Sharing Christ’s Love Must Be in Both Word and Deed

I’m hoping that you have experienced the love of Christ and that you accept and comprehend how truly, madly, and deeply God loves you.

That’s the starting point of everything, including sharing Christ’s love with others.

Because God has that same love for everyone you know. That means every person in your family, every person in your neighborhood, every person at your work, every person you buy groceries from, every person you hire to fix your car or do your taxes or cut your hair. Everyone. He loves them unconditionally, infinitely, and passionately.

But how can they know that? How can they even know who God is? Ask yourself, “Who will tell them?”

If you and I don’t share the love, sure, God can pull a few miracles in people’s lives. But that’s not how He has set it up. Look at how the Apostle Paul describes it:

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

Maybe sharing that message of reconciliation feels like an insurmountable hurdle. Maybe you’re shy or scared or not skilled verbally or not confident in your Bible knowledge.

Some of us come from a background in which we were taught that we had to “witness.” Good Christians pray, read the Bible, and go out and witness, so get with the program! Get out and do something for Christ.

That’s not what the Bible teaches, though. Jesus, before He ascended into heaven at the end of His earthly ministry, said, “You, My followers, will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses” (Acts. 1:8).

Note: Jesus didn’t say “do.” He said “be.” He wants us to live our lives in such a way that they represent Him to the world.

Of course, it’s a false premise to think that all we need to do is live a good life. Be kind, fair, generous. Help people out, and so on. People also need to hear the gospel. They need the words of truth to seep into their minds and motivate them to take action.

So where does that leave us? We need to be honest about what prevents us from offering the Word, as well as walking the walk. The enemy is very successful at getting us to believe lies that keep us scared to share the love.

For example, maybe we think most people don’t believe in God and don’t want to talk about Him. That’s flat out wrong. Research says most people have some belief in an ultimate Creator, have a respect for Jesus, and are way more open to conversations than we think.

Another lie is that we have to make an irrefutable presentation of the Good News in one fell swoop. But what if the people we’re talking to aren’t interested? Do we walk away, or do we say, “Anything you’d like me to pray about for you?” Maybe they just need some support for a difficult decision, or a recommendation for a good plumber. And small gestures can lead to the next conversation, which might lead to another chance to mention Christ.

Mention of a plumber makes me think of a PVC pipe. God’s love wants to flow down that pipe to the world, but our fears, our beliefs in the lies of the evil one, tend to clog it up. We need to let the Holy Spirit unclog our hearts and get that love flowing!

Listen to Paul’s motivation. He says in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 that Christ’s love compels him or urges him on. “Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ . . . ” (NLT).

That must be our motivation as well.

For more resources to help you with sharing Christ’s love effectively, visit our resources page.