Hello, Fellow Ambassador! Did you know that that’s one of your job descriptions as a Believer? 2Corinthians 5 :17-20 says this: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” I’m so thankful that you are engaging in the mission entrusted to you by our Blessed Savior.
I’m going to begin sharing one method of having a gospel conversation with someone. Some may object to the thought of following a script as first. Let me explain why I believe this is an extremely useful framework to memorize.
First of all we certainly recognize that presenting the gospel to someone should not be solely a presentation, but also a conversation. We respect our hearer’s point of view! However, if we go into the conversation with no clear direction, who knows where we’ll end up? I once went witnessing with a dear friend who did not want to give the stepping stones a try. Instead she just wanted to go talk with people. At the end of the night, after several conversations with non-believers that never landed on our goal, sharing the life-saving gospel with another priceless and eternal human being, she said she wished we’d done it following the framework I had suggested. It was a good learning experience, but definitely not the best witnessing experience!
Almost everything in life requires learning. Want to ride a bike? Read a book? Do some algebra? (haha, ok, maybe not). You need to learn. When you invest time in learning how to steer a conversation towards the gospel, you will very often actually arrive there! Obviously, we can’t control the other person, but we can influence them and pray that our hearer will actually get to hear the Good News.
Once you learn these steps, you can make the conversation your own, with your own personality and style. The Holy Spirit will guide and direct you in what to say if you ask. My conversations with others do not follow a rigid script, BUT learning the framework has been invaluable!
The last thing I want to stress about this method or framework is that instead of merely using apologetics, logical arguments that set out to prove the Christian faith, you actually move from the realm of the person’s intellect to the person’s conscience. Their God-given conscience will actually bear witness that what you are telling them is true! Apologetics are certainly valuable. It can be so helpful to know facts about Bible prophecy, the historical accuracy of the Bible, archaeological evidence, etc. along with what other religions believe. And Lord willing we will eventually cover many of these topics together! But for now, let’s focus our attention here.
As this week’s challenge, please watch this thirty minute episode of Way of The Master to learn this tool together. If you don’t have time to watch it now, will you add it to your calendar or to-do list for the week? I know you’ll be blessed!
Let’s recap: the acronym to remember is WDJD. Instead of the famous acronym, WWJD - “What Would Jesus Do?”- we use “What Did Jesus Do?”:
W—- Would you consider yourself to be a good person?
D—-Do you think you’ve kept the Ten Commandments?
J—-Judgement? Would you be innocent or guilty? Would you go to Heaven or Hell?
D—-Does this concern you?
Until next week, Grace and peace!
Mary