Telling What You Know
Bible Reading: Mark 5:1-20
Go home to your friends, and tell them what wonderful things the Lord has done for you. Mark 5:19
Ever heard stories like this?
“I was playing in the park when a kid came over to play with me. We started talking, and soon I asked him, ‘Are you sure that you will go to heaven when you die?’ He said he wasn’t sure. We talked some more, and ten minutes later he prayed and trusted Jesus to be his Savior.
“And the next day a girl in my apartment building came over to watch a video. When I told her I was a Christian, she said she had no idea what a Christian was. So I told her about Jesus, and she also became a Christian.
“Then there was my piano teacher, who …”
Talk about it: Do stories like that make you feel guilty because you haven’t introduced truckloads of people to Jesus?
Thank God for people who can tell others about Jesus at the park … in their neighborhood … at school… on vacation trips.
But many of us who hear those reports feel like flops as Christians. If you feel unhappy about your abilities as a one-on-one evangelist, the story you read in Mark 5 has a message for you.
As Jesus prepared to sail away, the guy Jesus had helped wanted to join the Lord’s disciples. But Jesus gave him an assignment that makes a smart first step in telling people about Jesus. The first part went like this: “Go home to your friends.” That seems like the Bible’s pattern for witnessing. Start where you live—your family, your friends, your neighbors. (See Acts 1:8. Jesus told his followers to start witnessing in Jerusalem, which was where they lived.)
The second part of Jesus’ instructions was to “tell… what wonderful things the Lord has done for you” (Mark 5:19). Jesus didn’t command this man to come up with a long sermon or to memorize a long list of Bible verses. Instead, Jesus told the man to tell about his own experience with God.
Your first place for one-on-one sharing is right where you live, with people you see every day. And the first thing to share with them is your own experience of learning how Jesus loves you and how he answers your prayers. That’s your basic plan for one-on-one witnessing-what Jesus has done for you! Long sermons and memorized verses can work, but the message you know best is the awesomeness of what Jesus has meant in your life!
TALK: How do you expect God can use you to tell others about him?
PRAY: Jesus, help us to share you with the people right around us.
ACT: What are some things you’ve learned about Jesus that you can tell someone?