Sharing Your Faith

In 1 Corinthians, St. Paul said, “If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!”

Just in case you missed it, Paul said “woe to me if I do not preach it (the gospel).”

St. Francis is widely attributed to have said: “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.”

How true these words are! We should live our lives and act in a way that people are drawn to God. Our actions indeed speak louder than our words. Acting in a loving way is the most effective form of evangelization.

However, a lot of us think that St. Francis is excusing us from having to use words when evangelizing. I honestly don’t think this is the case.

In certain situations, we may have to use words to convey the message of the gospel.

That’s right! Once in a while we may have to use words like “God”, “Jesus”, “blessing”, “praise”, or “faith” in our Facebook posts or personal conversations.

Does that make you shudder?

A lot of us aren’t very comfortable with sharing our faith with other people. But as with anything that’s not natural to us, it takes practice.

A lot of the original apostles were not born preachers. But somehow, God used them to evangelize the world.

We can depend on the power of the Holy Spirit. If we conduct our lives in a way that we are constantly in tune with the Spirit, we will be given the correct words to say in a given situation.

In fact, a Spirit-led evangelization is the most effective form of evangelization.

How does this work? Let us say your co-worker is not having a good day. The Spirit may nudge us to approach her and talk to her. The Spirit would often give us the exact words to say that will lift her up and possibly bring her closer to God.

During your prayer time today, I encourage you to ask Jesus to plant in your heart a strong desire to preach his good news. And ask Him to give you the skill to do it. When the Lord calls, he enables.