Today, my message is entitled “Share Your Faith with Words.” Last Sunday, I spoke on Sharing Your Faith with Prayer, which is one of the easiest and most powerful ways to share your faith. To share your faith with prayer, you simply need to discern a need another person has and then ask them if you can pray for them concerning that need. You either pray for them on the spot or on your own and then later you check back with them to see how they’re doing.
Just the simple words to another person of “Can I pray for you about _________?” are very powerful. They identify you as a believer who cares about others. When the answer comes, the other person begins to realize that God cares about them as well. Sharing your faith with prayer, often leads to further discussion about the Bible, Jesus or other spiritual topics and that’s wonderful. So, as believers, we need to be ready to not only share our faith with prayer, but also with words.
1 Peter 3:15b (NIV) Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,
So, when someone asks you, why do you pray for people? Or why do you go to church? Or why do you believe in God? We need to be prepared to give an answer. The answers we give are to be given with gentleness and respect for others who do not yet understand the Bible or the things of God as we do.
In this series, we’re talking about sharing our faith. Sharing our faith is done in two ways, through our actions and our words. Both elements are necessary to share your faith, both right actions and words of truth. Our actions must be kind, loving and helpful to others. But even those kinds of actions, without the words telling why we do what we do, are not sharing our faith. On the other hand, if we share the truth of God’s Word with someone or even pray for them, but then live our lives in a way that is not honoring to God, it’s hypocritical. So both our actions and words must line up with God’s standard, in order for effective sharing of our faith.
Today, we’re going to look at a believer in the New Testament who shared his faith with an unbeliever on a personal level. His name was Philip. Who was Philip? Philip’s name was first mentioned in Acts 6. The apostles were overworked and there was an argument in the church about widows getting their fair share of food. So, the apostles appointed 7 men to oversee the distribution of food, so that they could concentrate on teaching and prayer. Philip was one of the seven who oversaw the food distribution. So, Philip was not an apostle, yet he made himself available to be used by God in whatever capacity he could. God had a plan to use Philip in sharing his faith and God has a plan for you to share your faith as well.
Listen to or watch my December 2, 2012 message Share Your Faith with Words.
Thanks for sharing this. Going through a rough patch at the moment, me, my wife and our cat – Patch, who is a joy to us both.
Getting through little by little – going to church and meeting people helps, as does reading your words and the words of the Bible.
Merry Christmas
Rob