When I hear the words “Personal Evangelism” my conscience starts to question: how personal is evangelism? I can see Billy Graham on stage with masses of people running to the front to hear what he has to say. Great speakers that reckon messages of fire and life-changing strategies that intend to turn your life around or upside down. But in personal evangelism, there is no stage or crowd. No microphone is set up and most likely, no ones recording (hopefully). There is one seat for you and one seat for the one you intend to realize life with, or at least that’s the way I want to see it. In no way would I stand up on the table in the coffee shop I’ve asked to meet a friend at and give the Good News. I’m not interested in their particular understanding of the Gospel at that point (assuming this is my first encounter or a long-anticipated one), I am interested in them.
Much like my views of cross-cultural ministry and how the desires of our hearts play a major role, I see the same for personal ministry. If I assume there is something hindering the person I have the privilege to speak with, or an area of their life I can appropriately speak into, then I think I have missed the point of grace and mercy. I sat with a teammate about a month ago and we talked through discipleship and what it looks like when we get home. Unknowingly, we were doing exactly that when we bounced ideas, verses, and the leading of the Holy Spirit off of each other. We were iron sharpening iron. As oblivious as I was to that moment, wanting to learn from someone my exact age and him the same, we were loving each other. I think it can be the same with personal evangelism.
The two passages that I foundationally believe spark personal evangelism are 1 John 4 and Romans 2. To start in Romans 1, Paul has just laid out how God gave man over to his depraved mind and their desires were fulfilled in sin so…we are guilty. In Romans 2, Paul argues that no one can judge because…all are guilty. But verse 4 says, “Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” To presume means to misunderstand the purpose of someone in a relationship. Here, it is the presumption that the “kindness and forbearance and patience” of God are not fully understood and specifically appreciated by man. Now, they can be realized in Jesus Christ. Likewise, I want to be kind and patient in the foreknowledge of what Christ has already for the person sitting across from me. There, hidden in Christ, is the purpose of it all. I will wait with them, suffer with them, forgive them, and then do it all again because of Jesus Christ. Why?
“We love because He first loved us (John 4:19).” Honestly, that is the build up to it all. When I was walking through some of the darkest and cumbersome times in my life, my mentor spoke Truth to me over and over again. Countlessly, I have been covered in love that has not only been handed to me through action and word by my teammates, but in earnest revelation to areas I can grow in. In areas that I need Jesus. On a side note, community accentuates how you act around people and how people act around you. However, personal evangelism is limited to two people in my mind. Experientially, I can always see there being more than one person, but this is more focused on the “discipleship” of personal evangelism and this is why I focused on it.
We love people, then groups of people consequently. If I don’t know how to love the person that I look face to face with alone, then how can I genuinely give out love to the sum of them. This is where I see verses 17 and 18 from John 4 come into play.
“By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
I always heard people use verse 18 with “perfect love casts out fear,” but I never understood exactly what John was trying to say. The fear presented is not universal, but one of impending judgement and it is cast out by perfect love. The only way that I can have confidence and not fear for the day of judgement is through love perfected with us. This is the key, I believe, in verse 16 of John 4 to why we care, run, cry, and lift the chin up of those whom we evangelize to.
“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
This is beautiful. When we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us… He is love and abiding in love is abiding in Him, and God in us. I know I just restated it, but I don’t really know any other way to put it then that. So, knowing and believing the love that God has for us and abiding in that, and Him in us, is love perfected with us. Only then is there confidence. Only then,
“We love because He first loved us.”
Hidden in here is His kindness and His forbearance and His patience. Hidden in here is the purpose in which I chose to evangelize. I love people to the Love. Bestowing grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy, I commit to love them. The only effective way to love is to know and believe I am. There are no pretensions or judgement in it, just the beauty. So, when I sit in front of those I have grown so close to and drifted far from in my return home, there will be no ulterior motive or alternative plan, it will be abiding love from God. In this, I put my hope it will find a home in their hearts. That is my hope for everyone. That is my hope for you.
