I was reading in Mark this morning and something interesting caught my attention. Jesus has just healed again. This time, a deaf man with a speech impediment. After healing the man, Jesus charges him to “tell no one.” (Mark 7:36) Immediately after this, the word tells us what happens next:

“But the more he charged them [not to tell anyone what he’s done], the more zealously they proclaimed it.”

Zealous. That’s a mighty descriptive word. With fervor they spread the word of what he’d done, in spite of his charge not to. I don’t know why this is exactly, but it is an interesting contrast from today.

The Gospel is now complete. All that will be revealed to us about Jesus in this lifetime has been revealed in the Gospel. The recounting of the Gospel in scripture ends with a charge to go out and zealously proclaim to the world what the Lord has done. Yet now, the church rarely does it.

If this is not a perplexing reversal, I don’t know what is.

I finished reading 2 Timothy yesterday. In Paul’s closing thoughts, he exhorts Timothy 4:1-2):

I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

I’ve always found this to be an interesting exhortation. Why not just say, “Always be ready to preach the word”? Why did he choose to be specific and refer to seasons? As I’ve thought about it, I think there’s probably a lot of reasons. But I think of two in particular.

1. Seasons of the soul. People ebb and flow and there’s no way around it. A lot can change from one emotional state to another, even the way we choose to interpret things. I think it’s possible that Paul was telling Timothy that regardless of what season he found himself in emotionally, or physically or socially or whatever, he should remember that his duty is to preach the word and he needs to be ready for it. And,

2. Seasons of ministry. I think that this one is probably a bit more likely since it seems to agree more with the context—particularly the statement immediately following it. There are times that are for ministry (missions trips, church, youth group, whatever) and there are times that are not for ministry (like going to the movies or out for dinner). But I think that Paul was telling Timothy that he needs to be prepared for ministry even in the times that are ‘not’ for ministry.

The Church could take a queue from Paul’s exhortation here. We’re in a time where almost no one is ready ‘out of season’. Especially not ministers, most of whom are too wrapped up in their gigantic labyrinth of a church system.

I think that’s pretty bad. Especially when most people in our culture don’t want anything to do with our ministers ‘seasons’.

When it comes to an evangelistic lifestyle, we usually think of it in a kind of self-centered way. It has to do with what I am doing and the way that I am doing it and before whom I do it. But the reality is that an evangelistic lifestyle is a vast web of interconnected parts, of which you only have real influence over about 1  in 2 billion.

By evangelistic lifestyle, I mean living life in such a way that the spiritual conditions of unbelievers around you hold a high priority. Choosing words wisely, constantly remembering their need for the savior and affecting your actions accordingly.

As I was reading in Psalms today, David writes something that got me thinking about the evangelistic lifestyle: Psalm 69:6:

"Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me,
   O Lord GOD of hosts;
let not those who seek you be brought to dishonor through me,
   O God of Israel."

Now let me say outright, the thoughts this verse provoked are not the context of David’s words. This is part of an entreaty to God not to allow him to fall for the sake of the faithful who would suffer because of it. However, I think that my thought can be found here, at least at some level anyways.

What occurred to me as I was reading is that almost no one judges anything in isolation. I mean that people rarely assess anything based entirely on itself. Someone might have a poor opinion of a good movie, based on the main actors bad performance in another movie. Often people want nothing to do with church, because of the church they went to growing up. I contend hat it’s rare for someone to form an opinion of anything based entirely on whatever it is before them.

If this is true, then when we hope to represent our Lord to those around us, they’re not going to judge us in isolation. They’re going to judge us first through the lens of about 2 billion other Christians on the planet (or at least the group they’re most exposed to) and what they’re doing.

Therefore, the evangelistic-lifestyle is vastly larger and more complex than simply what I do or don’t do.

This probably falls somewhere between discouraging and pacifying. Discouraging because it would seem that there’s no hope in swaying the lost because of the awful conduct of Christians historically and currently. And pacifying because being such a small peice of something much larger makes one feel like making any real change is impossible.

But, these things are only true if you remain in the me-centered type of evangelistic lifestyle I mentioned in the beginning. If indeed we’re a part of a web which helps form public opinion and that web is muddying up your personal ministry, then by all means, be discouraged. But, it’s not me-centered. It can’t be.

See, while we engage in ministry day to day, living our faith, we’re not only connected to this web of culture-opinion setters, we’re part of someone else’s web too.

When we stop for dinner on the way home, we might be tired or stressed out. If we fail to represent our Lord rightly, then we may be hindering someone else’s ministry. Perhaps that server is in some other Christian’s sphere of ministry. By failing to love as the Lord loves, we may have placed a block in another Christians evangelistic efforts.

Of course, in a perfect world, it wouldn’t be like this. People would make their decisions about Jesus based on Jesus, not us. But then again if this were a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to tell people about Jesus at all.

So, when it comes to the evangelistic lifestyle it’s important that we remember that our ministry is about as big as the entire body of Christians, at least in a local sense. And, in the same way that they can make ministry difficult for us, we make ministry difficult for them. This is another excellent reason for us to act very cautiously at all times, for the sake of our own ministry and for the sake of someone else who may come after us.

Isaiah 55:10-11:

"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
   and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
   giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
   it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
   and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

What more encouraging call to faithful evangelism is there than that? When the word of God goes out from us, it will have God’s intended affect on whomever it falls on. That should inspire confidence and humility in our speaking.

God is the revealer, Jesus is the savior, the Holy Spirit is the agent and we are the vessels. His purpose is never thwarted. Fantastic.

James 4:4 says,

“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

In the past couple weeks this verse has become a bit haunting to me. I know that it doesn’t speak directly to my situation, but the principals apply nonetheless.

As I’ve been developing a discipline in prayer of the past couple of months, one of the things I’ve tried to make a priority is prayer for the lost. Specifically individuals in or around my life that don’t know Jesus yet. I think this has begun to deepen the seriousness of their plight in my heart and mind. When I’m around them, their spiritual condition is more on the forefront of my mind than it was in the past.

The trouble is, though my mind is there, my actions aren’t following yet.

It was recently that I was out with a handful of believers and about as many non-believers. At some point during the evening, I looked around and noticed that we weren’t too much different from them. At least not obviously. I don’t mean to imply these were particularly rough people. They were friendly, nice enough and weren’t even especially vulgar. But they weren’t loving either.

Neither were we.

And that’s the problem. Not especially loving to each other, to them or obviously to anyone else. I can’t help but wonder how we expect questions about “the hope that we have” when we’re not even obviously different.

Now, please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that we dawn exclusively black and white attire, with big hats and belt buckles. Nor am I really suggesting that there should be frivolous encouragements thrown around. I’m simply saying that our choices and actions should be shining with love for each other. That is how the world will know we are Jesus’ disciples–heck that’s how I became a believer.

I can’t help but feel like God is often working in spite of his Church, rather than through it.

It seems that people often read verses in the bible about the way God works through believers and assume that it’s true of them. But simply because the bible says that God does it, doesn’t mean he always does it. And, judging my what I’ve seen throughout most of my walk, in me and in my brothers and sisters, it seems unlikely that those verses are talking about us!

I would like to see, through prayer and Spirit lead sanctification, my own choices and my own attitudes, along with the whole church, shift. So that when the world sees us they will actually have a reason to wonder.

A Faith Worth Sharing is a book worth reading. Although, it was far from the best (as literature goes), I can confidently say that it is among the most genuinely encouraging books that I have ever read. Not because it said a bunch of stuff I wanted to hear either. It didn’t.

A Faith Worth Sharing by John C. Miller is, as the subtitle suggests, a book chronicling one man’s experiences sharing Jesus with an array of different people in many situations. But it’s much more than that. It’s also Miller’s confession of his own sin and God’s gracious working through his desire to see Christ’s kingdom spread to sanctify him as well.

A major theme throughout the book had to do with the contrast of a Christian’s own spiritual health versus his effectiveness in evangelism. Miller continually returns to the idea that a person must be truly humble in spirit to share the Gospel with another person. He says in quoting D. T. Niles, “Evangelism is on beggar telling another beggar where to find food”, then he adds to this sentiment, “…then eating it with them.”

It’s clear that at the core of Miller’s understanding of evangelism is a heart of humility that personally understands his beggar-dom. In the overflow of joy that has come from grace received, he wants to implore that others would go and receive that grace as well. For Miller, evangelism means laying yourself bare as a sinner before sinners and confessing what the Lord has done. I can’t disagree with him.

Unfortunately for all of us, Miller died just before finishing this book. The first nine chapters were written on his death bed and the final chapter was added by his wife. After spending nine chapters getting to know John, the final chapter from his wife proves particularly powerful.

After finishing A Faith Worth Sharing, I’ve found myself more aware of my neighbor’s need for the Lord’s grace. More aware of my own need to pray for them and to speak to them concerning the grace that I’ve received and that I hope they will also receive. And, perhaps most importantly, I am more aware of my need to continually apply the medicine of the Gospel of Jesus to my own life.

I have found a great deal of encouragement in believing that when I can’t see God working, he is still working. A Faith Worth Sharing is an extremely easy read. I highly recommend it to just about any Christian I encounter. You won’t be disappointed.

A few days ago I started reading A Faith Worth Sharing. A short book written the late John C. Miller about the lifelong classroom in which he learned to share Christ with those around him. In the most recent chapter, he had this short sentiment that stuck out to me.

“Many Christians fail to share their faith because the yare trying to do it perfectly and since they cannot do it perfectly, they remain silent. But what [I have learned] is that God is pleased to use imperfect people like me.”

This has resonated with my experience. As a younger Christian, there were many opportunities I let slip by because I feared that I would botch it. But scripture has made clear that God loves to use the ill-equipped to do awesome things. God will work in imperfect situations and our own imperfect attempts. Therefore, we should not stifle our excitement over our Lord simply because we haven’t come to the epotme of preparedness. We should shower those around us with that excitement, without fear of botching it.