How do you witness?

I recently heard a comment made by a Christian woman to an unbelieving man. She verbally knocked him over the head for his wayward beliefs, then proceeded to tell him he was going to be judged by what he did with God's offer of salvation, and going to hell if he rejected it. She left him with an open invitation to talk with her more if he had questions.

...All true, technically. But she omitted some very key points.

Namely, the love of God. We are not called to merely speak the truth - we are called to speak the truth in love. With care for the other person as the purpose for speaking it. If you guessed that this man took offense, proceeded to argue and never took the woman up on her offer, you probably guessed right.

(Let me interject for a moment here that I do not condone the "all you need is love gospel" mentality. That  version appallingly rushes past or altogether leaves out conviction of sin and repentance, and is one that has spread like an epidemic.)

The gospel means, literally, "the good news." There should be at least something positive about it. When we present it in a completely condemning, take-it-or-leave-it way, we cross over from caring about people's souls, to caring about being right and feeling good about ourselves (even "holier-than-thou").

My dad says, "The Holy Spirit is a gentleman."
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock," says Jesus. 

He doesn't crawl through a window,walk through the wall, or kick in the door - though he is perfectly capable of doing so. It is a wooing process. The unsaved are to be convicted of their own ugly sin when they see it in the light of his holiness, overcome by his unconditional love, filled with thankfulness for what he has done for rebellious and undeserving mankind. To threaten and frighten people into repentance is to bring them to salvation while they hold wrong motives, I think. It also certainly speaks nothing of a future relationship with God. And how effective is it, honestly? The Bible uses the analogy of a bride and bridegroom, a love story. Not a bride who marries because she's terrified of the consequences if she does not.

Naturally, there must be the recognition of how desperately fallen and fully depraved we are. There must be true sorrow for sins, and there must be repentance. The Holy Spirit does convict, and it is necessary that he does. There must be the fear of God - the great awe and reverence of Him - not simply the fear of hellfire.

We Christians must be very careful. We have a huge responsibility to witness. But it must be done remembering that the way a person reacts to that witness could damn them for eternity. It is possible to bludgeon a person's ear and heart to death - with the truth. If all we care about is "getting our end across," we are pitiful beings indeed who either do not truly know the love of God, or have no true, passionate desire to impart it to others (the two go hand-in-hand).

Yes, we can only tell the truth, and it is theirs to accept or reject. But we should do it in such a way that our consciences are clear if they reject it, knowing we shared the gospel of salvation out of sincere love for that person, and not so that we feel better about having shown them to be wrong.

So, share! The time is short. But share because you care about that person. Look at them through the eyes of Jesus, and share in such a way that their hopelessness and wickedness in contrast with his love will win them. It is a lost and hurting world out there, brothers and sisters. Let us have a heart for those aching souls.