It doesn’t take us too long to realize
that our world is in need of Jesus Christ. You can’t watch
the news for five minutes without this being abundantly
clear. But the church has evangelism programs and tracts and
tent meetings and everything else imaginable to draw people
in! Obviously, we are not getting through to the rest of the
world.
What have we done in the area of
evangelism that has been successful?
What have we done that hasn’t been met
with success?
When farmers plant, they take good
seed and place it in the dirt, expecting that with time and
care they will see a harvest. If they did not expect a
harvest to come, they wouldn’t invest their time and money
into planting. Or if there was nothing good to be gained,
they wouldn’t make the sacrifice.
Part of evangelism is sacrifice. We
must make an investment in our time, money, and talents
because we believe that there is a harvest worthwhile
investing in.
You’re familiar with the Great
Commission at the end of Matthew 28. Almost every Christian
would say that it is important that we live it out in our
lives. But how many people really take those verses and put
it into action?
It is easy to say that we believe in
something. It is much more difficult to place that faith
into action. We can say we believe it is important to
evangelize. It is much more difficult to make the sacrifice
to do it.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. How
much would you sacrifice to see someone come to Christ? Are
you currently doing as much as you can to see this happen?
It is easy to get discouraged when we
don’t see the results we expect as quickly as we expect. At
times a zeal for evangelism can even be looked down upon by
other Christians because you’re suddenly a “radical.” For
many, it’s acceptable to go to church as long as they don’t
have to hear anything about it or be pressured to attend.
Other times Christians have held the
pastor solely responsible for evangelism. Many pastors have
lost their jobs because the church wasn’t growing. In some
cases it was undoubtedly time for the pastor to leave, but
in other cases the church was not growing because the people
were unwilling to evangelize.
The first step in evangelism is
recognizing the need for it and actually doing something.
What are you willing to do?
