in the Gospels and to trust that the Holy Spirit is the one doing the convicting in the hearts of humans. This may seem simple to you but an amazing Truth to me that I have forgotten.
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2 comments:
I'm not sure I understand. Thats what you do well; treating him as a person and specific thing rather then a moral concept or lesson or tenant or anything. You /clearly/ have no problems thinking about him that way.
thank you for your encouragement Charles, while I do a good job of talking to people about the person of Jesus, my area of improvement that I was referring to was in how I think. My thoughts are about the knowledge I have of Christ through reading the Bible and other Christian books. But what I want to do is while still talk about those Truths I know invite others to have a first person account of those Truths by having a personal relationship with Jesus instead of understanding them second hand through my explanation. It has to do with the uniquely Christian notion that God is ever present working in the hearts of all people.
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