With the summer months upon us and the weather improving, people begin to interact more with each other. Here’s a practical guide to sharing your faith with others—on how to let your light shine in the darkness around you. After reading this, please share with this blog audience any ideas you have about sharing the gospel with others.

Motivation to Evangelize the Spiritually Lost

What should be our motivation to evangelize the lost?

Yeshua commanded his disciples (that’s us) to share our faith with those around us. This is called evangelism. Yeshua’s imperative command in Mark 16:15 to “go into all the world and preach the gospel…!” is not “the great suggestion,” but “the great commission!” To many, it has become “the great omission.” We’re often afraid to share our faith with others because we’re afraid they might think negatively of us if we do.

Human need demands that we reach out to the lost and hurting people around us. Like Yeshua, we must seek to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Like Yeshua, we must meet people at their point of need by finding the need and meeting it with the gospel message, the Word of YHVH and the love of Yeshua.

Compassion and love for the lost and hurting will compel us to share the good news with others. This is something Yeshua demonstrated (Matt 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; 20:34).

We must have a love for the lost. Pray to the Father that he gives you a supernatural love for the lost as Yeshua had. Love sensitizes us to the needs of others. Love makes you want to reach out to others. Love makes you forget about yourself and casts out the fear of witnessing or the fear of what others may think (1 John 4–18).

We will have an easy time sharing the gospel of Yeshua with others if we still have the joy of our salvation. If we have lost that joy, pray for it to come back as David prayed in Psalm 51:12–13. Perhaps sin, the cares of this life, fear or other things are blocking that joy.

The New Testament Model for Evangelism

A study of the Testimony of Yeshua (or New Testament) reveals that the dominant model that Yeshua and the apostles followed when witnessing to unbelievers roughly followed the outline below:

1. Present and exalt the Father Elohim.

2. Present sin as the problem. Man has sinned by breaking Elohim’s laws (i.e., the Torah, 1 John 3:4), and has fallen short of the glory man had with Elohim before he fell into sin (Rom 3:23).

3. Man must repent of breaking Elohim’s laws (i.e., rebellion against the commands or Word of Elohim) if he is to have a restored loving relationship with Elohim, and to have salvation and eternal life (i.e., to enter into the kingdom of Elohim).

4. Salvation or redemption from sin’s death penalty is only available through Yeshua the Messiah.

Helpful Pointers on Being an Effective Gospel Witness

• Live it; tell it. Be willing to share your personal testimony of how following the Word of Elohim has blessed you. You may not be a biblical scholar, but you have a testimony of what YHVH has done in your life, so share it. People can argue theology, doctrine or the Bible all day long, but no one can argue with your personal testimony of how knowing Yeshua has changed your life for the better.
• YHVH isn’t looking for capability; he’s looking for availability. You may not think that you’re capable of sharing your faith with others (called witnessing). That’s okay. Just do it in faith, and YHVH’s Spirit will give you the words to speak to others. The more you do it, the bolder and more capable you will become.
• You need the baptism of the Spirit of Elohim for divine empowerment to witness. This follows Yeshua’s instructions to his disciples in Acts 1:4–8 resulting in empowerment on the day of Pentecost with 3000 people being baptized.
• Meet people at their point of need. When you do this, you open the door either to share the gospel with them, or at least to plant a spiritual seed. If they’re hungry, feed them; naked, cloth them; or sick, heal them. If they need someone to talk to, listen to them. Comfort them when they’re hurting. There are a myriad human needs.  Learn to identify them and pray for wisdom to know how to meet those needs.
• Be a spiritual seed planter—a spiritual Johnny Appleseed. Everywhere you go, plant seeds. Trust YHVH to water the seed and to bring someone else to harvest the fruit.
• Pray for opportunities to share the gospel with others. Pray that the Spirit of Elohim will order your steps (Pss 37:4–5, 7, 23–24) and bring divine appointments to you. Then be on the look out for those everyday opportunities as Yeshua did when talking to the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4:15–16) to witness to others. Be opportunistic. Don’t just wait for opportunities to smack you in the face. When being a fisher of men, don’t wait for the fish to come to you; go to the fish. Yeshua commanded us to go into the world, not the world come to us (Mark 16:15). Meet your neighbors. Get involved in community activities. Look for opportunities to minister to people wherever you go.
• When being a sower of seed, don’t wait until you find the perfect ground in which to sow the seed. Scatter it far and wide. The problem isn’t that there is a lack of good ground to sow the seed into, but that the seed never gets out of the barn!
• When witnessing, don’t share too much too quickly. Don’t choke someone on the meat of the Word when they can only handle the milk of the Word (1 Cor 3:1–2). Give a person only what they’re ready for. Listen intently to their heart and need, then pray for the right words that will meet that need, and say little more. Meet those needs with the message of the gospel. Don’t feel compelled to give them the whole Bible message from Genesis to Revelation. Salt their oats by leaving them with some unanswered questions, so they’ll want to come back for more.
• Find areas of common interest with others and on that basis build a common rapport with them, and then use that as a springboard to build a relationship so that you can witness to them. Yeshua did this when talking to the woman at the well in John 4. They both were thirsty for water.
• Share the gospel message with passion and conviction. View yourself as a spiritual salesman. Be earnest and believable. Don’t pretend to have all the answers, but you know who does! Be yourself. Be real. When witnessing, don’t try to be someone you’re not. Hypocrisy and pretense isn’t very believable.
• Be careful about using Christian or biblical terms and lingo that may cause a language barrier that the unsaved may not understand. Define your terms as you’re sharing your faith.
• Slow down. Stop and talk to people. Get to know them. Look for opportunities to plant spiritual seeds. Steer the conversation toward spiritual issues. Troll for the fish, bait the hook carefully and when they bite begin to reel in the fish.
• Develop the natural habit of conversing with strangers and casual acquaintances about the Bible and Yeshua. It may help you to feel comfortable discussing biblical things with people you don’t know well. Use them as a practice for developing your own natural style. This will prepare you for witnessing to total strangers when the opportunities come along.

Practical Things You Can Do to Share the Gospel With Others

• Place bumper stickers or vanity plates on your vehicle that have scripture verses on them.
• On your telephone answering machine or voice mail, greet everyone with a quick gospel-related Bible verse.
• Carry gospel tracts with you and look for opportunities to distribute them. Place them in fun and exciting conspicuous and inconspicuous places in rest rooms, the grocery store, the library, bus stops, rest areas, or restaurants. Place your phone number on the back of the tract. Prepare for action!
• Remember that your actions speak louder than your words. Your life may be the only Bible that some people read! So be careful what you do and how you act. Be a good witness to your neighbors.
• Wear biblical apparel such as hats and tee-shirts with provocative and challenging Bible messages printed on them.
• Place Bible verses on your email tag lines. The Word of Elohim doesn’t return void (Isa 55:11)!
• Print scripture verses on your checks, and hand out business or name cards with scripture verses on them.
• Call or send a letter to a lost friend with the purpose of sharing your testimony or the gospel with them. Find out what their needs and struggles are and then give them a word of encouragement. Pray with them. Maybe even invite them to church. Give them a devotional book or a Bible as a gift. Mark the Bible with the plan of salvation.
• Put a gospel tract in the drive-thru bank teller’s drawer, or in the window of the next fast food restaurant you visit, or give a tract with the money you give to a store clerk.
• Start a Bible study in your home for some friends or neighbors.
• When you meet someone with a biblical name, tell them the meaning of their name and use it as an opportunity to witness to them. For example, one of the most popular boys’ names is Joshua, which comes from the Hebrew name Yeshua meaning “salvation.” Need we say anymore?
• When someone lets you know that they’re struggling with a health issue or a personal problem ask them if you can pray for them on the spot. Almost no one will turn you down. This is an excellent way to open the spiritual door of personal evangelism.
• Start talking about politics or the problems in the world, and when the person agrees that the world is a mess, slip in the Bible, Yeshua, the fear of God, or the gospel message as the answer to the problems of man, and man’s need for spiritual revival. Such an approach can open up some great opportunities for seed planting.
• If you’re retired, or have extra time on your hands, there are a lot of volunteer opportunities where you can engage in outreach. Most of these will cost you only your time and the gas to get there. Nursing homes and rehab centers are a great place to start.
• There is no end to the possibilities of using the power of the internet to spread the gospel. With the advent of the worldwide web, websites, YouTube, and email, the possibilities are endless. Pray for ideas.
• Volunteer at a homeless shelter.
• When talking to people, try tossing out verbal grenades (loaded questions) that might spark a heated discussion subject that can lead to an opportunity to share the gospel. Questions could include, “What is the purpose of life?” “Why were you born—what is your destiny?” “What will happen when you die?” “What do you want your legacy to be when you die?” “What is the greatest problem facing man and how can he solve it?” When asking such questions, timing is important, and fitting the right question to the right audience is essential. Pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you in this.

Other Ways to Support Evangelistic Efforts

• Intercede for the lost through prayer. Give prayer support to those who are actively evangelizing (Ezek 22:30).
• Giving financially to support those who are actively evangelizing.
• Sharing with those who are actively evangelizing. Support them in any way possible.