Share Christ. Dave Nodar

that your desire to share Christ with others will increase and transform your life as you have the privilege of sharing the love of God revealed in Jesus with others.

      There is nothing like seeing the lives of others change from the inside out. It is a result of the divine power of the good news of God’s love. It will change you as you have opportunities to share Christ with others. Wait until you see what he has in store for you!

       Gather friends

      Evangelizing others is hard work without the support and prayer of other brothers and sisters in Christ. Consider gathering together a small group in your home or parish to read through the book together. Discuss each chapter using the questions provided in the Study Guide at the conclusion of this book. Hold one another accountable to the Step into Mission activities.

       Share your experience

      As the Lord uses you to share himself with others, don’t be afraid to share your experience with brothers and sisters in Christ who are also striving to do the work of evangelization. Feel free to tell ChristLife about the opportunities the Holy Spirit provides for you to share Christ with others. Together we can build the kingdom of God on earth!

      Your brother in Christ,

      Dave Nodar

       Connect to Christlife

      Access additional resources to help you get the most out of this book. Visit: christlife.org/sharechrist.

       Chapter 1

      Why We Share Christ with Others

       Dave Nodar

      Let me begin by asking you a question: What does God most want to communicate to all of humanity?

      Think about it for a moment and consider what your answer might be.

      Some time ago, an American football quarterback, Tim Tebow, became well known as a Christian because of his willingness to share his faith in Christ through the witness of his life and his missionary work with children. He used his platform as an outstanding football player to witness in small ways. For instance, he would kneel in the end zone and pray for a moment after scoring a touchdown. At each game, both college and pro, he would write “John 3:16” in white on his eye black (the black grease players put under their eyes). What happened during one major playoff game was extraordinary. Tim Tebow led the Denver Broncos to a totally unexpected win. More interesting was that many of his statistics ended up using the sequence of numbers 3, 1, and 6. Tebow passed for a career high of 316 yards. His yards per completion were 31.6. His yards per carry were 3.16! The fact that John 3:16 was seen on his face by those watching the game and the coincidence of so many stats using the numbers 316 was not lost on the television or social media commentators. The next morning, millions of people searched for John 3:16, making it the top internet search.

      Tebow has encouraged everyone to use whatever position of influence they have to communicate their faith in Christ. He witnesses to Christ by his lifestyle and willingness to share his faith unashamedly in straightforward, simple ways. His use of the eye grease with John 3:16 provoked curiosity among millions of people who then searched for what John 3:16 meant. Who knows what the fruit of that action will be?

       Three Essential Truths

      Back to the question: What is it that God wants to communicate to all people? The following verse from the Gospel of John summarizes the essence of what God wants every person to know:

      For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (Jn 3:16)

      Let’s look at three essential truths communicated in this verse.

       For God so loved the world …

      The first truth: God loves you and me and every human being. This is the good news — amazing and potentially life-changing news. God loves you! The entire Bible, from beginning to end, essentially cries out, “God loves you!” If this is true, how does God communicate this love to the world? How can we come to know his love? I mean, really know his love? God reveals his love by giving us Jesus, his only begotten Son.

      If you want to know what the love of God the Father is like, look at the Son. Jesus is the perfect reflection of the Father. Jesus tells us, “I and the Father are one” (Jn 10:30). To know what God the Father’s love is like, find out what Jesus is like.

      Reading the Gospels for the first time as a young man had a tremendous impact on me. Seeing the people Jesus associated with astounded me. Jesus was happy to hang out with anyone who was open to him. He reached out to the poor and to the wealthy: blind Bartimaeus the beggar (Mk 10:46) and Zacchaeus the wealthy tax collector (Lk 19:2). He reached out to people who weren’t religious and who were living in serious sin: the Samaritan woman, who had been married several times and was living yet with another man (Jn 4:7–18). He also reached out to the religious: Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin (Jn 3:1). Nobody was excluded from the invitation to come to God the Father through the love Jesus offered to all.

      As I read these accounts in the Gospels, I was deeply moved and realized there was hope for me. The Gospels tell us Jesus received sinners (Lk 15:2). Everything that Jesus said and did revealed that no one is outside the reach of God’s love. I began to see that God wanted me to come to him through Jesus, whom he had sent.

       … that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish …

      The second truth: Jesus came so that we would not perish. What does it mean to perish? Perishing means being separated from God. The “perishing” this verse is referring to is eternal separation from God — hell. The teaching of Jesus in the Gospels is very clear: both heaven and hell exist.

      Who is in danger of perishing? Those who do not believe in Jesus. Because God loves us, he created us with free will. We can choose to live our lives saying, “I will live my way! I’ll do whatever I please. I’m not interested in this stuff about Christ, I don’t believe it.” Or we can choose to say, aided by God’s grace, “Lord Jesus, I believe.”

      As C. S. Lewis famously said, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Your will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Your will be done.’”⁵

      … but have eternal life.

      The third truth: God’s ardent desire is for all to be saved. As Saint Paul tells us in Scripture, “[God] desires all to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4). God loves us so much that he sent Jesus on a search and rescue mission to do for us something that we could not do for ourselves. Even more than a parent who longs for the well-being of his or her child, God the Father longs for all to be saved through what Christ has done.

      He offers us this free gift of his salvation through Jesus Christ, who died for the forgiveness of our sins and was raised to give us the power to live a new life through faith and Baptism. But it calls for a personal response. Each of us needs to say yes to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

       Communicating the Good News

      How does God plan to communicate this Good News now? The simple answer is: God wants to use each one of us. How do we know? Through Scripture, Church teaching, and the desire of our hearts.

       Scripture

      Before Jesus ascended to the Father, he said to his disciples: “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (Jn 20:21). In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said, “Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to all of the creation” (Mk 16:15). Saint Matthew tells us that Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth had been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all