BULLETIN ARTICLE – 25 February 2018
Do we have problems finding opportunities to share the gospel? Certainly we all do!
We often wait for the “perfect moment” to tell someone about the gospel of Jesus Christ. We wait for times of personal suffering, when we can say we’re strong because of Jesus. We wait for times when we’ve done well so that we can give glory to God. We try and wait for times when it would be less awkward, less risky on our relationships with those we are sharing with to broach the subject of Christianity. Sometimes, we wait for the topic of religion to come up in our conversations to start sharing about our faith in Jesus – to share the gospel.
Apostle Peter shows us that seizing such opportunities to share the gospel is not wrong. By God’s grace, he does give us such times to share, within his perfect plan. These situations help us who are shy muster up courage to share and even help us to convince others of the gospel of Jesus.
What would be wrong, however, is waiting for such situations to come to us so that we share. While we know everything is part of God’s perfect plan, we cannot use this as an excuse to stifle the urgency of sharing this great gospel – good news – of God’s love and grace to all people.
The gospel of Jesus is not a comfortable gospel. It does not ease itself easily into conversation because it carries hard truths. Truths which the world does not want to hear because the truth about Jesus is ground breaking, life changing and earth shaking. This gospel is the only truth and the most important truth which must be shared, regardless of how difficult it would be to share.”
God’s command to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19) is a challenging command to follow. But our gospel is one worth doing hard things for. It is an urgent, forceful gospel because of how true it is and how different from the world’s messages it is. It is not a gospel which we can “wait around” to share. We have been commanded and urged to go out and share this good news. Like how we often enjoy sharing the good news with anyone and everyone who would listen, the greatest news in the world should be shared at every opportunity, whether it be perfectly done or not. ”
We are encouraged to share the gospel in 2 Timothy 4:2: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.” Let us ask God to give us the boldness of the disciples of the early church like Apostle Peter to look for every opportunity to share the gospel – Jesus is the way and the truth and the life!
