More Love to Thee, O Christ

I want to be a better evangelist for Christ. You want to be a better evangelist too. Virtually every pastor and ever church member reading this blog wants to be better at sharing the gospel with those who don’t know Jesus.

Strategies can help. Methods can help. Knowing your personality can help. Understanding your context can help. Holding each other accountable can help. But if we are to grow in our boldness and faithfulness in speaking of Christ, the one thing we really need is more love for Christ.

We are all natural evangelists for the people and things we love most.

On my recent trip overseas I had the opportunity to share the gospel on several occasions. This was a joy and a privilege. But the gospel is not all I was an evangelist for. In fact, I found that it was even more natural and more spontaneous (and, sadly to say, perhaps even more joyful) for me to share other kinds of good news. As we met people on our trip and I got to share where I was from I would often talk up the great features of Michigan. I gladly rattled off my assortment of Michigan factoids: largest concentration of freshwater in the world, more shoreline than the entire U.S. Atlantic seaboard, and more than 10,000 inland lakes. I boasted of our trees, our sand dunes, our mild summers, and our snowy winters (except for this year). If the listener seemed especially engaged and knowledgeable, I might throw in something about giving up Toledo to gain the UP or inform them of our inspiring state motto (Si quaeris peninsulam amoenan circumspice – If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you). I even got into one good natured verbal joust with a Wisconsinite over whose state truly looks like a mitten (obviously not Wisconsin). All in all I showed myself to be a proud, knowledgeable Michigander eager to tell others about the unique joys of “Pure Michigan.”

Similarly, by the end of the trip my travel companion was tired of hearing me wax on about the Dutch. Since we flew through Amsterdam both ways and had the opportunity to meet some Hollanders and Dutch South Africans on our trip, I had ample excuse to regale Nick with how great it is to be Dutch. So Nick had the privilege of learning about William of Orange and poffertjes and the expression Eet Smakelijk! and the role of the domine in huisbezoek and the inspiring motto “Eendracht maakt macht.” All in all I showed myself to be a proud, pseudo-knowledgeable Dutchman eager to talk about the few bits of random trivia, Dutch history, and Dutch language I could remember.

We are all natural evangelists for the people and things we love most.

As I seek to grow as a personal evangelist, and want my church to grow in the same way, my first prayer is “More love to Thee, O Christ!” What need first and foremost is greater wonder and greater delight in our Savior. The more we love, the more we love to speak of the things we love. Granted, there is less scandal in talking about Michigan or the Dutch than there is in talking about the cross. But the lesson is still legitimate. I didn’t have any plans to talk about Michigan or the Netherlands. It just came out of me. It wasn’t forced. It wasn’t awkward. I wasn’t trying to sell something. I was simply, and naturally, excited to share good things and fun facts about my home state and my ethnic background. It is the essence of joy to overflow. Would that my joy in Christ knew no bounds.