No Apologies: Day 1

But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

I Peter 3:15, 16

I am fascinated by people with the gift of evangelism and their fearless confidence in sharing their faith. They seem to glow with an inner fire as they proclaim the truths of Christ. They can take any situation and turn it into a witnessing opportunity: they go out for a day of golf and come back with three professions of faith and two follow-up luncheons on their next week’s calendar.

But for those of us whose gift is not evangelism, the warning label generally reads: “Don’t try this at home.” That is why God graciously provided I Peter 3:15, 16 as a tutorial on how to share our faith. It is everything we need to know and nothing we can’t apply.

I believe the key to the passage is “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord.” It sets our tone and grounds our priorities because it reminds us that salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit. What we want for another, even when it comes from the best of intentions, hopes or dreams, we have no power to impose. God planned it that way and intended it for the purpose of throwing us back into His arms where we can only rest in His timing and trust in His wisdom and His love.    

Anything I offer here comes from the “one finger pointing at you, three pointing back at me” perspective. My track record is full of missed opportunities on one hand, and feeling that the whole responsibility for another’s eternal destiny depends on my powers of persuasion. (And that is just wrong!)

I am encouraged by two things: even negative examples can be good teachers and God uses human failure to glorify Himself. Something you or I may have said that didn’t seem to go anywhere, as far as we could tell, may be used by the Holy Spirit to open a mind or soften a hardened heart.

As this passage reminds us, we have a responsibility to do our thought-out, prayed up, God-centered best … and leave the results to Him.

Nancy Shirah