John 1 vs 4-7
4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of
men. 5 And
the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was
John. 7 This
man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him
might believe. (NKJV)
I have always found evangelism a bit
of a struggle, especially in these times were we have to be so politically
correct. A free evangelism training class helped get things into perspective. I learnt about evangelism tools and how to use them effectively. God has
called everyone of His children to evangelise, this is a divine mandate.
John the Baptist evangelised. The bible tells us that he came as
the voice crying out in the wilderness. He announced the arrival of Jesus
Christ. Jesus is the true light and we must let that light shine. Through
reading the bible, I discovered that we must live our lives in such away that
our actions however subtle, become evangelism tools. This is not an excuse to shy away from telling people about
Jesus, but when we are in environments that do not permit us to talk about our
faith, for example, at work, we must let our actions speak louder than our
words.
Helen Cadbury, the grand daughter of the founder of Cadbury
chocolates, was an evangelist! When I discovered this I chuckled; God has a
sense of humour. Can anything good ever come out of chocolates? It took me back
to Nathanael's question in John 1; 'can any good thing could come out of
Nazareth?'. Thirteen year old Helen Cadbury, like many Christians was a little
shy about sharing her faith at first, but she found a way to evangelise and the
perfect evangelism tools to use. No it wasn't chocolate... although I bet it came in
handy. Her tool was the word of God itself! She started this cool club, where
members had to read the bible daily. I believe God gave her the wisdom; people
came and read for themselves. It is recorded that at sixteen years of age, she
led a police officer to Christ through her enthusiastic sharing approach. How
did she go from shy to enthusiastic? She was empowered!
John 1 tells us that Jesus gives us the power to become the sons
of God and I believe this was evident in Helen Cadbury's life. This is how she went from
being the shy evangelist to the enthusiastic evangelist. Like John the Baptist, we must tell the world
about Christ. It is through us that people will see The Light, believe in Him and be saved. We must ask God to reveal to
us the best way to share Jesus with the world and to show us the perfect evangelism tools too! We must not let 'shyness' or 'political
correctness' stop us from letting our light shine.
by Yewande Erinle.
