Have you ever doubted your ability to be an effective witness for Christ? I’ll admit, I have. Why is it that the Great Commission, Jesus’ call for His followers to take the gospel to the entire world, often feels impossible for us to practice even with that friend sitting next to us? I believe one reason is because we’ve been lied to. Satan has worked tirelessly to get us to believe misconceptions about ourselves and about God’s expectations, and these misconceptions (or lies) have worked together to grow a fear of witnessing in our hearts.
I want to share five misconceptions about sharing the gospel that we as believers need to toss in the trash. If you find that you’ve struggled with any of these ideas, my heart is not to discourage or shame you. However, I encourage you to pray about these issues with an open heart. Take them to God and ask Him to give you His perspective instead. God desires you to be fully equipped to boldly take the message of grace and truth to those who need to hear it. I sincerely pray that this helps.
Misconception #1: You have to be good at it
Have you ever compared yourself to another believer, wishing you had the talents, personality, or experience they had? I believe this is one of the most common lies we face as God’s witnesses: I’m just not any good at this. Thankfully, God’s perspective releases us from this weight, giving us freedom to be witnesses inside the framework of how we were created. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:26-27:
“For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.”
You might not think you have a charismatic enough personality to be a witness, but God can use you whether you’re the most shy introvert or the most outspoken extrovert.
In fact, the very aspect of your personality that you consider a weakness, God wants to use. God not only wants to use you the way He made you, it was His plan all along.
I just think about Jesus choosing Peter. As I read through the gospels, I often think, Jesus, just forget about that Peter guy. He’s headstrong, over-zealous, rash, and just plain awkward. He’s no good. But then I get to Acts, and I read about Peter standing up before the crowds at Pentecost and leading 3,000 to Christ in one day. Peter is a perfect example of God using the foolish things to shame the wise.
Another reason I know God can use you is because He can use me. I’m not the naturally social type. I’ve murmured God bless you to a homeless person, quickly walked away, and then felt like I just managed to one-up Billy Graham. When it comes to interacting with people I’m not close to, I’m unqualified. So, why would God choose to lead me into a profession where I have to be in front of people? For the same reason He chose Peter. For the same reason He chose you. Look at what 1 Corinthians 1 goes on to say in verse 29:
“so that no man may boast before God.”
God chooses to use people who are unqualified because He wants to show off His strength—to prove that it is not us doing the work but rather Him working through us.
You may get nervous. You may fail at times—I have. That’s okay. No matter where your ability falls short, God will come through. We must be willing to trust Him that this is something He is actually going to do through us when we decide to step out in faith. At the end of the day, when you choose to let God use you, the results are thankfully not up to you. They are up to Him. Be free from the lie that says you’re not good at sharing the gospel. God can use even your weaknesses to his advantage. He will be there working through you.
Misconception #2: Everything in your own life has to be together
Some of us are hampered in our ability to be effective witnesses because we feel like we have to wait until we feel spiritually mature before we can share our faith. The truth is that you don’t have to be perfect in order to be a Christian. Paul makes this clear in Galatians 3:3 when he says:
“Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
The truth of God’s grace through faith is a spiritual truth that is first revealed to us by the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:6-15). The Spirit points us to the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. In order to accept God’s grace, we have to admit that God did something for us that we could never do for ourselves. Paul is asking us, why then do we get so caught up with our own performance? After being saved for a little while, it’s easy to let mistakes depress us—slow us down and cripple us. But God still has grace for us when we make mistakes—the gospel still works—it still offers us forgiveness and freedom.
When we get too caught up with “how well we’re doing” in our Christian walk, we quickly doubt whether God could actually use us to share the gospel with others. Why would God use me when there are better, holier Christians out there? On top of that, we also fear that those we are witnessing to will see through our facade—that they will call us out on our imperfections. It’s almost like we think we can convince them to accept the truth through our actions.
There’s good news: you don’t have to be perfect to be a witness, and you don’t have to appear perfect either.
In fact, it’s better if you don’t. You can use the changes that God has made in your life as a testimony of His saving grace, but you can also be honest about the changes that God is still making. Philippians 1:6 encourages us in this matter when it says:
“For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
Yes, God did a saving work in your life when you repented and believed in Jesus. However, He’s still doing a work—you’re not done yet. I’m not making an excuse for sin. I’m simply saying: don’t underestimate the power of God’s grace. Don’t let your current struggle pull you out of the running.
“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”
Romans 8:33-34
Do you know that Jesus presented Himself before God as the perfect sacrifice for your sins? He fought your case in the courts of heaven. He defended you against the condemning claims of the enemy (see Hebrews 9:12 and Romans 3:23). He still defends you. What’s amazing is that your justification is not based on your actions, but instead on the blood of Christ.
Sanctification is the process of being made holy—being made in the likeness of Christ through the Holy Spirit. No matter how spiritually mature you are, sanctification is an ongoing process. We get to be complete in our identity, but none of us are complete in our transformation this side of heaven. When we are pressured to show off our righteous acts, we’re pretending like we’ve arrived. It’s as if we’re saying we no longer need grace. But no matter who you are, you still need it. I still need it.
Let God take the pressure off of you. Your “perfection” isn’t what draws people to the gospel. Don’t get me wrong. The transforming work in your life can—and should—act as a testimony of the power of God’s grace. However, your life story can’t draw people to accept the gospel all by itself. I’ll talk a little more about this in misconception #4.
Even if you feel like you’ve got a long way to go, you can be a witness today. I would bet that the person who first witnessed to you was far from perfect. Thankfully, God has the power to save people despite our imperfections.
Misconception #3: The only way to get someone saved is to invite them to church
Asking people to church is a great witnessing tool, but we need to understand that it is not the only way to witness. I want to present two main reasons why we as the body of Christ need to look past this misconception.
1. There are some people who may never agree to attend church.
You can keep asking and asking, but some people may never agree to attend church. You may have a greater opportunity to witness personally to someone you spend time with than to rely on a pastor to someday share the gospel with them at the end of a powerful sermon. I’ve heard pastors say “if you just keep asking, they will eventually say yes.” That may be mostly true, but sometimes you don’t have time to keep asking. People aren’t guaranteed tomorrow. I believe if we’re listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit, we’ll know when its the right time to invite someone to church, and we’ll know when we’re supposed to speak up and share the gospel personally instead. If you don’t know where to start, pray and ask God to present you with opportunities. This isn’t a task that you have to tackle alone.
God wants to walk right next to you, giving you the wisdom and courage you need to speak the truth in love.
Does that mean we should never invite people to church? Not at all. It’s often a good place to start. If you have a hard time bringing up the subject, one good way is by simply asking, “where do you go to church?” I’m not saying we should never invite people, but I am saying that we need to be open to the Holy Spirit using us in other ways too.
2. Some people have grown callous toward truth after years of placid attendance.
Yes, I’m talking about witnessing to someone who is already in church and has already attended for a while—perhaps their whole life. I’m going to spend a little more time on this point because of my personal experience with it.
I had a friend that I attended school with who, for a while, I believed to be a Christian. He attended church, he sang songs, he would pray out loud in small groups, and he never said anything against God or God’s Word. So, it seemed obvious that he must be a believer, but as I began to know him on a more personal level, he informed me that it was not the case. He had attended church his whole life, but it was probably only out of respect for his family. In reality, he didn’t know what he believed and he just accepted the gospel as being nothing more than a concept religious people talk about.
I was disappointed to learn that my friend did not consider Jesus his Lord, and that he even doubted the existence of God. Despite this, I continued to be a friend to him in any way that I could. I remembered when I was just as lost as he was and godly people chose to love me.
There were other influences in his life who were certainly not following Christ, but he rarely hung out with me and them at the same time because he knew that I held different beliefs. At times, I attempted to talk to my friend about Christ, but he never seemed very attentive. It’s as if he had become a professional at ignoring the truth.
One day something happened that changed his perspective. My friend was arrested for some serious illegal activity, and he was suddenly facing several major life consequences because of his actions. Soon afterward, he came to me and told me what had happened. He let me know that he was opening up to me because he respected me and he needed some advice. He said that he felt as if his life were falling apart. I thought about all the practical wisdom I could share, and then one single thing moved to the forefront. I said, “You need Jesus.” I was able to talk openly with him about a time when I felt like my own life was falling apart and how the only person who was able to do anything about it was Jesus Christ. I got the chance to share about the power of God at work in my own life through the Holy Spirit, and how he could experience that in his life as well.
It was the first time that I was able to get through. Instead of brushing it off like normal, he attentively listened. Some people don’t need another friend to ask them to church. Some people need a friend to simply speak the truth to them in love.
Misconception #4: You have to make the gospel sound good
Have you ever felt ashamed or embarrassed by the idea of sharing the gospel with someone? If it helps, I’ll be the one to raise my hand first, because I’m not perfect. This embarrassment can come from several places, but one of the main reasons for it is that we are afraid that they won’t like what they hear. We’re afraid that they may reject us because of our beliefs. The natural thing to do is to try to craft our words in such a way that the gospel sounds appealing, maybe not so harsh. This may be the most dangerous misconception of all, because when we change the main points of the gospel, we lose it’s power. Paul addresses this issue in Romans 1:16a. He makes the bold statement:
“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”
I don’t want you to miss the key phrase in this verse. He calls the gospel “the power of God for salvation.” That means that, when we witness to someone, we aren’t just speaking words.
We are literally becoming a conduit of God’s power—we’re presenting someone with a spiritual truth that has the ability to alter their eternity.
The flip side is this: when we present a version of the gospel that leaves out some of the truth of the gospel (even the parts of it we know people won’t like), we offer them something that cannot save.
Sometimes we attempt to make the gospel sound better simply because we so desperately want someone to get it. That’s not a bad motive, but it’s also not a responsibility we can take into our hands. Apart from the Spirit of God revealing the truth of the gospel to an individual, it’s impossible for them to receive it. The reason the watered-down gospel “works” is because it appeals to a person’s fleshly nature, not to their spirit. Sadly, if someone accepts the gospel because it sounds good to their flesh, then they really haven’t gotten it at all.
“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.”
John 6:44a
Saving people is God’s job. Our job is to be His witnesses. We will see the power of the gospel at work when we choose to believe it is powerful exactly the way God originally presented it. It may seem like foolishness to the world (it may seem like foolishness to our intellectual side at times), but it’s a fleshly foolishness and a spiritual wisdom that God can use to change peoples lives—to change people’s eternity.
Misconception #5: You’ve been an ineffective witness thus far
Some ministers are all about numbers; they measure the impact of their church by how many people show up each week. I do not disagree that numbers are a great way to measure growth, and I even think it’s okay to count how many people you have led to the Lord. However, numbers are not everything. If one church had five thousand in regular attendance but never managed to actually speak the true gospel to any of those people, it would be worse off than a church of twenty believers who were growing spiritually and actively seeking the Lord. What I’m saying is that following Jesus is more important than impressing people, and if you measure the success of your Christian walk purely by numbers then you need to re-evaluate your direction. This is the question that I want you to answer: Am I being led by the Lord on a day-to-day basis?
Think about Moses for a minute. God let him tend sheep in the wilderness for four decades before calling Him to lead the people of Israel to freedom. God could have shown up at any point and told Him to go, but He waited 40 years. Why? I believe it’s because God was using that time to prepare Moses—to transform Him—before leading Him into the major part of His calling. Think about Jesus too. How many people had Jesus saved by the time He was 30 years old? According to what we know from the Bible, maybe none. What Jesus was doing though, was that He was seeking God with His whole heart. He was listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit and allowing God to prepare Him for ministry.
Have you ever compared your impact to that of an evangelist? Have you ever asked the question, why do they get to have a job where they are able to bring lost people to Christ almost every week? Or have you ever compared yourself to a pastor? I think many people believe that the highest form of spirituality is to become a pastor—but God certainly has not called every believer to preach. If He did, He would not have given us all different types of gifts. When you start comparing yourself, it can sometimes make you feel like giving up. It’s the numbers that I believe cause the discouragement in this case. In fact, one of the most disheartening things as a believer can be to admit that we’ve never led anyone to the Lord. If you look at your track record and all you see is a huge old zero, I want to show you an encouraging verse where Jesus addresses this issue. In John 4:36-37, He says:
“Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ ”
Jesus is speaking to His disciples, and right before this verse He explains that the fields are white for harvest. What He means is that it’s time to do some reaping, and His disciples are being given the task of winning souls. Though leading people to Christ is a rewarding part of the process, look at what Jesus says about those who came before. After the reaping has taken place, those who reaped and those who sowed get to rejoice together. The rejoicing doesn’t happen until the reaping takes place (the angels in heaven celebrate every time a lost man or woman repents), but once the rejoicing takes places everyone gets to join in—even those people who simply sowed a seed years ago. If you’re getting discouraged about the number of people that have accepted Christ because of your witness, please don’t forget about the seeds you have sown. I believe that we need to be grateful when God uses us to sow into other people’s lives, because you never know when that seed is going to grow into fruit for eternal life.
When we believe that God can use us in the little things (like sowing seeds), then it’s easier to believe that God can use us in the big things.
Jesus goes on to say in verse 38:
“I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”
Jesus is saying that those who were reaping were not the only ones working. That means that the reapers cannot rightly take credit for all the work, because the field would never be ready for harvest if someone had not first planted the seeds. In the end, neither those who sow or those who reap can take the credit, but God is the one who saves. Paul confirms this in 1 Corinthians 3:7 when He says:
“So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.”
This verse changed my life. For a long time, I felt ashamed that I had never gotten anyone saved. I finally realized that I can’t save anyone. Only God can. It wasn’t until I admitted this that I was able to put my hand to the plow and simply plants seeds out of joy—trusting that God was going to do something. I’ll never forget the first time I got to see someone respond in faith to the message of the gospel as God gave me the courage to share. I always thought, when I finally got someone saved, that I would have something to boast about. Thankfully, as they let me know that they repented and prayed to receive Jesus as their Savior, the weight fell off my shoulders. I hadn’t saved anyone. God had. He was going to keep saving people too. All He was asking of me was to remain faithful—to continue responding to His love in faith.
Ultimately, God (through the redemptive work of Christ on the cross) is the only One who can bring salvation into the life of someone who is lost. So why do we allow numbers to discourage us? If you are walking with Jesus and listening to the Holy Spirit, He is going to use you to accomplish His kingdom work. Walking with Him is not a waste of time—even if you feel like you haven’t gotten much done yet. It’s up to you to be faithful in seeking Him, in allowing yourself to be discipled, and in stepping out in faith, and God does the hard part. He will bring you to a place where He can use you as a witness and as an individual who is willing and able to disciple others. Let me leave you with this encouragement from Galatians 6:9:
“Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”
