What on Earth are you Doing?

​Imagine for a moment, you are employed by some company as a salesperson and 95% of your responsibilities involve contacting customers.  What do you think would happen if you only spent 75% of your time making sales calls?  How about if it was only 50%? What about 20%?  You probably wouldn’t be employed much longer and with good reason.  No one would expect their boss to be happy with them in any of these situations.

Some of you probably know where I’m headed with this.  What’s virtually the only significant thing you can do on earth, but not in heaven?  Witness to the lost!  When you think about it, when we place our trust in Christ as our personal Savior, why doesn’t God just zap us up to heaven instantly?  That would certainly be better for us!  He leaves us here so that we can share the same message He graciously allowed us to hear, understand and accept, with others who aren’t there yet.  God is all-powerful and certainly doesn’t “need” us, but He has chosen in His sovereignty to use us in spreading the Gospel message to everyone all around the world.

Can you think of anything more important than witnessing to others?  Wait a minute, Jesus said the greatest commandment is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:36-40). So, loving God is more important than witnessing, right?  Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments” (John 14:15).  So, if we are to “love God,” that means obeying Jesus, who is God.  Jesus gave us the Great Commission: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”

So, how much time do we actually spend doing this in one form or another?  As a side note, this doesn’t just mean traveling to some remote foreign country that has snakes and poisonous spiders.  It means talking to your next-door neighbor, your co-worker, your classmates, your relatives, etc.  I’ve heard many people talk very passionately about wanting to be a missionary somewhere like Papua New Guinea or China, which is certainly great.  However, many of these same people were making almost no effort whatsoever to share their faith with those right in front of them!
 
So, again, I ask, how much time do we actually spend witnessing?  For way too many Christians, the answer sadly is almost no time at all.  A few may get into somewhat of a vague conversation in which they mention they go to church, or believe in God.  Then they tell me, “I witnessed to someone today.”  I say, “That’s great! What did you say to them?”  They tell me the other person invited them to some sporting event that was occurring on a Sunday morning, and they told them, “Oh, I can’t go… I’ll be in church.”  I then say, “Great, when did you get to witness to them?” to which they reply, “I just told you, I let them know I go to church!”

I’m really not trying to lay a guilt-trip on anyone with this article.  I’m simply drawing attention to the fact that we don’t spend anywhere near the time we should sharing the Gospel message with those around us.  If you have two conversations a year with someone, for 15 minutes each, in which you get to witness to them, that’s actually only 0.006% of the entire year!  That’s a lot less than the 75%, 50%, and 20% I mentioned at the beginning of this article.

I fully understand the variety of reasons why many Christians don’t share their faith, including being shy, not having answers to tough questions, etc., but we really need to “step up our game,” and God is more than willing to help us out.

When we don’t share our faith, it says one of two things to those around us.  Either (a) we don’t really believe it ourselves, so why bother telling anyone else, or (b) we do believe it, we just don’t truly care enough about them to want them to know.  Neither of these options is good.

I heard a comment years ago that stuck with me.  “You always make time for those things you really want to do.”  That’s generally true. We’re all very busy, but we somehow manage to find time for those things that are truly important to us, even if they are trivial.  It may be fishing, shopping, watching TV or going to a ball game; whatever it is.  Shouldn’t we be making even more of an effort in looking for opportunities to share our faith?  

I’m certainly not condemning spending time playing in a softball league or getting together with friends to watch a movie, etc.  However, those things become even more enjoyable when we know we are generally very proactive and intentional regarding our witnessing.  

If you’re feeling you need to step-it-up a bit, admit it to God and ask for help.  You’ll be surprised how He responds, and you’ll find out that the Holy Spirit does all the heavy lifting!  You just have to be willing and available.  I also think you’ll find it’s an amazingly energizing experience, which gets more and more exciting each time.  The more you share your faith, the more you WANT to share your faith!

We should all be asking ourselves, “What on Earth am I doing?”, allowing God to refine us and be better positioned to help others come to faith in Jesus Christ.

If you have any questions about this or any other issue, please don’t hesitate to contact us!
  
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