Only Believers, Individually Known As ‘YOU’, Makes Him Who Is Unknown, Known.
Word-of-the-Day: ‘How, then, can they call on the One they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the One of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?’ (Romans 10:14)
I believe one of the most difficult things for Believers to do is to witness their Faith to others. Now it is not the act of witnessing itself that is difficult; that part is relatively easy – one can share their love of Christ through their actions and demeanor, then speak of how Jesus provided His love through His Saving Grace to them and then provide how Jesus can provide the same to those who they are sharing with. My description makes it sound a bit more of an effort than it really is, simply let folks know Jesus loves them as He loves you, and let them know He’s willing to show them if they let Him.
The difficult part is Believers opening up about being… Believers. Some may believe that demeanor and actions alone should be demonstration enough, but I often refer to that (who I hope is only a fictional) example of the ‘little old lady from Pasadena’ who has a great, outgoing personality and is sweet, gentle, and shares her homemade cookies and cakes with everyone she meets. She is a dear old woman that is as close to sainthood and blamelessness in every way – except she has never accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior.
Not believing in Christ, she exudes goodness but she obviously will never share Jesus in any way as she doesn’t know Him, and why would she as she doesn’t have any relationship with Him? So, acting Righteously is certainly part of the toolkit in the witnessing toolbox, but only acting Righteously, without speaking about Christ to others, places you in the same light as that ‘little old lady’, in the ‘good’ category but simply ‘good’ only makes folks feel ‘good’.
Unlike that ‘little old lady’, however, we who profess belief have the Holy Spirit indwelling in us. It is the gift Jesus promised His disciples just prior to His Ascension, in Acts 1:4-5. This gift is the indwelling Holy Spirit, to be used to aid us in the Great Commission of Christ of Matthew 28:16-20 and Acts 1:8, to go share the Gospel message of Jesus to all of our neighbors, those who we live around us and who we meet on a daily basis.
That ‘goodliness’ we exude is the first tool to open the door. But to keep others from looking around and walking out of that open door, there needs to be more. Paul, in writing Romans, gives us in Romans 10 that many believe there is a God, but they only know of Him. They have no knowledge of Him or who He is, and thus, as Paul states, if someone doesn’t tell them about who God is, how will they know who He is?
This is where the difficulty lies; many Believers will not share their knowledge of who Jesus is, what He brings to their table, and how much they need Him. For some, they may believe it is not their job to share, that it is only for the Pastor, the Elders, and the evangelists who do this. But thus, these Believers ignore 1 Peter 2:4-10, that all Believers are called to be ‘priests’, who are equipped to share the Gospel message of Christ through the power and knowledge of the Holy Spirit that resides within them.
It is similar in the vein of the call of Smokey the Bear, who tells us, ‘Only YOU can prevent forest fires.’ If you saw a burning ember starting to catch a small pile of leaves on fire, and you have a bottle of water on hand but say to yourself, ‘well, that’s for the park rangers to handle’, and walked away without doing anything, it could lead to thousands of acres burned, and many homes destroyed by doing nothing. What Paul and Peter are telling us is, ‘Only YOU can prevent eternal damnation’. If you saw someone in need of Salvation but don’t share the Word with them, and say to yourself, ‘well, that’s for the Pastor or the Elders to handle’, it could lead that person condemned for Eternal separation from God and forever suffering in the Lake of Fire, with no chance of redemption.
So, we must, if we are Believers, be open in sharing the Word, and we must be willing to open ourselves up to the possibility of insult and ridicule, or at worst, persecution for being Believers. But the benefits and payoff of our openness far outweigh the costs. It can be at times inconvenient, and it may seem that to share with someone our Faith is an interruption. We have the example of Jesus, however, in Mark 5:21-43, where He was going to heal a young girl who was dying, and while enroute to her a woman who had been bleeding for years reached out and touched Jesus.
Though the woman was healed by simply touching Him, and Jesus could have simply kept walking to get to the young girl, He stopped to find the woman, and talk with her, ministering to her and giving her His time to let her know she was healed by her Faith in Him – taking the time to witness to this woman, even while receiving word the child had died. Jesus completed His witnessing to the healed woman, then completed His journey to the young girl, and healed her as well.
Our schedule typically does not have anything as critical as healing a dying child, so it should not be considered an interruption or annoyance as to take the time to witness or pray for someone in need of Jesus. We can open up conversations by asking someone if they need prayer, and praying with them. Then we can open them up to discussing the gift of Salvation Jesus has ready for them. It may not always be done in a single conversation, and we may never get the opportunity to talk to them again, but by opening the conversation, perhaps with asking for their prayer request, we plant the seed for the next Believer to take the next steps.
The one fallacy of Smokey the Bear’s statement is that it takes all of us, all acting independently but on the same page, to prevent forest fires. It is all on ‘you’, but that ‘you’ applies to each of us. The same can be said for witnessing; it is up to ‘you’, but that applies to each of us working on the same page, so if one cannot complete the task another person can come next and do a little more, and so on until the task is complete.
How can those who do not know Jesus come to know Him? Only the collective of Believers, individually as ‘YOU’, can make Him who is unknown, known.
