The topic of witness, unfortunately, often comes with many assumptions, expectations, and pressures. It is rightly a topic of great importance, but perhaps that has robbed us of the joy that comes from sharing the person of Jesus with others. After all,
“Evangelism is simply joining a conversation the Holy Spirit is already having with another person”- (Darrell Johnson)
So how do I know what God is already doing? How can I know what conversations the Holy Spirit is having, and what does it look like for me to be Jesus in that situation?
Importantly, we don’t need to discover what God is doing from scratch. God has already revealed his purposes in Jesus and shown us His Character.
Our task is to learn to recognise how those purposes are being worked out in our lives and the lives of others.
Two complementary ideas can help us explore this:
- Learning to walk with Jesus: We become familiar with God’s voice, character and activity through an ongoing relationship with him, rather than expecting to recognise everything immediately.
- Learning to recognise God’s character: Scripture reveals a God who delights in His people, restores what is broken and makes Himself known. As we understand His character, we become better equipped to recognise His work around us.
In John 10, Jesus describes a relationship built on familiarity, trust and recognising his voice. His sheep follow Him because they know His voice, which begins to shape our understanding. Discernment is not simply a skill we acquire. It develops through a relationship. We continually have to create space and desire to hear Him. This may be an extraordinary moment of clarity where you hear God’s voice or, more often than not, it’s a whisper, glimpse or nudge in the heart towards a person. A thought that comes, or a person you can’t get out of your head and think you should message. What if recognising what God is doing has less to do with looking for extraordinary signs and more to do with becoming familiar with the One we’re following?
If we wait for a road to Damascus moment, we might never experience the gentle discovery of Jesus that the road to Emmaus leads to!
As we walk and learn Jesus’ voice, He reveals the character of the Father and the work the Holy Spirit is doing in people’s lives. As we see His character and desire for others to know Him, we are more attuned to notice what He is already doing. The only place we can start with is with Love.
Love is the motivation of the Father. Love is the message of the Son. Love is the language of the Spirit.
We can become so preoccupied with discovering what God wants us to do that we neglect what he has already said about who we are in Christ. What if part of recognising what God’s already doing is learning to see where his love, welcome and delight are over the person?
We see God’s delight revealed in the person of Jesus from the start; then we see something of His purpose. In Luke 4, Jesus reads from Isaiah 61 and declares that the Scripture is being fulfilled in Him. His ministry demonstrates that announcement through healing, forgiveness, deliverance, hospitality and reconciliation. This gives us a framework for recognising God’s activity: look at what Jesus does, whom He approaches and what He restores. These are the hallmarks of the work of the Spirit; this is where we discover what God is doing. Recognising God’s restorative character should lead us to participate in acts of prayer, reconciliation and practical care. His nature highlights the way He is working in a person’s life.
Let’s look out for Jesus’ footprints along the way as we walk alongside the people we love and as we long to know Jesus. Let’s signpost and draw attention to the ways He is revealing Himself and demonstrating His love for them. God’s heart isn’t simply to recruit us into his mission. He brings us into his love and wants us to join in with others, discovering His love for them, because it helps us discover greater depths of His love. Our witness is as much for our own benefit, in digging deeper into the incomprehensible love of God, as it is for those who come to know Jesus. We discover more of who Jesus is as we seek to reveal Him in the way we love others.
– David
