“…Came unto me, and stood, and said unto me, Brother Saul, receive thy sight. And the same hour I looked up upon him. And he said, The God of our fathers hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will, and see that Just One, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. For thou shalt be his witness unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard.” – Acts 22:13 – 15 NIV
The secret to every change you need in the world
How long will the light of a candle last? Of course, the light will go out when the candle burns out, but if we light another candle with this one, the light will double in intensity. So, will the light of the first candle diminish because it has lit the second? No! And if we use the second to light a third, will the light of the second diminish? No!
The light of each candle will last until the candle burns out, but when the first light goes out, the second will still be burning. When the second light goes out, the third will still go on shining. If we keep on lighting more candles – ten, a hundred, or a thousand candles – the light will never go out. This explains the testimony of the church.
When the Son of God was on earth, he lit the first candle. After that, more candles were lit one after another. We, now, who witness Christ are the light of the world, lit from many lights who have come before us. So, what is this witnessing?
In Acts 22:15, the Lord sent Ananias to speak to Paul: “For you will be a witness to Him unto all men of the things which you have seen and heard.”
From this, we see that the basis of witnessing is what we have seen and heard. You cannot be a witness to what you have not seen with your own eyes or heard with your ears. Paul saw something with his own eyes and heard something with his ears. God charged him to be a witness of what he had seen with his own eyes and heard with his ears. First John 4:14 tells us what witnessing is: “We have beheld and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.” That is the substance of our witnessing!
So, what is it we witness to as believers?
Notice the same Acts 22:15 emphatically states that Ananias instructing Paul about what (rather, who) he is to witness about – Jesus. Notice also that John lends credence to this truth also in John 4:14, which we just read two paragraphs before now; a person is therefore a witness to what he has seen the Father do through Christ Jesus in redemption. This is not talking about miracles, sign, and wonders, which are a common strategy in our days even though it works amongst unbelievers and even some believers. The greatest form of deliverance however, is knowledge of the truth (John 8:32). What truth? The truth about what Jesus came to do and why he did it.
Unbelievers seek signs, but the believers’ life is a light that witnesses the entire life of the Lord Himself, and the purpose for such expression of life. While the unbeliever seeks signs, the believer goes about both showing and telling the new creation experience so vividly and gracefully till the people find their faith in the Lord, giving them new creation experiences. Now this doesn’t mean signs and wonders are bad; they certainly do have their place in evangelism, but we must never forget that it is a means to an end. The end is to bring men to Jesus who is our faith.
In our next article, we’ll see how evangelism is different from corporate marketing