Sharing with Joy! - John 1:41
"The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'we have fount the Messiah' (that is, the Christ)."
Two of John�s disciples were called by Jesus, and the first thing one of them did was to go and find his brother and tell him that they had found the Messiah of Israel. What is the first thing we do when Jesus calls us? With joy, do we run and tell all we know the good news? Perhaps so; many of us do. But it seems that after time passes, we aren�t as excited about the good news of Jesus Christ as we once were.
In the book of Revelation, Jesus tells the church of Ephesus to repent and return to their first love (Revelation 2:4-5). In verse 7 of chapter 2, Jesus also says, "he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches". Churches is plural. Jesus is saying this not only to the Ephesian church, but all churches. And that includes us!
What characterized the love we had for Christ when we first came to know Him? We were filled with joy and excitement, passion and zeal for the Lord and the things of the Spirit. We wanted to share the Gospel-- the good news-- with anyone and everyone. We wanted everyone around us to know the complete and abundant joy that Jesus gives!
However, something started happening over time. We began to become complacent in our sharing of the Gospel, waiting for "the leading of the Spirit". We started justifying and rationalizing why we weren�t sharing, saying it wasn't the right time, that if we share now we might turn them off to the Lord. We started to forget that what the Gospel is-- good news! Jesus doesn�t want this to be so.
Jesus� great commission of the church was to go out and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19). He wants us to spread the Gospel, to share our faith and His glory with other people! He didn�t put any stipulations or regulations on when or where to share, He only commanded that we do share.
We needn�t be experts in theology or "super-spiritual", long-time believers to bring people to Christ. All we need is to be willing to go out and proclaim what we know, and what we know is Jesus Christ and Him crucified for our sins. We know we once were lost, but now are found. We know we were once hopelessly guilty, slaves to sin and burdenend by shame, but now are free and forgiven. We know that by faith in Jesus, we will spend eternity with God in heaven.
Sure, there will be people who mock us, scoff at us, and reject us and the message we bring. There will be those who seem interested, but put off making any sort of decision for Christ. But the good news you have shared with them is a seed planted in the soil of their souls, waiting for the water of God�s Holy Spirit to make it grow, to make it fruitful. We may be the planters and the harvesters, but only God makes the seed grow.
So we ought not to listen to the lies of Satan telling us not to bother sharing the message of redemption with people because they won�t listen anyway-- this is a lie! Jesus Himself said, "The harvest is plenty but the workers are few" (Matthew 9:37). And God cannot lie, for He is holy and pure, perfect in every way.
It is my prayer that we would not grow stagnant in sharing our faith, that we would not cut ourselves off from the non-believing world and stay huddled in our little Christian "cliques", but that we would serve the Lord passionately, spreading the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! May our hearts burn with the same fire, the same zeal and passion that they did when we first came to know Christ-- if not more so!