1 Peter 3:9-16
Be prepared to give an answer. We have to know how to preach the gospel to ourselves when we are losing hope and discouraged first before we know how to give an answer to anyone else. If we cannot remind ourselves and preach life to ourselves, how are we to do it beneath the judgmental glare of others? We must remind ourselves what God has done in our past, and that fuels our confidence in him in the present and for the future and prepares our testimony when people ask. God wants us to be a people marked by his faithfulness. Being able to tell people who God is and what He has done is the most efficient way to share the gospel (The reason for our hope).
I think we need to meet people where they are not where we want them to be. If someone asked me what is the reason for my hope I would first say, I have no hope because of sin, without God. He is my hope. I am a child of wrath I am doomed to spend eternity in hell separated from life and goodness and love, peace and God. Until we recognize we are hopeless we will never see the reason or need for hope. But because of Jesus, the son of God, the love of God, the lamb of God came down from heaven, took my flesh, my place on the cross, my sin, and my place in the grave, so I could have what belongs to him, eternal life perfect righteousness and a home in heaven. I am forgiven because he forgives me, I am alive because he gives me breath, I am saved because he saves me, I am loved because he loves me, I have hope because he is living hope. While not everything in my life is perfect, I am perfectly loved which makes his love all the more incredible because I am not worthy of it. And that is the reason I have hope in the darkness, in the hard messes, in the regret and pain and shame. I have hope. Because I don’t rely on my own self with all my failures and short comings, I rely on God’s grace, mercy and victories. Jesus brings us to God because he, the righteous, took the place of the unrighteous and now we can appear before the throne of God. So I guess a shortened version of the reason for my hope, “Jesus!”
The best way to know what to say is to spend time with others who value the Christian faith and Christ as much as we do so we can learn from one another, read scripture daily, meditate on it, memorize it and pursue the cross when we sin.
If we don’t have a good understanding of the cross, we cannot explain it simply and easily. If we cannot explain it easily it become difficult to share our testimony and reason for our hope. I don’t think its biblical to spend our lives running from adversity. The saving message of hope is not that we can avoid every hardship but embrace it joyfully. How we handle it will be one of our loudest testimony’s. Bethe Moore said one time, “people aren’t looking for you to have it all together, they are looking to see what you do when you don’t”
“What do you think about faith, are you religious can I pray for you? What is your experience with religion and God?” These are good questions to begin with they let someone else talk and share without heaping something on them they cannot digest. Find out who they are and what they need or want before making an assumption that you have the perfect answer or gospel for them. Be considerate and kind, lead with grace. And if you can’t explain what is the reason for your hope, just smile and say, “Jesus” We don’t have to prove anything to anyone , we just have to share what we believe and God does the rest. this is the life marked by his faithfulness, one which points to his faithfulness.
my faith place 