My Devotionals

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15)

Today marks the conclusion of this series exploring five simple things all of us can do to prepare to share the gospel with those we work with. Here’s a reminder of the first four:

1. Be so good they can’t ignore you
2. Be a friend
3. Identify yourself as a Christian
4. Pray that God would open doors to move from the Surface, to the Serious, to the Spiritual

And here’s the fifth: Be prepared to give an answer for your hope.

If you’ve done numbers 1-4 on our list, eventually somebody is going to ask you,

Why do you never respond to emails on Sundays?

You don’t seem nearly as anxious as the rest of our team. Why?

Why did you and your husband adopt instead of having another child biologically?

If God is good, why did I get fired?

My mom is dying. What do you believe about heaven?...

And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. (Colossians 4:3-4)

In this series, we’re looking at five simple ways to prepare to share the gospel with those we work with. We’ve already explored three:

1. Be so good they can’t ignore you
2. Be a friend
3. Identify yourself as a Christian

Once you’ve done those things, let me encourage you to pray that God would open doors to move from the Surface, to the Serious, to the Spiritual. 

I think a lot of us feel like it is up to us to pry open doors to share the gospel with others. But that wasn’t the Apostle Paul’s approach. Hear his words in Colossians 4:3: “Pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ.”

God alone can make people receptive to the gospel. We pray to that end, and...

Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God. (John 12:42-43)

We’re in a series walking through 5 simple things all of us can do to put ourselves in a better position to share the gospel with those we work with. We’ve already explored the first two: Be so good they can’t ignore you and be a friend. But those things clearly aren’t enough. At some point, you have to identify yourself as a Christian!

A few years ago, I stepped down as the CEO of a tech startup to focus full-time on creating content like these devotionals. Given the nature of my new work, I naturally started talking about my faith much more publicly on social media. In response to those posts, more than a couple of customers and co-workers from my past tech startup...

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (John 13:34-35)

We’re in a series exploring 5 simple things all of us can do to put ourselves in a better position to share the gospel with those we work with. Last week, we looked at the first: Be so good they can’t ignore you. This week, we turn to the second: Be a friend.

Jesus commanded that we are to love one another as he loved us. And “by this”—by loving others well, by being a good friend—they “will know” we are his disciples.

So simple. Yet so profound. 

We ought to be known as the people in our offices who genuinely love our co-workers, not just the product of their work. We ought to be the ones asking our co-workers about their kids, making time to go to lunch, and delivering meals when a co-worker welcomes a...

You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12)

As I’ve written about before, sharing the gospel with those we work with is far from the only way our work matters to God. But it is a way. Your job can be a powerful vehicle for following Jesus’s command to “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). 

Now, Jesus is not saying in this verse that you have to change your vocation or location to participate in his “Great Commission.” The Greek word poreuthentes that we translate “go” in “go and make disciples” is what’s called an aorist tense passive participle. What in the world does that mean for you? It means that a far more accurate translation of Jesus’s words is, “Having...