Have you ever felt pressured by others to share your faith? I'm not talking about the positive pressure of encouragement, like two teammates spurring each other on to run faster, jump higher, or hit harder. I'm talking about harsh pressure, like you're being forced to eat your vegetables, and if you don't, you're a bad person. Have you ever felt that? (And I am fully aware that there may have been times when I have unintentionally been the one to apply that pressure.)
Those negative, even guilt, feelings we have about this are compounded when we remember that we actually have something wonderful to share. Now, I feel twice as bad - not only am I not doing what I ought, but it's not like I'm withholding bad news. Good news should be easy to share, right? If I really believed this was wonderful news, then why am I such the horrible person who doesn't share it?
Why do we feel this pressure? Surprisingly, this pressure most often does not come from the encouragement to share our faith. That's not the real issue in most cases, I believe. But because we think it's the issue, then we suffer the twin devils of pressure and guilt.
The actual issue, in my opinion, is that we feel pressured to share our faith in a particular way - a way that's foreign, unnatural, mysterious, awkward, uncomfortable, manipulative, or completely contrary to our personal makeup. We (mistakenly) think, or have been (mistakenly) told, that not only should we share our faith, but that it must be done in a particular way - that sharing your faith is synonymous with a particular method. And if that way doesn't match your personality, then your personality is deficient, stubborn, or even sinful. Pressure applied, thank you very much.
The underlying error is worse: a mentality that has reduced the Gospel to something like "Three Steps to Avoid Hell." We take the fullness of the Gospel, squeeze it down into "fire insurance," and then are left with nothing but pressured-filled ways that it must be shared.
Search the Gospels - you'll never find Jesus reducing the Gospel like that. Rather, He consistently speaks of the nearness, the nature, and the accessibility of the Kingdom of God. He never reduces the Gospel to getting your ticket punched. There's far too little space in the blog to fully discuss the significance of this observation.
Instead of saying, "Share your faith in a prescribed way or else you're a bad Christian," let me offer a different kind of encouragement: Leave Kingdom fingerprints everywhere. As you live, as you work, as you play, as you have family time, leave "evidence" of the Kingdom of God. Demonstrate the nearness of the Kingdom by living as a representative in the midst of others. Bring the nature of the Kingdom into your work and activities by infusing its attributes into everything you do, attributes such as integrity, compassion, and justice. Make the accessibility of the Kingdom obvious by being authentic and transparent, and as appropriate, but letting others know how accessible it is. How can I exit every scene of the story of my life with some evidence of the Kingdom left behind?
Sharing how someone can become a member of God's Kingdom (the redux of the rich Gospel) still has a prominent place, but is now set in the larger frame of seeing our life's task as leaving Kingdom fingerprints everywhere. My "job" is to leave as much evidence as possible. That doesn't seem very pressure-filled to me.
No formula. No recipe. Just a lifestyle of leaving evidence of the Kingdom everywhere you go, from the gym to the grocery store to neighborhood association meeting. Some of the evidence is the example you give, some of the evidence is by adding Kingdom values to a situation that needs it, some of the evidence is verbal testimony. I don't want to limit your imagination on ways to do this. Acts of mercy and compassion, being there with someone in sorrow, offering truth without necessarily quoting chapter and verse, all kinds of ways to leave Kingdom fingerprints. Artists and bridge builders can leave evidence; teachers and truck drivers can leave evidence; students and retirees can leave evidence. Everywhere.
By the word "fingerprints," I don't necessarily mean something subtle, hard to detect, and insignificant. I mean evidence that can be obvious and traceable - evidence that any observer would easily trace back to the Kingdom of God, and in fact make it hard to ignore the Kingdom of God. Leave enough evidence to be convicted of being a citizen of God's Kingdom.
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