Risk Taking, part 1

In the past few years, I have begun to sense a greater urgency to personally be sharing my faith and the hope I have because of Jesus. And I firmly believe that we all need to become more active in sharing our faith and the hope we have, doing it with gentleness and respect (see 1 Peter 3:15).
 

This verse, is our key verse for this week’s study and should be the cry of our hearts. Psalms 40:10 “I do not hide Your righteousness in my heart; I speak of Your faithfulness and salvation. I do not conceal Your love and Your truth from the great assembly.” The Psalmist is saying that he lets it be known that he is a follower of God. He doesn’t hide that fact from others; in fact he speaks of the salvation of God to others. I wonder how many Christians hide their righteousness in their hearts and rarely speak of His faithfulness and salvation to the lost?
 

Do you remember me telling you about my friend, Kevin, who serves on the National Prayer Committee? He told me about a taxi driver he met a few years ago in North Carolina.

“I was on my way home from the National Prayer Committee conference. I could tell my driver was African so I asked him where he was from. Turns out he was from Ghana, West Africa. He came to America in 2005. He told me when he got here he imagined it would be easy to talk to people about Christ, this being a Christian country and all. He tried to start a Bible study at his place of employment, but was not allowed to do that. He tried to talk openly about the Bible while he was on break with his co-workers and was told he could not do that either.

Then he said, “I am amazed at how the Christians in this country, this “Christian Country,” do not fight for their faith. They don’t do anything about those who oppose us. Muslims will run over you with that attitude.” I think he was being prophetic. How can we get better at sharing our faith?” 

For me, this was, and continues to be, a call to action. Evangelism should be the heart of the work of God. I believe almost everything we do should be done with evangelism as our motivation. We need to begin by changing our way of thinking about evangelism. When we go to our jobs, we should be thinking about how we can witness to those around us. When we go grocery shopping, we should be thinking about the same thing. Even if we don’t have a good opportunity to share with someone, having an evangelistic mind-set will affect how we act around others. 

Continued tomorrow