Gift of Evangelism

Perhaps some of you know a person who has the gift of evangelism.  This person seems to be able to lead a new acquaintance to Christ in any situation, whether it be on a two-hour flight, in a doctor's waiting room, or at a basketball match.  Whomever they sit next to, their fate seems decided.

 And then there are many of us who have the heart of an evangelist but seemingly not the gift. So, we take classes on the subject or hear sermons on it to try to develop the gift.  These may even help-but still we don't have the gift.

 It is easy to feel down about this so people try to encourage us with words like "ploughman and planters are just as important as reapers."  But we still envy the joy of the harvester.

 We all know that there can't be a harvest without ploughman, planters, waterers, waiters and then harvesters.  However, there is still the underlying belief that the harvester is the most important, therefore the most godly.

In our desire for equality we often try to make everybody important.  It is empirically true that the harvest would not happen with any of the duties not performed.  But something from 1 Corinthians 3:7 comes to mind:

    "Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who makes things grow." In the verse previous to this one Paul claims to be the planter and Apollos the waterer, but Paul knew where to give the real credit.  Here is equality- equally unimportant.

In our feeling inferior to the harvesters we don't give credit where it is due.  In trying to boost our egos, we again fail.  Yes, we are important in that we are God's fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9).  But more importantly, we are all equally unimportant for He does the real work. 

    “Glorify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together” (Psalms 34:3).

Heather Jean Torosyan