Sharing Our Faith Out Of Love Not Guilt

Many of us have been told we need to share our faith with people. This sharing we are told must encompass the right walk and the right talk. Various methods are used to cajole us to share including: guilt, manipulation, examples of people sharing in airplanes etc. etc. We approach sharing our faith with the same expectation we’d have in sharing with a friend that they have inoperable cancer, or that they owe money to the tax man.

Our gospel really is good news. Jesus died on the cross for my sins and the sins of the whole world. Because God loves the world, He doesn’t want anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance. When we understand God’s love, our hearts will be filled with the same desire to see others set free from sin and death. Surely we can share this good news in a winsome way.

I think Tony Evans, the well known preacher and founder of The Urban Alternative Ministries fully understands this concept, as described in his illustration below.

“When the Titanic went under, three messages had been sent that said to watch out for the icebergs. Because everything looked all right, the folks taking the message never passed it on. They never sent the warning out to people who needed to hear and, as a result, over fifteen hundred people lost their lives. The folks who knew kept quiet.

Another tragedy of the Titanic was that the lifeboats, designed to carry people away from the sinking ship, were only half full. People who had made it to safety in the lifeboats didn’t want to turn around and go pick up people who were dying. They didn’t want to take the risk of panicking people flipping over their boat. So the people who were saved and safe kept on going. Fifteen hundred people didn’t have to die, but they did. The people who were saved didn’t want to go back because it was risky.

Sharing the gospel has risks – the risk of rejection, the risk of being made fun of, the risk of being called “holier than thou”, the risk of being called “Reverend”, the risk of being avoided, the risk of being asked questions you don’t know the answer to. Yes, there are risks, but when someone is dying, offering them the gift of salvation is worth the risk. See Romans 1:16 and 1 Peter 3:15″ From Tony Evans Book of Illustrations, Moody Publishers, 2009

Tony describes people who know there are dangerous, life threatening icebergs and don’t tell anyone.  Like many of us, who know the dangers of living a sinful rebellious life, which results in death and don’t tell anyone.

He also describes people getting into a lifeboat and being content they are saved with no concern for multitudes of others. Like many of us, we have our “get out of hell free” card and are content to be saved, not wanting to risk our secure position while many around us perish. May God’s love for a lost and hurting world fill our hearts so that we are willing to risk.