Tips for Sharing Jesus

The question for each of us is: With whom are you sharing Jesus—the postal carrier, a store clerk, someone you see daily when you’re out walking? God calls every believer to help Him with this work, and He promises to give you “ ‘the tongue of the learned, that [you] should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary’ ” (Isa. 50:4, NKJV). It is also the duty of the Christian to always be prepared to give a defense (apologia) for the faith and hope that is in us (1 Pet. 3:15).

Here are some simple tips to keep in mind as you consider how to be more intentional about sharing Jesus with others:

• Get to know someone and build a friendship over time. Your warmth, kindness, and genuine interest in them (being “lovable”) will help draw them to God. (Some call this “friendship evangelism.”)
• Pray for the Holy Spirit to work on the person’s heart. Pray for the right opportunities to interact with them.
• Look for natural ways to talk about your own faith experiences or offer a prayer for them. Ask God to give you boldness but gentleness in your approach.
• Find ways to connect your new friend with others from your church, so that they can experience the embrace of your church community. A social or small group Bible study is a good next step.
• Pray about the specific needs or questions your new friend might have and look for an opportunity to show them how the Bible offers comfort, advice, and guidance in our lives. You might simply share one Bible promise at first or answer one question, which will open the door for deeper discussions. Pray for those too.
• There will come a time you’ll want to ask if your friend would like to take a next step (Bible study and, eventually, baptism). Don’t rush these steps but also don’t lag. Pray about this.
• Our actions should reveal whose we are. How we treat others in our lives will speak volumes. As our characters are shaped in His likeness (sanctification), we will live to draw all people to Him.

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Additional Reading: Selected Quotes from Ellen G. White

There was but one hope for the human race—that into this mass of discordant and corrupting elements might be cast a new leaven; that there might be brought to mankind the power of a new life; that the knowledge of God might be restored to the world.
Christ came to restore this knowledge. He came to set aside the false teaching by which those who claimed to know God had misrepresented Him. He came to manifest the nature of His law, to reveal in His own character the beauty of holiness.
Christ came to the world with the accumulated love of eternity. Sweeping away the exactions which had encumbered the law of God, He showed that the law is a law of love, an expression of the Divine Goodness. He showed that in obedience to its principles is involved the happiness of mankind, and with it the stability, the very foundation and framework, of human society.
So far from making arbitrary requirements, God’s law is given to men as a hedge, a shield. Whoever accepts its principles is preserved from evil. Fidelity to God involves fidelity to man. Thus the law guards the rights, the individuality, of every human being. It restrains the superior from oppression, and the subordinate from disobedience. It ensures man’s well-being, both for this world and for the world to come. To the obedient it is the pledge of eternal life, for it expresses the principles that endure forever.
Christ came to demonstrate the value of the divine principles by revealing their power for the regeneration of humanity. He came to teach how these principles are to be developed and applied.
With the people of that age the value of all things was determined by outward show. As religion had declined in power, it had increased in pomp. The educators of the time sought to command respect by display and ostentation. To all this the life of Jesus presented a marked contrast. His life demonstrated the worthlessness of those things that men regarded as life’s great essentials. Born amidst surroundings the rudest, sharing a peasant’s home, a peasant’s fare, a craftsman’s occupation, living a life of obscurity, identifying Himself with the world’s unknown toilers,—amidst these conditions and surroundings,—Jesus followed the divine plan of education. The schools of His time, with their magnifying of things small and their belittling of things great, He did not seek. His education was gained directly from the Heaven-appointed sources; from useful work, from the study of the Scriptures and of nature, and from the experiences of life—God’s lesson books, full of instruction to all who bring to them the willing hand, the seeing eye, and the understanding heart.—Education, pp. 76, 77.