As a follower of Jesus, you share God’s love with every person you encounter. Whether family, friend, colleague, neighbor, stranger, or enemy, you are God’s loving presence in the way you live your faith when interacting with them.
Sharing the love you have received in and through Jesus is part of God’s mission. You were invited into that mission when you were claimed as a “beloved child” of God, called and commissioned for ministry at your baptism.
Preparing for Mission: Being About God’s Business and Preparing for Mission: Hospitality is a Lifestyle
A Community of Jesus Followers
With that in mind, think of the church as a community of Jesus followers who exist primarily for people who are not members. As a follower of Jesus, you are an instrument of God’s love for people who do not know or understand the love of God.
The apostle Paul instructed the church in Galatia, “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Loving others as God has loved you is the main way you offer Christ. When people see and experience Jesus in you, you are offering Christ.
Said another way, as a beloved child of God, you love others to be who God created you to be. You become an instrument of God’s grace. You are God’s love in human form. Offering Christ is who you are. It becomes the way you live your life. God sends people your way every day. So, love them as God in Jesus has loved you, all for the glory of God.
Offer Christ by Being Yourself
So, let me share with you one way you can offer Christ, just by being you. Each of us face times of uncertainty in our lives. Uncertainty comes with death or disaster. It comes with divorce, unemployment, or retirement. It comes with disappointment, lack of security, or the fear of the unknown.
At those times of uncertainty, disappointment, or instability, people need someone they can trust. Someone who shows compassion. Some who can bring stability and who can offer hope. They need and want someone who will love them unconditionally.
The apostle Paul gives us clues to offering Christ in several of his letters. I want to focus on one part of one letter, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
Read Ephesians 5:1-2
Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Reflect on Ephesians 5:1-2
These words come immediately following Paul’s instruction on what it means to live as a follower of Jesus. The word “therefore” refers back to the instruction. When taken in their full context, the words refer to living and behaving as God’s children.
The words, when understood in the light of engaging in the mission of offering Christ, refer to the followers of Jesus as beloved children of God. And as a beloved child of God, you pattern your life, your behavior, most specifically your forgiveness, love, and care after the love you have experienced in Christ. Your nature, as a beloved child of God, is to love others as God in Christ has loved you. In other words, Christ’s love for you and for others is the same as God’s love.
Love Others as God Loves You
One major expression of offering Christ is to love others the way you have experienced God’s love in and through Jesus. You will have many opportunities to offer Christ.
Each opportunity comes with its own context and specific need. As a child of God, you love others the way each needs to be loved at the time they need it the most.
Times of Uncertainty and Offering Christ
As one way of offering Christ, I want to share with you an experience that has transformed my life. As with most of you, I have come through several times of uncertainty. Times of not knowing what the future might hold and being paralyzed regarding what decisions to make. At one particular time, I was caught in a place I had never been before.
The uncertainty was so great that I could not see beyond the moment. Uncertain about my future, I felt confused, hurt, and alone. It was at that point, in my anxiety, that a colleague and friend stepped in to offer Christ, which helped me face my future. I didn’t get a lot of sympathy, shallow agreements, or unrealistic platitudes. What I did get was a person of faith who allowed me to be me at the moment of my greatest need.
She created a space for me to talk about my disappointments, hurts, fears, and anxiety. Although there were times she did not agree with my assessments, she never passed judgment. She listened with compassion and, at the appropriate time, asked me questions I needed to answer for clarity and healing.
She offered Christ by embodying God’s grace. I began to trust her compassion and look forward to her questions. The space she created and the grace she offered allowed me to move past my anxiety to see new possibilities beyond what I had known or experienced up to that point in my life.
New Possibilities
Within the process of healing, she provided opportunities to put into practice the new possibilities that were beginning to emerge. Along with plans for reading and reflecting on scripture, occasions to practice the presence of God through prayer and conversation, and the challenge to look beyond myself to see what new thing God might be doing, I was invited to put my faith into action. It was at that point I rediscovered God’s desire to use me as his beloved child, to make a difference in the places I encountered the people God wanted me to love.
It was in and through her offering of Christ that helped me experience hope in a time of uncertainty. She did not bring easy answers. In fact, she did not bring any answers. What she brought was the space to heal as she offered God’s love in the midst of my uncertainty.
She came alongside me, at the moment of my greatest anxiety, embodying God’s love, to journey with me through my most difficult moments, to see what God might have in store for the future. She was an instrument of God’s love which brought hope and new possibilities.
As a beloved child of God, she bore God’s image. She walked in love and invited me to walk with her. She modeled Christ’s love as she offered herself as an instrument of God’s love and peace.
To Offer Christ
That is what it means to offer Christ. There are many ways to come alongside individuals and to love, nurture, guide, and care for them. It is in times of greatest need that Jesus comes alongside us. Over my 72 years, Jesus has come alongside me in and through the people God has sent to guide, mentor, love, and admonish me.
That is what it means to engage in the mission of offering Christ. Be the presence of Jesus in the lives of the people you meet each day. By your living, you offer them Christ.
Respond
I know my words might come across as arrogant and condescending. Often when someone talks with us about “offering Christ,” we feel inadequate and even unworthy. It is common in the church for us to urge each other to witness to our faith. Sometimes we assume that sharing stories of our faith is easy. I must confess that I have found it incredibly difficult. It might be my personality, but it is tough to talk about things so deeply meaningful and profoundly intimate.
It is even more difficult to create spaces for conversation, where people can talk about fears, disappointments, and uncertainty. It is difficult to offer new possibilities when you, yourself, are uncertain about today and tomorrow.
So, before we explore ways to offer Christ, take some time to think about what offering Christ means to you. What would happen if you took John Wesley seriously and began to “Offer them Christ” as you developed relationships and talked about what was deeply meaningful to you?
Be Who God Created You to Be
Think of it this way, to offer Christ is to be who God created you to be. The offer is more than sharing “spiritual facts” which lead to a mental assent to correct understanding and logical decisions. You and I don’t experience God’s love as a form of indoctrination.
The offer of Christ is not what I grew up hearing, “closing the deal” for Jesus. You and I don’t experience God’s love by being manipulated into saying “yes” to carefully worded questions.
The offer of Christ is a two-way process of honest interaction. Because you and I simply do not see everything the same way, we develop a friend-to-friend relationship. So, the offer of Christ is not a single encounter. It is an extended relationship of mutual respect and care. It is within the relationship that God’s love is experienced, and hope is developed and lived out.
Offering Christ Is More Than an Invitation
As important as it is, the offer of Christ is more than inviting people to worship or to participate in the programs of the church. To offer Christ is to offer God’s love to those who are discontent and dissatisfied in their search for God. It is in and through relationships that we can share our experiences of God searching for us in Jesus. New possibilities are found in the love you offer. Offering Christ becomes who you are.
I believe we can change the world by offering Christ. Receiving one friend’s offer of Christ certainly has changed me. It was in an offer of Christ that I experienced the love transforming grace of God. In the midst of my disappointment and despair, God found me and embraced me with a love that will not let me go.
T. S. Elliot wrote, “the life we seek is not in knowing but in being known, not in seeking but in being sought, not in finding but in being found.”
To offer Christ is to come alongside those who are lost in uncertainty, disappointment, or instability, and show compassion, stability and hope. It is loving others unconditionally as God in Jesus has loved you.
In Become One Who Offers Christ Part Two, we will look at several practices that assist in “Engaging in the Mission” of offering Christ.
Prayer
Lord, send me the people no one else wants and help me receive the people you send to me. By your grace, help me offer them Christ by the way I live out your love. Make me a blessing to someone, somewhere, today.
Return
As you reflect upon your day, give God thanks for God’s call to follow Jesus. Who did you meet who needed a kind, caring, encouraging word? In what ways did you offer Christ to the people you met? What did you learn about yourself? Give God thanks for the people God sent your way to love as you have been loved. To whom do you need to respond with words of hope, words of encouragement, or words of forgiveness? What will you do differently tomorrow?