What Is Your Why?
Recently, on a Sunday night, we held a prayer and evangelism training where nearly 100 members of our congregation at Oakhill showed up, Bibles in hand, eager to learn how prayer fuels our evangelism. For me, it was extremely encouraging to have the opportunity to share an evangelism method during our time together, watch others take notes, and be eager to go with a piece of information that might make them more eager to pray and share the gospel with someone. My hope and prayer from this very intentional training together is that many would look back years later upon this time and see this was when the Lord gave you an overwhelming desire to share the gospel with someone, and a time when you learned a way to share the gospel with confidence, clarity, and boldness.
I can remember the first time, and very vividly, that I went out with the intention of looking for people to talk to about Jesus. One of the most encouraging places that I used to frequently go to is the Donut Bank locations scattered all over Evansville. As a service technician for banking (before being a pastor at Oakhill), when I did not have service calls to run, I did not like sitting in my van waiting for the next thing to occur. Since I lived in
Henderson, travelling back across that bridge was just not an option until the end of my shift. So, I had a great excuse to sit in a coffee shop, talk to people, and catch up on administrative work. But what brought me the greatest joy, and still does, is seeking out people who come there to point to my Savior. As I stated in the evangelism portion that I shared this past Sunday night, there were numerous times at a coffee shop when I shared the gospel by writing it out on a napkin or piece of paper, shared my personal testimony of how Jesus transformed my life, and what glorious things He is still doing.
One of the greatest ways to share your testimony of faith that I use often is when you are talking to people, is to try using language that says “what I used to do” or “how I used to act” or “places that I do not go anymore”, because it leads to an explanation of why is it that you don’t. In other words, get to the point of answering the question why, and be prepared to answer with the gospel. Each of us in Christ has a why story. What is your why? The Scriptures tell us that “in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Pet 3:15). This tells us specifically that we who follow Christ must be ready to explain the reason why we have this hope they are seeing in us. Why is it that you do not get frazzled every time a change at work happens, and everybody else is mad as hornets? Or why do you choose not to use profanity as regular speech? Why is it that you don’t get caught up in or participate in office drama? These are all reasons to answer the question, Why?
The Sunday school answer to all of this is simply and truly because of Christ, but there is more to this story. Your story. What changed that suddenly and dramatically caused you to do an about-face and start glorifying God with your life? Answering the question of why Jesus is the mandate for each of us as believers.
My hope for you from reading this is that you will take the time to put pen to paper and craft your testimony, write out your why answer, and go tell somebody about it. More importantly, since prayer fuels our evangelism, begin praying for God to give you opportunities to answer the question of why Jesus. As we go with the gospel, my Prayer is this – Lord, let us not take one step, or make a single move, without Christ on our minds to lead us.
