Hello everyone, last week I did a post about representing Jesus here on earth by being welcoming, and this week I decided to continue with the theme of being Jesus' representatives. This week the more specific subject is talking about Jesus, or witnessing.
First of all, is the "why." Well, imagine it like this, you meet some random guy who gives you £1 million, and also promises that he'll give a million pounds to anyone else who asks. What would you do, surely you want want to let your friends know about the offer so they can share in the money too! When we witness to others, that's exactly what we're doing, except we aren't offering money, we're offering eternal life! Also, if a friend turned down the money, would it matter? No, that's simply their loss. Again it's the same in real life, if someone turns our offer down, God won't think of us as failures, it's quite simply the other persons loss, and so there's absolutely no reason to be scared that they might turn round and say no! So the "why," is really quite simple, you've been offered eternal life and so you should surely go out and offer it to others, it's not like heaven will ever get overcrowded!
The second aspect of all this, is "how". Everyone has a slightly different way of doing it, so I can only really offer my personal advice, but I think there are are a few key things to remember. 1. Don't force it. One of the worst things we can do is try forcing it down people's throats, especially if they don't want to listen. If someone tells you they don't want to know, don't force it, as that can put them off Christianity for ever. In fact they may be way more likely to think that "perhaps these Christians are alright" if you don't go on about it, so instead just try to be a good witness in the way that you live. 2. Rather than talking too much, it's often better to simply answer their questions. I think that ideally, we'll live in quite a godly way, so they'll then start asking questions about why we are like this, and we then have a great platform to build from which will hopefully end up in them coming to know Christ.
Thanks for reading and any questions, please comment below.