The Exercise of Evangelism

“…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,”
Philippians 2:12b

When it comes to getting in shape and maintaining a healthy body, do we have to look very far to get the answers? Is it really a mystery to what we need to do to take care of our temple that God gave us, and how to do that? If we really stop and think as to what we need to do, we can figure out most of it on our own. Where we lack, we get help and wisdom from others.

The same is true about evangelism.

It starts with a choice

The greatest battle we face with getting in shape or evangelism begins with a choice. You have to choose to do it, to want it, and to live it out.

If you want to get in shape, ask yourself what does the guy in shape do every day? Who is this person? What is he like? When you brainstorm all the things that man or woman would do, you get a good starting point.

A healthy person is probably more disciplined about what he or she eats, workout schedules, water intake and so on. So, if they are disciplined…be disciplined.
A healthy person is probably eating healthier, counting macros, calories, and conforming to portion sizes. So…be a healthy eater.
A healthy person is probably going to the gym and exercising on a regular basis. They are working all the muscles, and not just some of them. They are lifting enough weight to make them sweat, doing cardio to work the heart, and testing themselves over time to break personal records. So…be an athlete.

So, you want to share Jesus with the world, but don’t know where to begin? Start by brainstorming what an evangelist would do throughout the week and see where it takes you. All the while praying to God for help, guidance, wisdom, and open doors to share Christ. Here are several things to get you started.

Be self-disciplined

To be healthy one must be self-disciplined with their eating and also exercise. It’s changing your mindset. Eat more healthy food, and less junk food. Cut out soda, replace it with water. Cut out sugar, replace it with a healthy alternative like monk fruit. Your food choices, and getting off the couch and into the gym; go from bad to better, to best. This is learning new good habits and putting off old ones. The same is true in evangelism.

We have to put off old things to spend time on new things. Less T.V. and more studying the Bible. While you’re at the baseball game, give away a tract too. When you’re on the toilet, instead of reaching for your phone, reach for a pocket testament or a book on evangelism. Be self-disciplined to look around for opportunities to share the gospel. Make it a habit and a goal to pursue.

Be diligent

One you change your old habits into new ones, it’s important to keep going. Being disciplined leads to being diligent and making it a lifestyle. Many would say that discipline and diligence is the same thing. But, there is a slight difference that needs to be addressed.

Where discipline is the act of changing old thoughts and actions into new ones, diligence is the time in which new thoughts and actions continue on. It is careful and persistent work or effort. Strong’s Concordance states, “to use speed, to make effort, be prompt or earnest; to exert one’s self, endeavor, labor, or study.” In a nutshell, diligence is — to be focused.

In order to lose weight, one must be diligent to eat healthily and exercise — every day. It’s not just ok to do it once or twice a week. It is a daily effort.

If you don’t share the gospel for a while, you will always be in starting mode. Always. It will be rough to get going once you’ve stopped. Look up the word, daily, in the New Testament and you will find the diligence of Jesus and His apostles. Jesus taught us to pray for our daily needs (Matthew 6:11). Jesus sat with others and daily taught in the temple (Matthew 26:55). Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.” (Luke 9:23). It takes diligence on our part to be prepared and ready to share the truth with those around us. “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15 NKJV)

Be uncomfortable

Exercise and sharing the gospel are uncomfortable. Imagine if we only did it when we felt like it; when it was comfortable. I don’t know about you, but exercise is not comfortable. It takes energy, sweat, and determination to get up off the comfy chair and lift weights or run. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.

If I only shared the gospel when I felt like it — I wouldn’t go. I never feel like it. It’s not something I want to do with my time. Does that shock you? Even Ray Comfort of Living Waters Ministries admits that he doesn’t like to go share his faith. He forces himself to do it. Now, I’m sure there are people who love to exercise and go to the gym. Not my thing. Give me a good book and a comfy chair and I can spend the entire day there.

My friend, Amy, who has been weight training for many years, and competed in several weightlifting competitions, has a saying she lives by: Choose Your Hard. It is hard to workout, sweat, lift heavy weights, run a half marathon, and even eat consistently healthy when everyone around you does not. But, it’s also and in most cases immensely harder to live with diabetes and lose toes or a foot, gasp for air when climbing the stairs, get lung cancer from smoking, or death itself when all of this could have been preventable with just some effort. Evangelism is the same way. Sharing the gospel to unsaved strangers or family members is hard. Witnessing to a coworker or confronting someone’s use of Jesus’ name as a four-letter filth word is hard. But what is harder: those, or arriving in heaven with empty hands realizing that you’ve done nothing substantial to increase the kingdom of God? One is temporary; the other — eternal.

Be a healthy eater

1 Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby.” Healthy eating as a Christian starts and ends with the Bible and feasting on its nutrients.

Reading commentaries and books about the Bible are not substitutes for the Bible itself. It’s not enough to read about the Word, but read the Word itself. Reading the Bible trains you to find answers quickly, knowing where to go when you need to give an answer to those on the streets.

Those who know me know I have a terrible memory and it is difficult for me to memorize Scripture. But, finding Scripture when I need it and where to look is what I try to remember. Every book of the Bible has a theme attached to it; main points that the author wants the reader to grasp and understand. Early in my walk with the Lord, my mentor, Tony Didlo, introduced me to Inductive Bible Study, followed by my Pastor using a different method. It changed everything and helped me see Scripture in a whole new way. Studying inductively, you will learn what books will answer certain questions because of the themes and purpose of those books. Not only that, but because of segment divisions within those books, you can narrow the answers down to front, middle, end; and then chapter and then a paragraph to get what you are looking for. But it takes diligent study of God’s Word to get there. Ask yourself questions that you want to know and find the answers. Ask unbelievers if there is anything they would like to know and answer them using the Bible. You will find as you do this, you will be better prepared in the future on the streets sharing the gospel.

Another way to be a better evangelist and get into the Word is to study the aspects of salvation. My friend, Tony Ramsek, of WhatDoesTheScriptureSay.org, has a study called, Angles of the Cross, in which he takes a portion of the doctrine of salvation, and expounds on it for a whole month. Not only that, but he also uses that portion in his evangelism experiences while he’s out sharing the gospel. The Angles of the Cross are:

Justification
Imputation
Substitution
Reconciliation
Propitiation
Regeneration
Redemption
Atonement
The Righteousness of God
Love
Adoption
Forgiveness

Try this out instead of the cookie-cutter 5-minute devotionals you find online. You’ll be glad you did.

Be improving

When you are weightlifting, you must challenge yourself to lift heavy to achieve goals and beat your personal records (PR). You can only know if you are on the right track by testing yourself every so often. The same is true in evangelism.

One of the tests Tony Didlo had me do was subtle until I started catching on. We would go to a fast-food restaurant to eat after a day of sharing the gospel on the street. While we were eating, he would take a tract out of his pocket and slide it over to me and point to someone sitting at a table and eating. I had one minute to take that tract and walk up to that person and start a conversation with it. If I didn’t, he would put down his fork, take the tract, and do what he told me to do himself. After he was done, would walk back to the table and resume eating without saying a word. I have to admit, I failed several times, but one day I passed and moved on to the next level. Trust me, it was intense. But it helped me tremendously to be a better evangelist and more on-point, getting the job done.

This was not discouraging at all. I was thankful for my failures and they helped me see where I needed to grow. You must allow yourself to fail, but at the same time you must test yourself to see how far you’ve come. Life is full of tests and trials; it’s no different from evangelism.

Be discipled

Now we say that it starts with a choice; but what does it end with? Well, when you’ve done all the basics and can’t get out of your own way, there are times in our life when we need the help of others to achieve our goals.

Let’s say we work out all the time, eat healthy, and started to really lose weight and get healthy. But for some reason we hit a plateau and can’t break our goals. That’s when you need the help of others who can guide you in the right direction. Maybe there is a hormone imbalance, an allergy to certain foods or they cause inflammation, or maybe it’s a nutrition issue. Whatever it is, we need the help of a coach or trainer to help us move past our problems to reach our goals.

This is true in my own life concerning sharing my faith. There were many times in my walk I couldn’t get out of my own way. I struggled with fear, with my words, and even learning about cults was tough. But it was through fellowship with Christians who were already doing it, that helped me conquer roadblocks. This may surprise you, but this doesn’t go away. I still need help and guidance. I still need training from others who are doing it way better, and I humbly and gladly put myself under them.

You may have read the last section, be improving, and think to yourself why I would ever put myself through that level of discipleship. The fact is the person who is being discipled is the one who controls how much they learn, not the mentor. I put myself through that. I didn’t have to stay. I didn’t have to sit there and take it. I owed nothing to my mentor, but I owed everything to the Lord and He wanted me to go through that. I’m so glad I did.

Discipleship looks different for everyone. If you ask believers entering your fellowship what the definition of a disciple is, you would probably get a wide variety of answers. To save some time, here are some definitions from leaders in the area of discipleship:

“The process by which disciples grow in the Lord Jesus Christ and are equipped by the indwelling Holy Spirit to overcome the pressures and trials of this present life and become more Christlike.”¹
“A disciple is someone who believes in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, intentionally learns from Him, and strives to live more like Him. Discipleship is a widely-used word to describe the journey of spiritual growth. This growth happens as a person comes alongside another to witness to them, pray with them, study the Bible with them, and fellowship with them.”²

Some, like myself, get discipled right away, and that is probably the best way. You have a person leading you right from the beginning and following someone who is already doing it will alleviate problems you would encounter if you were to do it alone.

I got saved in 2003 and thankfully was discipled by Pastor Wayne, up until 2005 when Tony Didlo took me under his wing and I started witnessing on the streets. He discipled the way Jesus did and led me to next level evangelism and leading me to resources like Inductive Bible Study, Blue Letter Bible, Got Questions, Living Waters, and so on.

When Tony left the church we attended, this actually increased my range of opportunities throughout the United States to be a part of mission’s trips to Manti, Utah; working with Freedom for Youth, leading Precept Inductive Bible Studies, and working the Answers in Genesis booth at the Iowa State Fair. I couldn’t do this on my own, and thankful for men who took the time to pour into me so I can pour into others.

Have I missed anything?

Have I missed anything I should have added? How do you prepare as a Christian to exercise your faith on a daily basis? Let us know in the comments. We would love to read it.

WORKS CITED

¹https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-discipleship.html

²https://www.navigators.org/resource/basics-of-discipleship/#definitionofdiscipleship