“As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’ “ —ROMANS 10:15

Evangelism is probably the greatest fear of many Christians today. To come alongside a person and in some way introduce Christ isn’t easy, and we can come up with a lot of excuses. They won’t believe me. They’ll think I’m crazy. The time’s not right. It’s not my gift.

If the occasion arises where we feel the urge to speak on behalf of Christ but are reluctant to do so, we may be depriving both the recipient and ourselves of an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to draw that person to Christ and work more deeply within us. It is God, alone, who saves and God, alone, who does the work in a person’s heart, but His means of doing so has always been through His people.

There probably isn’t a better chapter on personal evangelism, which is one person talking to another about Christ, than there is in the first chapter of John’s Gospel. John the Baptist said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” Andrew, along with another disciple, left him and followed Jesus. Then Andrew found his brother, Simon, and brought him to Jesus. Meanwhile, Jesus bumped into Philip and said, “Follow Me.” Philip ran off and found Nathanael and introduced him to Jesus. It’s ongoing. It’s word of mouth that created a great following for Jesus by people like ourselves who had heard a life-giving message, and not only wanted to partake of it, but were eager to pass it on.

Let’s take a moment to consider this: If just one person in the world would tell one other person about Christ every six months, then at the end of six months there would be two people in the world who know Christ. If each of those two people told one person in the next six months, then by the end of the year, there would be four people who came to Christ. In a year and a half, eight people. Continue to do the math and at the end of five years, there would be 1,024 people.

Take a leap of eleven and a half years, and by sixteen and a half years, there would be exactly 8,589,934,592 Christians around the world, except for the fact that figure presently exceeds the world’s population. This procedure is ‘evangelism by addition’; the whole world having been evangelized in just sixteen and a half years with the first person having brought 33 people to Christ. Imagine - the whole world evangelized!

PRAYER: Dear Lord, I don’t ever want to be hesitant in witnessing for You. Grant me the right words to say at the right time to people whose hearts are open to hear about You. Thank You, Lord.

TO REFLECT UPON: How can I overcome any hesitancy I have in talking to others about Christ?