Motives for Evangelism- Part 2

Part 2- Love seeing individuals devoted to faithful service to God!

The individual who seeks to share the gospel from the right motives MUST begin to adopt a vision for people the way that God would envision those who are believers. God desires for His people to be faithfully committed and serving Him in all areas of their lives. We see devotion from new believers as a tell tale sign of the work of God in their lives and are able to rejoice as we see their devotion to the things of God. The question when it comes to our motives is whether or not we truly rejoice at the addition of individuals into faithful service.

In Acts 2:40-42 states, “And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’ So those who received his word were baptized and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they [the souls that were added] devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

We see in this passage the exhortation brought about by Peter’s teaching, resulting in the salvation of soul and the immediate inclusion of these new individuals into faithful service to God. They devoted themselves, there was a drive and a desire to accomplish God’s purpose and the place the God ordained for that to occur is within the local church! We see the same truth bearing witness of itself in the great commission passage in Matthew 28:19, where it states to “make disciples.” The sharing of our faith is not an end in itself. We share our faith because we love to glorify God and we love to see people faithfully serving Him. The faithful service of individuals gives glory to God in ways that we cannot do purely as an individual.

An interesting place that we see the desire for people shining forth is in the prayer of Paul for the Thessalonians. In 2 Thessalonians 3:1-3 it states, “Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you, and that we may be delivered form wicked and evil men. For not all have faith. Bu the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you in against the evil one…” The interesting thing about this passage is NOT its evangelistic overtones. Instead it shows the heart of the man of God for PEOPLE. Paul begins the passage seeking their prayer for him and ends the passage praying for them. It is as if Paul cannot help but continue to turn his attention to the work of God in other people’s lives, as well as their faithful service. The question that must continue to arise within each of us is where does the work of God that I am specifically called to accomplish include the people God is seeking to work in?

In regards once again to evangelism we see this. That the gospel is for people and people alone. The gospel is NOT for animals or for the earth, or even for the heavenly beings. It is purely for people. This is why it is so profound to consider the passage, “What is man that you are mindful of him.” We really don’t know. But we do know this, God IS mindful of us, He does bestow on us His steadfast love and mercy, and He continues to work in the lives of believers as well as those who previously hated God. The gospel is for people, therefore if our motives for sharing the gospel is not for the seeing of people entering into faithful service to God, then we have missed the mark to a large

What does this concept begin to require of us? It requires a changing of our focus and whom we interact with. We must begin to leave our Christian bubbles, where everyone we know in that bubble knows Christ. We must lose the satisfaction and justification we have given ourselves in thinking that we have reached the entirety of our “Co-worker Bubble” (those individuals who we work with), and our “Family Bubble” (extended and immediate family) with the gospel of Christ. We must in a sense seek our new turf, seek our new battle grounds in which victory will ensue. We must seek to spread the outpost of heaven on this earth, and see more lands and more people serving God, than those that are directly interacting with us daily. Do we have eyes to see the bigger picture of God’s work in those outside of our “bubbles?” Do we have a heart to see people serving God faithfully in the local church? If this is the case and we are seeking the glorification of God in the process then we are well on our way to having the right motives for our evangelism!