I often hear from people that they don’t feel comfortable evangelizing.  I understand the nervousness about opening yourself up to others, but I encourage people to remember how they felt before they came to know and follow Christ.  Jesus has powerfully drawn us from darkness to light, from death to life, and there are many who are painfully in bondage apart from God.  Beyond that, I will tell someone that it helps to have a witness with your life, and it helps to have the Word of God in you of course, but the root of my own evangelism is that I understand a very simple truth about people:

1)  People were made for joy, and each person pursues their own happiness to this end
2)  Jesus Christ, God, is infinitely good, infinitely magnificent, and our relationship with Him, and worship of Him, is the greatest joy that is imaginable
3)  All other things, are good, and a source of joy only in as much as they reflect God, and offer worship to Him in obedience to His will

What does this mean?  It means that everything the world offers, if it is not done with a heart to see and worship God in that thing, will not make someone happy, but actually draw them further away from joy in God.  It means that no matter how adamant and hard hearted someone may be, no matter how outwardly happy they appear, the reality is that deep down they are not.  Here some may say to me, well hey, my neighbor has a great family, a great house, and two new cars, and he’s the happiest person I know!  Is he?  What happens when one of those things is taken away, and that perfect life he’s worked so hard to build up, comes crashing down around him?  Often times it is only then, that you will hear that person honestly say, that those things in his life were never satisfying, his joy was counterfeit.  The things that we think will bring us happiness are often the chains that keep us from it.

So how do we evangelize?  Simple – you love people, you manifest Christ to them, and you share the gospel with them.  You boldly share the good news that because of the shed blood of Jesus, we have new life in Him, we have liberty from the bondange that comes from sin and pursuing happiness apart from God, and a freedom to pursue infinite joy in God.

What about us, whom have already believed on Christ, and have tasted the delight of the sweetness and goodness of God?  This truth is no less valuable to us.  We are free from bondage to our sin, but we are still in the flesh, daily making a choice of where we will pursue happiness.  Does that mean that if you read your Bible today, you’re going to have infinite joy in God?  No, it means that you’re stepping closer to Him, and in time your joy in Him will grow.  Does it mean that if you sin, you will be miserable?  Maybe, but probably not right away.  Sin has a way of slowly killing a person, one decision at a time.  Likewise, our pursuit of God is not won based on a decision, but on daily choosing to pursue joy in Him.  This is God’s will for us, that we would be infinitely joyful in Him.  This joy, rooted in God Himself, comes with our obedience to Him, conforming more into His image, and walking in a close fellowship with Him.

Psalm 16:11 – “You make known to me the path of life;in your presence there is fullness of joy;at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

John 15:9-11 – “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.  These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Here’s something I really want you to know – God is serious about your being joyful in Him.  God does not want you merely to obey Him, he wants you to know Him, and Him know you, and for that relationship to be the source of your joy in life.  How serious is God about being the source your happiness?  How about this?  If you’re not happy in Him, he’s going to kill you!

Deuteronomy 28:47-48 – “Because you did not serve the LORD your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger and thirst, in nakedness, and lacking everything. And he will put a yoke of iron on your neck until he has destroyed you.”

Now of course this doesn’t mean that there will not be times where we struggle for joy, but what this means is that the abundance of things in our lives should never be a substitute for joy in God.  That lie, is what is killing the rest of the world – as they try to keep up with the Jones’s for 60 or 70 years, on their way to a grave where none of those things will come with them – a life wasted, and a judgment to come.  God loves you too much not to warn you away from that.

Take an inventory of you life.  Where are you trying to find happiness?  Are you making choices that are drawing you closer to God, or are you finding God substitutes for happiness in places like work, relationships, material things?  By the way, the Bible calls those things idols.  That is a bad trade, if you’re making it.  God has made a way for us to enjoy life, pursuing exceeding joy in Him.  Root yourself in His Word today.  Seek wisdom from God’s Word to put to death sin in your life, and draw closer to Him.  In Him, is the fullness of deity, in His presence there is a fullness of joy.

Grace and Peace,
Adam