I Am Not This Song: Are You? (1/1/2011)

I was listening to this song in my car the other day, and God used it to speak to my heart. You see, I am not this song. Don't get me wrong, I am eternally grateful to those people in my life who have helped to point me to Jesus; however, I know that I am not one of those people to enough people. Those of you who do not know me personally may think that I enjoy speaking to people, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Now, I know that admitting this truth about my life may cause me to lose the few readers that I do have, but I want to be transparent for a moment. I am not the witness that I should be. Now that I've let the cat out of the bag (if people still say that nowadays), let's talk about how we can work on this together, because I know that many of you most likely face the same problems that I do when it comes to sharing your faith.

I don't know about you, but I find that the hardest obstacle for me to get past when it comes to sharing my faith is the fear that the person I am talking to will not think too highly of me after I have said what I have to say. I have always been a people-pleaser. I have always had the desire to be liked by others, and I hate the thought of being hated. However, our Lord was hated from the time He was born, and that didn't stop Him from sharing the gospel. We need to understand that we will not always be favored for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ; therefore, we must also realize the true reason we should share the gospel--people's lives are at stake.

Jude 1:23 says that we are to "save [the lost] with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh." I once heard Kirk Cameron explain this with the analogy of a neighbor's house being on fire. If I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that my neighbor's house was ablaze, I wouldn't calmly walk over to their house, ring the door bell and say, "Hi, my name is Tommy. Would you like to come over to my house? It's much more comfortable over there." No! I would call 911, rush over to their house, even kick open the door to make sure everyone made it safely out of the house. I know that when Kirk spoke of this, he was speaking of the technique we should use to witness, but I feel that this also shows the importance of witnessing. Sharing our faith is so important that Jude likens it to pulling someone out of a fire. And in a sense, that is what we are doing--we are pulling them away from the fiery flames of Hell. So when you hesitate to share your faith out of the fear of being mocked or disliked, remember Jude and turn that fear into a fear for the other person's life.

Not only should we remember the importance of sharing our faith, but we should also remember how thankful we are to the one's that overcame their fear and led us to the Lord. Most people are not going to come to Jesus on their own. People need a helping hand to show them the way. One thing I always like to think of is the fact that, if they don't hear the gospel from me, they may never hear it. What would be worse than knowing that one of your friends could have gone to Heaven if you had only overcome your fear and shared the gospel with him?

Lastly, you can't effectively share the gospel with sin in your life. Number one, what kind of example are you being to your lost friends? Number two, try sharing the gospel, knowing that you have just sinned against God--that's a lot harder than overcoming the fear of rejection. So be a man or woman of integrity. Set an example for those you are trying to win to the Lord.

Allow me to remind you that I struggle in this area as well. None of us are perfect, but we can't let that stand in the way of winning souls to Jesus Christ. Let's get off to a good start this year by working diligently at this together.