Gospel Motivation

Here is my answer to two questions I was asked for a class on personal evangelism. 1) What motivates you to witness 2) The most significant "barrier" to witnessing with which you struggle For better or for worse there is a difference between what often motivates me and what should motivate me to witness. For instance, in this course we are required to witness and share the gospel at least seven times. So, in this particular case the primary motivation may overwhelmingly be the course requirement. Of course, this is a wrong motivation but given that it is a requirement it is an unavoidable one. On the other hand, though it cannot be completely dismissed as wrong. Maybe someone, like me, needs the requirement of a course to motivate into active evangelism. It may first be as a duty, but through actively performing evangelism and seeing the power of God and his gospel the work of evangelism will (I hope and pray) turn into a delight. Now what should be the true and proper motivation toward Christian proclamation? The Gospel. It is the love of Christ displayed to poor and wretched sinners which should motivate us to share this love. Only once we have understood that we as poor, miserable, and destitute sinners have been redeemed by the blood of the lamb, only then will we be constrained to proclaim the glories of Christ. We need to let Romans 5:8 sink in to our hearts and minds: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” I believe that the greatest barrier to my consistent evangelism is the failure to recognize and fully grasp the motivation of evangelism. When I forget the gospel or when the gospel is not impacting my life then I loose the sense of urgency and importance for evangelism. Yet, if the gospel is revived and if I begin to live the gospel then a naturally out flowing of my gospel life will be a desire to share it. When one forgets the grace and mercy of God to miserable sinners one doesn’t see the need of sharing what is not important or what hasn’t impacted their life. Yet, when the reality of the gospel burns within our hearts we will have no other choice to share. Therefore, a recover of the undiluted, pure gospel of Jesus Christ is necessary to achieving consistent and faithful biblical evangelism.