Somebody commented recently on Solas’s ministry saying, “You’re always talking about how to share the gospel, but why should we share it?” The thought behind the question seemed to be that faith in Christ might be personally rewarding, but that it’s essentially a private thing. So why don’t we just keep it to ourselves?
The first answer to that excellent question comes from 2 Corinthians chapter 5, where Paul says,
14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again
The Apostle Paul was compelled by Christ’s love because he was overwhelmed with what Jesus had done for him, dying on the cross. When he wrote “one died for all” he was specifically referencing the cross of Jesus. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son in the defining act of love in all history.
And if Christ really has died for us, then we should be compelled, first of all, by love for him, to offer our lives back in mission and service because we love him. But secondly, that love should overflow through us to people that have not yet encountered it. Our motivation for mission, the reason we take the gospel out, should be this first of all: “it’s the love of Christ that compels us.”
If a church has no desire to share Christ with the world it raises serious questions about whether that church community loves Christ and has been transformed by the message of the cross. The same is true for us as individual Christians. Perhaps if our passion to reach the lost has grown a little cold of late, then the place for us to start is not with an evangelistic strategy, but to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us with the love of Christ afresh. Meditating on the cross of Christ – until are hearts are stirred again by the love of Christ for this lost world – is the place where true mission begins.
Prayer: Lord, please make me so aware of Christ’s love – which took him to the cross for me – that sharing the gospel is never a duty, but an overwhelming compulsion to respond to his great love. Amen.
