Sunday: Never Ending Witnessing and Evangelism
It must be emphasized, again, that witnessing and evangelism must continue as long as there are people who need salvation. It is God’s plan to save as many people as possible. Those, meanwhile, who have accepted Jesus as their personal Savior are called upon to work with God in this soul-saving work. No matter who we are, where we are, in what situations we find ourselves, if our hearts are tuned to Christ, if we have a deep-seated appreciation for what He has done for us and for what He asks us to do in response, we will always have opportunity for witness and ministry.
Review Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4:7–30. What was it about Jesus and what He said that she was excited to share with her townspeople? What principles of witnessing can we take from this account that can help us as we seek to reach others?
Image © Providence Collection from GoodSalt.com
It seems that Jesus followed a simple “formula” when He spoke to the woman of Samaria. 1. He arrested her attention: “ ‘Give Me a drink’ ” (vs. 7, NKJV); 2. He secured her interest: “ ‘How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?’ ” (vss. 9, 10, NKJV); 3. He created a desire: “ ‘Sir, give me this water’ ” (vs. 15, NKJV); 4. He brought a conviction: “ ‘Sir, I perceive that You are a Prophet’ ” (vs. 19, NKJV); and 5. Actions followed: “ ‘Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’ ” (vs. 29, NKJV).
These five stages of evangelism do not necessarily need to take place all in one meeting as they did with Jesus and the woman at Jacob’s well. They may happen over a period of time as you continue to witness to someone. The situations will vary greatly, but the principles seen in this passage can be broadly applied to our attempts to reach souls.
In addition, although the initial conversation is concerned with literal water, Jesus’ goal is to cause the Samaritan woman to desire and drink the Water of Life. In the end, although we are called to help people in whatever situation we find them, and to minister to their needs however we can, we must never forget that their greatest need is salvation in Jesus.
How often do you take advantage of opportunities to witness or to minister? Isn’t it true that so often we go about our lives, meeting people who—despite their interaction with us—have no idea of what we believe, what we stand for, or the hope that we have? How can we change so that we can be better witnesses?
(0)
The problem is for us Christians is that we don't enclose ourselves in the situation that attracts the attention of the souls we are looking for. But I think the lesson of this has shown the way.
How do we, who have grown up believing that religion is a personal thing between me and God, after 70 years suddenly seek to envolve others in our faith?
Before ascending back to heaven, Jesus gave all His followers the commission to spread the Good News.
If we see our faith as merely a "personal thing" between us and God, we have failed to grasp what it means to have a relationship with Christ.
A relationship with Christ causes us to view others the way He does -- as people who need saving, and the only way they can be saved is through Him. Thus we will do all in our power to introduce others to Jesus.
These are good steps for witnessing and evangelism. Jesus indeed showed us the way. We need to practice these steps, I am encouraged. The fruits of the steps are great.
The problem is we need to identify topics which can make other Christians question about my beliefs and theirs.
It seems to me that there's enough trouble in the world that people will readily agree that things can't keep on going on this way. So we can engage people on the news of the day and make some kind of remark how bad things are getting to be. If they agree, we can say something like, "I'm a Christian, and I see the situation in the world today foretold in the Bible. I believe we're in the end time, and Jesus is going to come back soon."
With such a remark, the other person will either show interest or disinterest, and if the person shows interest, you can follow up by getting to know them a bit better and sharing your faith. It may even lead to Bible studies.
Elizabeth, Yes it is true in a sense that your 'religion' is a personal thing between you and God, but it would never have become so if someone had not introduced you to this Wonderful God in the first place. That is what ministry is all about, introducing others to Jesus, by our words, actions, lifestyle choices.
Mainly with our lives, our personal stories.
People tend to minimize the Gospel effect when we talk about Bible stories that happened centuries ago. But when we tell them our own experience, they surely pay attention.
Satan is all too shrewd... keeping us so engulfed with our busy day to day interests and distractions that we often fail to have time to maintain our chosen task... "REACHOUT'! Then we end up at the end of the week with a dash to church on Sabbath morning for conscience cleansing... only to leave the building after service and slip right back (almost instantly) into the same snare once again, and again, week after week! If we were to only dedicate even merely the Sabbath hours to actively witnessing, we could conclude with "a little actual active witnessing is better than practically NO WITNESSING AT ALL". True?