Relationships Outside the Body: Leftovers

I didn't teach Sunday School this week. Actually, I wasn't even at Sunday School this week, opting instead to head to the beach for 72 hours of just being away from the fray. At any rate, I have it on good authority, that the lesson was on evangelism and reaching out to non-believers that we know and work, live, and play around and with in the normal course of days and weeks.

Here's the question that I've been asking myself about evangelism recently: what's my motivation for it? I mean, really, I've "shared my faith" as it were in about four different countries on three different continents, and I wonder, really, what my motivation for evangelism is. I don't have an answer for that question yet, but here are the possibilities I've come up with so far: because I was commanded to in Scripture; becuase I really love people and want them to know Christ and have a relationship with him; because I really do believe that anyone who does not trust Christ will spend eternity in Hell and anyone who does will spend eternity in Heaven; because I want to show my gratitude and love to God for calling and drawing me to himself; because it's what good Christians do; because it was my job; because I want there to be lots and lots of folks worshipping God and the only way they can do that is to be his children; because it brings glory to God.

I'm not saying that any of those reasons, in and of themselves, are bad reasons (although some of them might be more biblical than others), but what struck me were all the reasons that there are, just in my own mind for sharing Christ and "doing evangelism." I'm not even sure there's one particular answer I'm supposed to land on, but it is interesting to think and pray about, because I am pretty convinced that unless I have a motivation that's significant and compelling, I won't share my faith.