Focus on who you are in Christ

Many Mormons are unsure about their standing with God. Some doubt they are forgiven because they haven’t completed the painful, never-ending LDS process of repentance. Others view God as distant and uninterested in them. Very few are confident they will spend eternity living in his presence because it depends on their keeping all their covenants and receiving all their ordinances. Their usual response is, “I hope I will.”

Therefore, when we are joyful and confident about our relationship with God, most take notice. Our joy and confidence can act like magnets, drawing them to us. There’s a good chance they will eventually ask us about it.

We encourage you to regularly take time to reflect on the reasons why you can be joyful and confident so you can reflect them consistently in your life.

Especially steep yourself in God’s forgiveness. Make a list of passages and Bible stories assuring you of your forgiveness in Christ. It will be an ever-expanding list as you discover more and more passages. To help you get started, we’ve created a worksheet on page 13 of the Friends & Family Course Workbook. Lookup one or two of the passages daily. Think about the wonderful difference knowing that God has forgiven you makes every day. Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?, does a wonderful job of describing God’s grace.

Don’t stop with forgiveness. God has blessed us in so many other wonderful ways. As you read the Bible, be alert to God’s many blessings. Make your own list of blessings.

Another resource emphasizing the goodness of God is our book, God—The Ultimate Humanitarian. In twenty brief chapters, it views God’s goodness from twenty different angles.

This book has the additional benefit of being written specifically with Mormons in mind. Without ever mentioning Mormonism, it gives the biblical view of topics important to Mormons (i.e. the temple, covenants). When we go into detail about how to witness later in this course, one thing we suggest is studying it together. Therefore, it would be good to become acquainted with it.

You can order a copy of God—The Ultimate Humanitarian here.

Focus on the power of God’s Word

Sometimes when we share our faith, we end up like Peter walking on the water. When he kept his eyes on his powerful Lord and trusted him, he did fine. As soon as he was distracted by the waves, however, he started to sink.

A similar thing can happen to us in witnessing. When we keep our eyes on the power of the Word, we do fine. But as soon as we take our eyes off of it, we begin to flounder. We worry that we didn’t say something just right. We blame ourselves if they aren’t immediately convinced. On and on it goes.

We dare never forget that the power is in the message, not the messenger. God calls us to be his witnesses, not his lawyers. The Holy Spirit, working through the Word, is the one who convicts people of God’s truth.

Once again, we encourage you to make a list: this time of Bible passages emphasizing the power of God’s Word. To help you get started, we’ve created a worksheet on page 16 of the Friends & Family Course Workbook.

Focus on God’s promises

Still another list of encouraging passages is one which reminds us of God’s outreach promises. Far too often, when we talk about witnessing, we only focus on what God tells us to do. Those passages are important but not to the neglect of ones where he promises his blessings on our efforts. Even when it comes to the activity of witnessing, the goal is to keep God, and not ourselves, center-stage. To help you get started, we’ve created a worksheet on page 19 of the Friends & Family Course Workbook.