After reading the chapter, I realised that Faith & Evangelism works hand in hand. Our Christian walk is all about faith and it is impossible to follow Jesus without having faith. Therefore, in Mark 16:16 it states that He who believes will be saved and evangelism plays a big role in it. Previously, I thought evangelism was just about reaching out to others to meet their needs and heal their hurts and getting them to know Christ through us, however, after reading this chapter I realise that evangelism is not only about that but it is to cultivate faith in the hearts of people but in order for that to happen we ourselves have to have real faith. Faith acts like a disease; contagious. It is first caught by you and then taught to others, this is when true evangelism takes place.
I remembered once, my school facilitator gave us this Reflection Journal question which I found interesting, he asked: “What is the difference between a concept and an implementation”, so while reading the chapter about Faith and Believe it came into my mind that Faith is a concept while Believe is an implementation. In the bible it states that Faith without works is dead. Therefore, if you have faith but have not believe (requires work), the faith is dead and while we believe we are also witnessing.
Jesus is not someone we heard about or know about but He is someone that we are knowing and experiencing in our lives daily, for He is with us always (Matt 28:20). Christianity is not a religion but it’s a relationship as Jesus is life and the characteristics of life is reproduction and adaptation and the bible is the Living Word of God, the Church don’t preserve the Bible, but it is the bible that preserves the Church. Living things doesn’t need to be preserved; only the dead things are preserved.
We as Christians our role is to preach the gospel of Christ. The gospel is the good news, therefore, if we keep news to ourselves it is not news at all; the gospel must be preached! Preaching must be a believing act which is fully dependent of God as the truth of Christ is like a seed, without faith it is seed that has never been fertilized and the gospel is unable to blossom unless it’s preached with faith. There are also 2 different kinds of faith that I learnt, active and passive faith and evangelism requires active believing. It is testifying, witnessing, seeing, knowing and doing.
As we know that God is faithful. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is always what He says he is. I’ve got this revelation that God never changes, however, change is the only constant in life so why we do we still say that God never changes and He is the same yesterday, today and forever? Well, I believe that when they say God never changes, it meant the heart, nature and the character of God never changes. He is consistent with what He does and He does what He says He will.
We may look at the Bible in many ways, but it is God’s revelation of who He is, what He is, and what we can expect of Him. The better we understand the Bible, the better we understand God. I also read that when God wants to do a certain thing, He will inspire prayer which is also in line with our City Harvest DNA which is prayer. Without prayer is like not drinking spiritually, as Christians we have to pray. People need the gospel and this need creates a need in the heart of God to send us the gospel. God knows our needs and He wants to meet them.
In conclusion, we are either relevant or irrelevant to God’s work and in order for us to be relevant we need to relate to what the Holy Spirit is doing and follow Jesus where He goes you will go as well.