Not Far From the Kingdom of God

Doing the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5) does not always mean preaching a sermon, knocking on doors, standing on a street corner, or following a memorized series of Scriptures. There is nothing wrong with learning a series of verses, such as The Romans Road or The Wordless Book; I find those to be very useful tools for the good news of Jesus and confidence builders for the evangelist, but also I believe we should be willing to present the good news like Philip (Acts 8:26-35), beginning from place the person we are conversing with would like to begin.

Everyone is at different Spiritual Waypoints along their life journey. Recently, I was speaking to two people who were at Waypoint 15 – Awareness of a Supreme Being. When asked what they though being a Christian was, one of them answered from his cultural values, essentially saying that being a Christian is being a person that respects other people. While I would not call that “the core of the good news of Jesus,” the Holy Spirit led my mind to Mark 12:34. When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” I told my friend the same thing, and that story is where I began to share. Here was my progression:

What God wants is for us to love him and love each other (Mark 12:28-34).
We know and God knows that we do not always love each other, and if we cannot love people we know, how can we love a God we do not know (1 John 4:20).
So I do not trust in my own ability to keep even those two commands that God requires (Ephesians 2:8-9).
Instead I trust in Jesus’ ability to keep the commands and his sacrifice for me (2 Corinthians 5:21, Philippians 3:9-11).

It was just a conversation, that hopefully moved them to Waypoint 14 – Initial Awareness of the Good News.

How have you presented the Good News of Jesus?