When the good news about eternal life is also good news for daily life, it is truly good news! A gospel about heaven that makes no difference on earth is not the gospel. When Jesus said, “I came that they might have life and have it abundantly,” He was referring to more than life in the sweet by and by. He was speaking of life as it was meant to be — starting here and now.

Pastor and author Bob Roberts alludes to this when he says, “Evangelism wasn’t meant to be a presentation, but a lifestyle lived out daily in normal cultural contacts.”* Thomas Aquinas, a 13th century theologian, put it more bluntly when he said, “He who is dying of hunger must be fed rather than taught.” I would suggest it’s not a matter of “rather than” but of “both and.”

Living the gospel must accompany giving the gospel. Gary’s story in “Weaving Water Into Life” illustrates this so well. In that culture, providing a family with a clean source of drinking water is an effective way of introducing them to the eternal source of Living Water.

But what about in our culture? How do you live the gospel in a world where people seem to have everything? My neighbors already have a roof over their heads, food on their table, two or three cars in the garage, and much more. In a world where the human needs are not always so obvious, we must get close enough to see beneath the surface. That means cultivating a relationship. When we do, life’s brokenness will not be hard to find. And life’s brokenness is fertile soil for the gospel seed.

*Bob Roberts, Glocalization: How Followers of Jesus Engage a Flat World, (Michigan: Zondervan, 2007), 89.