By David ReayTuesday 18 Aug 2015LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read Colossians 4:6
6 Let your conversation be gracious and attractive so that you will have the right response for everyone. (NLT)
None of us really likes people who try to push us into buying a product. People who are only interested in us inasmuch as we will take what they are offering. What they are offering might be good, and we might end up getting it. But we don’t want to be pressured into making a choice.
When it comes to sharing the gospel in words (there are other ways of so sharing!), we need to be careful of engaging in ‘ambush evangelism’. We might be tempted to pounce on people overwhelmed by the significance of what we are trying to share. We need to resist the temptation.
Paul reminds us we are to be gracious and pleasant. He also suggests that our sharing of faith might well be responsive. We may well not take the initiative. We may pray that the Spirit will open up opportunities, just as Paul prayed. So when those opportunities arise, we can assume the ground is already prepared.
Some of us remember ‘horror stories’ of well-meaning but insensitive faith-sharing exercises. The remedy for this is not to keep our faith to ourselves but to share it in such a way that we are in the slipstream of the Spirit, not frantically trying to sell something to someone who doesn’t want to buy.
In other words, we don’t apply the pressure but leave it up to God’s Spirit. He is better at it than we are.
Blessings
David Reay