Do you have this special music within you? Music that is pleasing to God? Read how you, too, can spread this vital kind of music to those around you …

Mark reported in His Gospel account the words of Jesus, “Go into the world and preach the Good News to everyone” (Mk. 16:15 NLT). Evangelism is the spreading of the Good News of Jesus Christ by public preaching or personal witness.

In his book, “Lifestyle Evangelism”, Joseph C. Aldrich says: “Evangelism is expressing what I possess in Christ and explaining how I came to possess it. In the truest sense, evangelism is displaying the universals of God’s character… His love, His righteousness, His justice, and His faithfulness through the particulars of my everyday life. Therefore, evangelism is not a special activity to be undertaken at a prescribed time. It is a constant and spontaneous outflow of our individual and corporate experience of Christ. Even more specifically, evangelism is what Christ does through the activity of His children as they engage in proclamation, fellowship, and service.”

Aldrich points out that evangelistic activities are weakened by what he calls, “The imbalance between the verbalisation and the incarnation of the Gospel.” He says, “Christians are to be Good News before they share the Good News. The words of the Gospel are to be incarnated, fleshed out before they are verbalised. In other words, the music of the Gospel must precede the words of the Gospel to prepare the context in which there will be a hunger for those words.

What is ‘the music of the Gospel’? The music of the Gospel is the beauty of the indwelling Holy Spirit as lived-out in the everyday relationships of life. The Gospel is the Good News that Jesus Christ has solved the problems of mankind’s sin and offers them the potential of an exchanged life; a life in which the resources of God Himself is available for transformation. And as the Gospel is translated into music it makes redemptive relationships possible.

The best argument for Christianity is Christians – their joy, their confidence, their certainty, their completeness. However, the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians – when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and compromising, when they are narrow and repressive… then our Christian witness dies a thousand deaths.

‘Being’ Good News is a prerequisite for dynamic, verbal reporting to those who need to hear about Christ. The potential of what you have to say about Jesus is empowered by who you are in Jesus. If your lifestyle is not as an authentic believer and follower of Jesus Christ, there is no music in you… you have nothing to say. Saint Francis of Assisi is known to have said to his disciples, “Go into the world and make disciples, and, if you have to… you may use words.”

Friends, the ‘music’ of the Gospel is you and me ‘being’ Good News!

A free downloadable copy of “Relational Evangelism” is available here. in the ‘Discipleship’ category our page.

William Joukhadar
September 4, 2024