Story Bearer - How to Share Your Faith With Your FriendsSample

Living your story

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. In a world where we are bombarded with an estimated 5,000 advertisements every day, it is not surprising that in evangelism, the way we live our lives is as important as the words that we say. In great faith sharing, words and works go hand in hand.

Jesus compares our presence in the world to salt and light. Salt, in the ancient world acted as a preservative, keeping the freshness and life of a food, as well as a taste enhancer. As Christians, as we seek to live up to God’s standards, we preserve his values in the world. In our generosity, love, compassion and grace towards others, we try to bring out the God-flavours and demonstrate his goodness to a world in need.

To some of your friends and neighbours you may be the only Bible they are reading at the moment. The way we live our lives doesn’t just bless the world, it actively draws people to engage with God. The salt and light passage ends with the expectation that others may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven. Peter’s encouragement in his first letter is that unbelievers will watch our lives lived differently and glorify God as a result.

There is no doubt that as individuals and as a church we get many things wrong, and must rightly repent of much of our abuse of power and mistreatment of others. But we can also celebrate the enormous contribution the church makes to society today across the world. In the United Kingdom alone, it is estimated that the church contributes over £3 billion worth of support to communities. A similar picture will be reflected across the globe. Today, may we rejoice that we have a story to live out, as individuals and as a global church family, and may we commit afresh to living the kind of lives that draw people to the story of God and invite them to ask questions and ultimately glorify Jesus.