I am fairly sure I just changed a friend’s life. How, you ask? Well I simply told him what I liked about Harbor Freight. If you aren’t familiar with Harbor Freight let me take a moment and change your life too. Harbor Freight is the home of cheap tools. I mean really cheap. These aren’t tools that I would want to stake my livelihood on but they are more than adequate for the vast majority of hobbyist type projects that I work on and as I said they are CHEAP. Most of the projects I work on don’t require tools that can support Sherman tanks or handle fighting alligators or withstand the fiery gaze of Donald Trump’s arrogance. If I needed tools for such endeavors I would buy better quality tools elsewhere. The majority of the projects I work on require tools that can manage the task 7 or 8 times. I don’t want to pay premium prices for a tool that I will only need a few times in my life. So that is where Harbor Freight comes in, when I need a tool more often than renting it would justify but not often enough to put up with the cost of a premium product.
I believe my dad was the one who introduced me to Harbor Freight but it could have been any number of other friends who told me about the benefits of these cheap tools. Since someone else introduced me to Harbor Freight I like to return the favor and introduce others. I don’t have to convince people or prove to them that Harbor Freight is great. I haven’t experienced a debate yet during any of these conversations. Instead I merely tell them of the benefits I have experienced from Harbor Freight and show them the website or a flyer. People see pretty quickly what they could do for cheaper with Harbor Freight tools.
In the Christian culture this is called evangelism and in my opinion it is far too often focused on trying to convince someone else why they should believe as you do. I don’t really think Jesus needs His followers to convince others to believe in Him. He doesn’t need us to have brilliant arguments for faith or wonderful arguments to convince the unconvinced. Instead I think He wants His followers to simply share the amazing things He has done and is doing in their lives. If we share the good that the “good news” of the kingdom of God has done and is doing in our lives I am pretty convinced that many more people will see the benefit of knowing Christ and want that relationship with Him. This requires that we actually tell people about what God has done in our lives rather than just assuming they will eventually ask.
We evangelize for (i.e. share the good news of) so many other things in our lives. From our favorite coffee house (Emy J’s), to our favorite chili dog place (my home), to our favorite author (C.S. Lewis), to the breed of dog we like best (basset hounds of course) we share their benefits and goodness so easily. In fact we usually enjoy sharing these benefits. Why would we treat our faith, what I believe to be most important, any differently. If you are a believer then be an evangelist. You were made for this purpose. Tell someone else about the good you have experienced because of Jesus in your life. I believe it should be just as easy as telling someone about Harbor Freight and Jesus will make a much bigger difference in their life. I think you will probably find yourself enjoying doing this.