What About Witnessing

The majority of Christians never win a soul to Christ. In fact, they never even try, and worse still, many never let their neighbours, friends and fellow students or employees know that they are Christians. One questions if a church member who never witnesses in any way really is a Christian. You cannot just be like a parasite on Christianity, only receiving and never giving yourself. Jesus said: “You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?” (Matt 5:13). A Christian who never confesses his faith to his fellows is like the salt without taste, and Jesus went on, “It is henceforth good for nothing but to be cast out and to be trodden under foot”.

Many people are willing to testify for Christ where people don’t know them, but never do it to their neighbours and friends. Yet it is not the strangers whom you could witness to best, but to those who know you and can see the change in your life and thereby understand that the gospel works. You can lie to strangers about your changed life and they don’t know the difference, but you cannot lie to those with whom you live, work and have fellowship. So everyone of us can witness. You don’t need to be someone special, to have an unusual gift or miraculous power, in order to witness for Jesus our Satiour. The most valuable testimony to the gospel is WHEN PEOPLE SEE THE CHANGE that has taken place in our lives. You may remember the incident of Jesus casting out demons from a man who had been living among tombs (Mark 5:1-20). The healed man wanted to follow Jesus who refused him, telling him to go home to his friends and tell them how great things the Lord has done for him. The grateful man obeyed. His testimony had power because all his friends saw the great change in his life. So the testimony of the word is not enough; the unsaved want to know whether Christianity works in our businesses, homes, schools - things that are our everyday life. A true Christian doesn’t become a witness because he is one.

We do not need to witness in our own strength. Jesus promised the apostles, “And you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). We have to start in Jerusalem – that is our home -.and go on even to the ends of the earth.

Bro George Ndiege (Songhor, Kenya)