Tim Zulker: Start with the heart

When it comes to evangelism, pay attention to the heart first. That’s where the real barriers lie.

“For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness”, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” (2 Corinthians 4:5-7)

Personal evangelism begins on the inside. The essence of what we are doing by sharing our faith, person-to-person, is allowing people see and hear about Christ … through us. Yes we are heralding an historic gospel message. And that message is independent of us. But the work of personal evangelism is not simply a matter of taking the gospel package down from the shelf to hand to someone. Rather, the gospel comes to reside in us—Christ himself moving in and beginning the process of spiritual redecoration (Eph 3:17). This should encourage us. Our hope for fruitful outreach is not in being whiz-bang evangelists, but in Christ and the message of the cross, shining out from our ordinary clay pot lives. We don’t put hope for the salvation of others in anything but Christ—not in our evangelistic tools, and not in ourselves. But if our hope is in Christ and his gospel, we still may not neglect the issue of our hearts. If Christ is the treasure that shines out from our inner being, then we should pay attention to our heart. This is where the greatest barriers to fruitful evangelism lie. Keep reading

Also see
Erich Bridges: Seeking the unseen Kingdom