111 - Sharing Our Faith

1 Peter 3:15 NASB

“Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”

Colossians 4:5-6 NASB

Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person.

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When sharing our faith we speak of what we believe, we declare what is in us, “for the mouth speaks from that which fills the heart.” Focusing our hearts and minds on the power of God in our lives, who in Christ made us new and continues to transform our walk and on all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms bestowed upon us, what is now our eternal reality, infuses us with a purpose. To reach out, encouraging those around us, lifting up one another with wisdom in love whether believers or nonbelievers. Believers, because sharing with one another that we are a new creation and filling one another with the wisdom and understanding of our new nature fills us with the Holy Spirit, to all the fullness of God. To nonbelievers, since before their first breath they were created in the very image of God; heart, soul, mind, and spirit. A new vision, an internal reality, outshining all they have thought of themselves. Moving them to grasp out to God, taking hold of what He has done through His Son, the new creation they are called to embrace.

The reality of what we possess in Christ so far transcends this world and its reality. Our consciousness shifts from the temporal, the transient to the eternal. The reality of which transforms the way we approach life and how we interact with the world around us. It teaches us that our true future lay in the eternal life to come. All we think shifts toward an everlasting perspective permeating all we say and do. We are stilled from the chaos to a moment to moment awareness of what is before us. Taking advantage of and making the most of the opportunities revealed to us to lift up one another.

Expressing our faith is spontaneous and genuine when it has been stored up within the heart. It is a natural overflow, neither contrived nor coerced, ever mindful of God’s love for us and His willingness to lift us up. It is faith working through love, void of the self-focus that stifles authentic expression. Jesus uses the analogy of the wind, hearing its sound but not knowing where it comes from or where it is going to describe those led spontaneously by the Spirit. This lack of self-focus, allowing the Spirit to move, and for God’s hand to work, is seen in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. Philip appears, is moved by the Spirit, then is seen no more. Jesus also instructs us not to let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. Avoiding acts of self-piety with eyes focused on ourselves, what our hands are doing rather than focusing on God and trusting in His hand to work.

We meet people with words applicable to the moment. It is what Peter is saying when he writes to respond in gentleness and reverence, it is about being mindful of who we are sharing with. When speaking with nonbelievers we understand they do not yet have the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives in order to transcend this world, nor have they been set free from sin, nor do they have the vision of being holy and righteous, reborn, a new creation that we have in order to rise above. In this consciousness we tread with love and compassion. They cannot fully comprehend what they do not possess or may be rejecting. We respond in kindness because we understand just how much of a hold the world has on hearts and minds. We cannot forget that we once received as they have the opportunity to receive.