When it comes to living out your faith, one of the most important things is being able to share about your faith confidently. So many people grow up going to church every single week, but when you ask them to explain why they go to church or what they believe, they don’t know how to do it. I don’t want you to even question how, I want you to be confident in sharing your faith.
Knowing how to share your faith can be broken into three main sections:
- Be authentic in your relationships.
- Your testimony is everything.
- Explain the gospel message simply.
Let’s break them each down.
Be Authentic in Your Relationships
People are smart and they can sniff out whether or not you are being real in your intentions right away. Do you actually care for them? Or are you just trying to preach at them? There’s a large gap between the two and if someone believes that you actually care for them then they will be much more inclined to open up in the future.
So if you have the desire in your heart to share the gospel message with others, you need to begin by being authentic and making love the foundation of every relationship. And when I say “love,” I mean the action, not the feeling. It’s about looking out for the best of those around you. And when the people closest to you feel a genuine relationship where they can trust you, then sharing about your faith will become far more natural.
Your non-Christian friends are not a “project,” they are humans that need the love of Jesus just as much as you do. Instead of trying to find ways to convert them, we need to learn to love without an agenda. Allow your actions to inspire questions. Because trust me, the questions will come. And when they do, when people question why you love the way you do, then you can share how your love is rooted in Jesus Christ (John 13:35).
How do you build that trust?
By being present and kind. You can’t send an occasional text to someone and expect a relationship to grow out of it. No, you need to be there for them during the highs and lows, you need to celebrate with them and show up even when it’s inconvenient.
Most of us will never travel the world preaching the gospel. We have a handful of friends and stick to our surroundings. Some friends are hopefully followers of Jesus and some aren’t. The way you live your life will speak volumes to them and you can pray that Jesus uses you to share the gospel one day, but don’t let it depict whether you are friends with them or not (unless they are a negative influence on your relationship with God).
People today feel overlooked. People are lonely. You have an opportunity to show others that they are seen, that they are loved by God, and that they are cared for. Be there for them, listen to what they have to say, and love them any way you know how. Once you have built that relationship, then you can wait for the right time to talk about your faith. It may be the first week you’re friends or it might be a decade later, but we trust that God will open the door at the perfect time.
Your Testimony Is Everything
When that time does come, one of the best ways to share the gospel is through your personal testimony. We all have a gospel message that we are preaching, about how God has moved in our lives and how we have been transformed. Never overlook your testimony. As you learn to explain what God has done for you, I encourage you to share that story with others. You’d be surprised how easy it is for someone to be able to find themselves within your story.
The way you live your life can be the greatest testament to God’s goodness. As you grow closer to Jesus and learn about our role in spreading the Kingdom of God on earth, there will be clearer and clearer ways in which we can reflect the image of God back into the world. People will be drawn to you as you draw closer to him.
Let me give you a little relief: it isn’t your responsibility to save people. That’s Jesus’ job. But it is your responsibility to live in a way that makes people recognize the difference in your life. They will see your joy and your humility and your trust in God’s plan and your faith, hope, and love. When they realize how differently you live and how much more attractive your way of life is compared to the world, they will ask questions. You can answer with, “This is what happened in my life and why things are different for me now.” Then just point it all back to Jesus.
Be honest with them. Be vulnerable. Be transparent. Share the ways in which you have struggled in your relationship, share the things that have helped. The goal isn’t to show them that you are “perfect” now that you have Jesus. The goal is to show them that even though you are still broken and life is hard for you, you have a hope that can’t be shaken and that same hope is available to them.
Explain the Gospel Message Simply
So when you get to the third point, after you’ve shared your testimony with them, it’s important to be able to share the gospel message in a simple way. We can be in church for years and hear the gospel preached, but when it comes to us actually sharing it with others we freeze. We send them sermons or books to read instead of just having a conversation. And often, we can feel dumb by asking someone to explain the gospel to us, so let me do it for you.
If you can remember this simple message, you’ll have the main answers when someone asks.
And when they ask you follow up questions that you don’t know the answer to (because it happens to all of us) be real with them and say you don’t know, but you’re willing to look into it to see.
This Is the Gospel Message of Jesus Christ
God created everything in the world, including humans because he wanted to share his love with us. He wanted to be in a personal relationship with his creation, but the first humans chose to do things their own way and went against God’s plan. You see, he gives us freedom to choose — otherwise we’d just be robots. So by going against his plan and choosing to partner with the evil forces in the world instead, a barrier was created between us and God. Sin came into the world and everything began to fall apart. Sin is basically anything that goes against the way God intended. And we all sin, whether we realize it or not.
Even though we were separated from God, he didn’t give up on his plan to have a relationship with his creation because he loves us so much. So God provided a solution through Jesus Christ, his own Son. Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to God, without sin, as an example of what it means to choose God’s way instead of the way of the world. At the end of his life, Jesus was killed on a cross, taking the weight of our sin in order to reconcile us with God. After three days, he rose from the dead and invited us into this new creation life that is focused on bringing God’s Kingdom to the world.
You and I are now invited to be a part of this new creation by accepting Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, acknowledging him as Lord of our lives, and doing our best to follow his teachings. In doing so, we receive forgiveness for our sins and eternal life as part of God’s family. The Bible says, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9, NIV).
What will you be saved from? The punishment for your sin. Instead, your relationship with God will be restored and you will now be able to participate in God’s redemptive work in the world. It’s not about one day leaving this place to go off into the clouds for eternity, but God wants to be a part of your life right now.
He wants to transform your relationships and use you to reflect his love to the world — meaning he wants you to be an advocate for justice, to show mercy and love and compassion and kindness to others, to be full of faith and hope for the future. As followers of Jesus, it’s our role to show the world what life is like in the new creation that God has begun to take over. God wants to renew all things for his glory and we can now be a part of that, making a positive impact on the world and helping other people to choose the ways of God versus the ways of the world.
This is what you and I were created for. This is what the good news of Jesus is all about.
And as people begin to ask you questions about why you live differently than they do, now you have a response, leaving them with the choice: God’s way or their own way.
Knowing where you fit in God’s story is key to sharing that story with others. Get your copy of Zach’s bestselling book, The Bible, Simplified to orient yourself in the Bible’s overarching narrative. Then, take the next step with The Bible, Simplified Study Guide, an easy-to-follow, eight-week program with streaming video to help you learn and live the story of the Bible.
Zach Windahl is an author and content creator focused on helping people grow in their faith. He is the author of several books, including The Bible Study: A One-Year Study of the Bible and How It Relates to You. He lives in Orlando, Florida, with his wife, Gisela. You can connect with Zach on social media at @ZachWindahl or at www.ZachWindahl.com.
