Stop Letting People Like Jesus
Written by Jacob Hussain, Students Intern
As some of our students gathered for a drink after the 6.30 service last Sunday, the conversation turned to how we reach our friends with the good news of Jesus. As we enter a season of student evangelism with the CU events weeks, our intern Jacob has spent some time reflecting on how we move people from ‘liking’ Christ to loving him.
The biggest challenge to evangelism nowadays is people ‘liking’ Christ. Christ is quite a popular figure – He taught a message of love and peace, He stood against injustice, He cared for the outcast and the unpopular. There is a lot about Him that resonates with young people today (particularly how He stood against religious leaders and, it seems, their rules and regulations). Christ is a Nobel Peace Prize winner of history, alongside other activists such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Gandhi. People like Christ, and that seems like enough to them.
The challenge, the mountain to climb, is how to get people from a good place of liking Christ, to a crucial point of loving Christ. And this love is more than just a strong liking for Him – it’s a genuine, real relationship, like the love you can have for a parent, or a close friend. If, as many believe, Christ was just a man who taught beautiful things and then died, then being in a loving relationship with Him is about as possible as spending an afternoon playing golf with Einstein – it sounds nice, but if someone told you they did that last Saturday, you’d suggest they go see a doctor.
So, that’s the first step: helping people see that relationship with Christ is possible. Saying ‘Christ is with me’ is more than just a warm mentality to get us through the day, and it’s completely detached from mere hallucination – it’s a genuine admission that the God who became man and made His dwelling among us did, in fact, not stay dead, but rose to life again, and that by His Spirit in us He is present in every moment of our lives. But how do we actually help people see that this is the reality of things?
This is where the fruits of the Spirit come in, and is the second step to evangelism. If we are really in relationship with Christ, then that relationship will change us in huge and inexplicable ways. Scripture tells us that the Spirit works to make us look more and more like Christ as we grow deeper and deeper in love with God. When we live lives that look like God, and we make it clear that this isn’t the result of that ‘Five Ways to Live Well’ book we read the other year, people start to realise that there is something about this whole Christian-living thing. The fruits of the Spirit are radical ways of being in today’s world, and stand against every way the world expects us to deal with life. Many won’t understand it, many won’t even like it, but very few will be able to explain it. I mean, how do you explain away someone who relentlessly chooses to love their enemies when even they don’t know why they’re doing it? Maybe they’re just a bit weird, but…if overflowing with love is a bit weird, who wouldn’t want to be weird?
Evangelism is more than just telling someone the truth – it’s living it out. When people see that your faith affects every single part of who you are and what you do, from the way you speak to the very core of who you are, it becomes clear that this is more than just the belief that pineapple should or shouldn’t belong on pizza (it definitely should, by the way). This is being in love with God Almighty, and recognising that He is deeply and wholly in love with you. He is all in, and He is so invested in you that He wants to transform you from that sinner who was unworthy of His affection into someone who looks like Christ Himself. The best testament to the Gospel one can preach is a life well-lived in communion with God.
So, fall in love with God more and more each day, knowing that He is and will continue to be at work in you. Be the Gospel on legs, and trust that you are being made to look like Christ – then people will realise that liking Christ is all well and good, but it is so much more lovely and worthwhile being in love with Him.