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Sharing Our Faith

Sharing our faith

In Christian circles that’s quite a famous phrase right?! We are often encouraged to share our faith, we of course know what it means, to tell people why we are a Christian and what that entails, and how it can be true for them too.

I can’t speak for others, but this can be hard. Who do I share with? And how do I go about it? And I worry that I don’t want people to become my ‘gospel targets’,  mainly because the people I often think of are my friends or family. I think we can get so worried about who we will share this news with and how we will even start the conversation, that we don’t think about what we will say, and whether our actions match our words. The reality is that sharing my faith starts with something quite important - MY faith.

I can’t just go around telling people I believe in Jesus, and living his truth’s like loving my neighbour while gossiping or complaining about people the next day. I can’t profess to pursue God’s justice in this world and the next week break the law. My actions need to be consistent with my words and vice versa.

But beyond this the challenge is ‘what do we have to say?’ We get so caught up in the who and how questions that we forget the most vital part - the what. If we have truly discovered good news - Jesus, an alternative Godly kingdom, that offers hope and restoration then we need to be able to speak passionately and articulately about what that hope is. Peter challenges us in one of his letters to ‘always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have.’ (1 Peter 3:15). Yet when I looked at this passage recently and asked myself the reason for the hope that I have, I struggled to articulate what it was.

I can give you the generic answers ‘Jesus died for me’, ‘I have a purpose’. But I know it’s more than that, it’s more tangible, more personal, more real that that. Of course these generics are true but I have my own story, and have faced my own challenges in life and through them all God has been real to me, and his gospel has been and become real for me. This is what I should be sharing, in word and deed. And so I spent some time thinking about my reason.


So want to be better at sharing your faith, maybe it’s time we sat down and thought less about the who and the how and challenged ourselves with the what? What is your reason for the hope that you have?

Comments

  1. John Pontiggia12 October 2016 at 08:26

    I suppose the reason is essentially a description of how the 'outworking' of our 'faith' has changed us. It is this that is the 'proof' to our minds over and above 'the theory'. This may include 'changed behaviour', healing, effectiveness in ministry, spiritual gifting and a host of other stuff. It is probably a good idea every year or so to think what aspects in relation to this, illustrate it best in my life - this will change as time goes on. Plenty of thought here...thanks for the blog!

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