Be prepared to share the gospel.

There are three essential things that you must do in order to get
equipped for sharing the Good News.

1. Prepare Your Mind. Apply yourself to studying Gods Word, along with reading other
helpful resources that will sharpen your mind and understanding (see 2 Timothy 2:15). You have
already started though the daily devotional teachings you receive each day!

2. Prepare Your Heart. Ask God to give you a heart of compassion for the lost and an earnest
desire for their salvation (see 2 Peter 3:9). Ask Him to stir up an urgent fervency to see the lost
lovingly called into a relationship with Christ (see Colossians 1:10).

3. Prepare the Way. You have to pray! Ask God to give you boldness to engage with every
person whom He leads you to. Ask Him to grant you wisdom so that you can minister to their
specific needs. Pray that you will be a prepared messenger speaking to prepared hearts.

1. Ask God to open the door for you to share the Gospel today (Colossians 4:3.)

2. Start the conversation by asking questions and listening well (James 1:19.)

3. Turn the conversation toward spiritual things in a natural way (John 4:9,10.)

4. Resist the urge to argue (2 Timothy 2:23-26.)

5. Share with them the areas you admire about their belief system (Acts 17:22-23.)

6. Admit that you are a sinner who desperately needs a Savior (1 Timothy 1:15.)

7. Share the story of your journey to Jesus (Acts 26:4-18.)

8. Explain the whole story of the Gospel using clear and simple terms (Colossians 4:4.)

9. Give them an opportunity to put their faith in Jesus right then (Acts 26:19-29.)

10. Love those who say "no" and disciple those who say "yes" (Acts 19:8-10.)

How do you present the gospel properly?

by Matt Slick
6/22/09

There are a lot of Christians who present a false gospel in their evangelism. They don't do this
on purpose, but they do it nonetheless. Let me give you some examples of bad presentations of
the gospel message and then we will go through the right way to do it. You might hear
something like . . .

"God loves you and if you give your life to Jesus, you will go to heaven."
or
"If you ask Jesus into your heart, you will become a Christian. Just ask Him to be your Savior."
or
"Jesus loves you so much that if you trust in Him, He will save you."

Christians with good intentions often repeat these watered-down, insufficient presentations of the
gospel so that when a person "asks Jesus into his heart," there is a strong risk of not receiving
Christ properly. This is dangerous because it has the potential of inoculating someone from truly
finding Christ in the future.

Let me illustrate this by looking at another presentation that is obviously wrong. Consider this
misrepresentation of the gospel message: "If you ask Jesus into your heart, your life will get
better." Okay, so this is obviously bad, but I want to focus on why it is bad. First, you don't
receive Jesus so that your life will get better. You receive Jesus as a sacrifice for your sins so
that you might be saved from the righteous judgment of God. Second, being a Christian doesn't
mean your life gets better. Sometimes it can get worse when you start living for Him and your
friends and family abandon you. Third, once the person has "tried Jesus" and his life failed to
improve as promised, then he gives up on Christianity and is effectively inoculated from ever
receiving Jesus again--even if someone presents the gospel properly.

I hope you can see that presenting the truth is extremely important. We do not want to offer a
misrepresentation of the gospel to people. At this point, you might ask . . .

So, what is a true presentation of the gospel?

A true presentation of the gospel includes God, Law, and Gospel. It is basically like this:

God is holy and perfect and He requires holiness and perfection from us. Holiness is the
inability to sin. It means moral perfection and it is something that God alone
possesses. Holiness is an attribute of God's perfect nature. Therefore, since there is no one
greater than God, and God is the greatest good, God is necessarily the standard of what is good.

The Law is a reflection of the character of God. The reason it is wrong to lie, cheat, and steal,
etc., is because God cannot do these things. Because He is holy, He is incapable of lying,
cheating, etc. Therefore, the Law becomes the standard of righteousness. But we are incapable
of keeping the Law because we are not holy. We are sinners. Once this is said, you must ask the
person if he has ever sinned. You might want to explain that sin is breaking the Law of
God. You ask the person if he has ever lied, cheated, stolen, or been angry unrighteously,
etc. He will answer "yes" to one or all of these, and that is when you tell him that he has broken
God's Law and is a sinner. Furthermore, there is no law that has no punishment. A law without
punishment is a slogan. The punishment for breaking God's Law is eternal damnation.
The Gospel is the good news that the judgment of God upon the person who has broken God's
Law can be removed in the person of Jesus. This is done because Jesus, who is God the Son in
flesh, was able to perfectly live the Law and offer a sacrifice to God the Father. His sacrifice is
the death on the cross, which was the payment for the penalty of breaking the Law of God. He
died there and three days later physically rose from the dead as proof that His words, deeds, and
sacrifice were true. Therefore, if anyone wants to escape the righteous judgment of God, he
must receive the sacrifice that Christ made on the cross. This is done by faith, by asking Jesus to
forgive you of your sins.

Okay, so that is an expanded version of the true presentation of the gospel message. Notice that
there are three elements: God, Law, Gospel.

I would like to note that there are a lot of people who present the salvation message in two parts,
Law and Gospel. This is fine because they talk about the Law of God and mention God in the
presentation of the Law.

A condensed version might be . . .

Of course, it is not necessary for you to offer such a fully-detailed presentation of the gospel,
but you need to sufficiently understand the basics that underlie the salvation message so you can
adapt your message appropriately. The basics of the gospel message might be presented like
this:

God is perfect and holy and He requires nothing less than His own perfection. But, we are not
able to attain His holiness. He doesn't lie, cheat, or steal, but we do these things. Therefore,
there's a judgment upon us because we have broken the Law of God, we have sinned by lying
and cheating and stealing. This judgment is eternal damnation. However, God the Father loves
us so much that He sent God the Son, Jesus, who died on the cross as a sacrifice to pay the
penalty for our sins. He died on the cross and physically rose from the dead three days
later. This proves that His sacrifice was acceptable to the Father. Therefore, if you want to
receive what Jesus has done to remove the wrath of God the Father, then you must receive Him
and His sacrifice by faith. Would you like to pray and ask Jesus to forgive your sins against
God?