Let it Shine

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.