Talking about Jesus: Evangelism focus
Exhorted: strongly encourage or urge (someone) to do something.
Do you remember the last time you ate a delicious meal at a restaurant or bought something of amazing quality at an unbelievable price? Did you want to share it with someone? Or can you recall the last experience you had—the song you heard or the book you read—that was just so good you wanted everyone to know about it and exhort them to try it?
It’s perfectly natural for us to want to share and connect with others over the things we encounter and experience, especially when they are good! We are experiential beings—we experience life, and we are created to experience God, to encounter Him.
I love this verse because it reminds us that walking with God is visceral—it’s felt and tangible. Knowing His presence in our daily lives and building a relationship with the living God is powerful, real, and deeply experienced. We are encouraged to taste and see the goodness of God in our lives through every season: to find joy in sorrow, excitement in success, comfort in pain, and closeness amidst loneliness. There is not a single area of life where God doesn’t want to be present, helping us through.
Sometimes I think we make evangelism—or sharing our faith—a bit clunky and formulaic. While there are tools that can help us, I can’t help but feel that sharing the goodness of God and the Gospel of grace should be as effortless as sharing the latest amazing concert we’ve been to or the holiday we’ve enjoyed. But first, it starts with us having something to share. It starts with us experiencing God’s goodness for ourselves—to the point where it’s so tangible and overwhelming that we can’t help but share it with others because it’s the best "thing" we know.
When we truly pray, spend time in God’s presence, and feel His ever-present help, nourishment, love, grace, and kindness in our lives, no fear of rejection or personality type can hold us back from wanting every single person we know to freely partake in this wonder and kindness too.
I’ve loved the current series at church about sharing our story. We’ve seen how, in so many different walks of life and situations, the goodness of God has been personally felt and then overflowed into everyday life—into business and politics, into generosity and decision-making, through the good times and the tough times. When it comes to evangelism, perhaps we need to worry less about how to share our faith with others and focus more on experiencing for ourselves the unlimited power, abounding love, and precious grace of God. So much so that we can’t contain our excitement, our growth, our comfort, and our forgiveness, and it naturally overflows into every area of our lives.
