Friendship is a great thing. I don’t personally know of anyone who doesn’t have a best friend–or several (yes, it’s possible). Best friends are most often those with whom you mutually share the raw truths about what is really going on inside you. Those truths usually include the happy things, the hurts and pains one is feeling at the moment, the shame and guilt one might be experiencing, and, yes, often the dirty little secrets that weigh us down. I once heard a metaphor for what a best friend is; “my best friend would never pay my bail because he’d be right there in jail alongside me.”
It’s not atypical for us to talk about our best friends in glowing terms. “He’s always there for me.”
“He would never let me down.”
“He hears me when I’m hurting.”
“He lifts me up when I need it, or he’ll even carry me if that’s the case.”
“He’s not afraid to tell me what I don’t want to hear.”
“He loves me deeply.” Etc.
All believers have one absolute best friend–Jesus. He’s our best friend because He did pay our bail…on a cross long ago. In our personal conversations we probably share the same sentiments expressed above about Him with our believer friends. However, so many believers I have run across seem to have a different concept when it comes to witnessing for Jesus. They seem kinked up about the need to sell Him to the non-believer rather than to simply tell about Him in the context of their relationship with Him–the best friend relationship.
I can remember vividly, in the time prior to my accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, the feeling of revulsion I felt when approached with the Word by someone “selling” Jesus Christ. I disliked used car salesmen equally. Granted, I wasn’t ready at the time, but the point is I was never going to be ready when I had the feeling that something was being rammed down my throat by some over-zealous bible thumper looking down his nose at me (the feeling I often got). When I did come around, it was because the man shared the gospel as if talking about his best friend (which He was) and the role He played in his life. He wasn’t selling anything. He was telling everything. And I listened.
Don’t sell. Tell.
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