No matter what other ways we might consider participating in evangelism and the advancement of the Gospel, the one Jesus endorsed by His own prayer is the idea of God working through a community of believers and their love for one another.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me (John 17:20–23).
When I came to faith in college, it was a group of friends that God used to woo me to Himself. In their relationships with one another, they lived out the Kingdom life in front of me. These weren’t superstar Christians. They were people with varied gifts and personalities that God used to get my attention and to reveal Himself to me.
God worked through the quiet examples of some, the serving of others, the winsomeness of a few, and the timely words of one or two. Some of those words weren’t even intentional or directed at me! Each lived out the sent life the best way they knew how, warts, scars, wounds, and all. This is authentic evangelism.
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