Ready to Give an Answer

For those of us who desire to share our faith with non-believers, there is a great deal of wisdom in 1 Peter 3:15-16: But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who ask you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

We must first fix our eyes and our hearts of Jesus Christ, the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). Because his shed blood paid our sin debt, we have the assurance of eternal life through faith in Him and we need to be prepared to share this great news with others and not keep it to ourselves. This also means thinking through our beliefs and spending quality time in God's Word to allow our minds to absorb more and more biblical truth; giving us greater ability to answer questions about our faith.

To share our faith with gentleness and respect is to relate how Christ changed you, not how He is going to change them. This approach is much more likely to open up a closed heart than one that points out the sin in others. Scripture promises that we will the criticized for living a Christ-honoring life and we are not to let fear of this stop us from telling our live-saving message. And because others will slander us for sharing our faith, we must focus on our lives and our testimonies to make sure our actions back up our words.