Witnessing Encouragement

In my mind evangelism can be the touchiest subject among Christians. We all know we need to do it, but most of us dont do it or do it hardly at all. It truly is something that should being happen daily, and i know that i'm far from that. I couldnt count the number of times i knew God was urging me to simply talk to somebody and i chickened out.

Anyways, this post was sparked by a sermon i just watched online by Ray Comfort (a pretty well known preacher). One of the first thing that he talked about is the one thing that keeps us from sharing our faith: fear. Fear is really the only thing that keeps us from talking to people about God. We make up excuses like "I'm not ready for talking to strangers" or "I'll just wait to talk to him till later" or "I dont have time for that right now" or "They wont listen to me anyways" or "I dont know what to say". In simple honesty, those are lame excuses that we use to cover up the simple fact that we're afraid. Those people out there are lost and on the brink of missing out on eternal life. When you compare what lost folks are missing out on to those kinds of excuses in that list, it becomes clear that those excuses are simply outrageous.

Nonetheless, we are still simply afraid to evangelize. First of all, we dont need to feel bad about being afraid--remember that God uses the weak things of this world to defeat the strong. So, even in our weakness of fear, God is ready to use us. Ray Comfort emphasized this quotation: "An act of courage isn't necessarily done by those who feel brave when they do it, true courage is he who feels fear but does it anyway."

Still, how do we solve this problem of fear? One of the things Ray Comfort focused on was being on fire for God. He shared a story about a time that he was wearing a robe that caught on fire. He said that one thing he learned from that scenario was that a man on fire moves quickly! So, if we're on fire for God we're gonna get movin! He also listed three things that cause us to be on fire: faith produces true joy, compassion for others, and perfect love casts out all fear.
That last one was the coolest for me to see. He illustrated it through a story about a time that he stepped between a huge guy and his ex-girlfriend, whom the huge guy had just shoved to the ground. He jumped in front of the guy, and the guy pulled his fist back ready to punch. Just then, Ray Comfort's wife (4'1l") yelled at the huge guy to back off. Looking back, they were stupid to challenge a guy so much bigger than them. But, the perfect love of his wife cast out her fear of the big guy. So, our love of Christ (which is something we can cultivate) will cast out fear.

Anywho, i just wanted to share that with ya'll because its something that weighs on my heart and that i have sooo much to improve on. I watched the sermon off of the website 220power.com. If ya wanna watch it go to the media tab, then click on audio/video, then click on 'net meetings', and then choose the november net meeting. This website has A LOT of sermons that i strongly recommend, so check it out.

Luke