Why It’s Important to Confess Your Faith in Christ to Your Friends
Opening my mouth to confess my faith in Christ to my friends was one of the greatest blessings of my high school and college years. It opened a door that has brought multiplied blessings until today.
Especially for Christian students beginning a new school year, there is an awesome opportunity before you. Opening your mouth to confess your faith in Christ can positively change your life and the lives of those you contact.
In this post I hope to inspire every believing student and every new believer in Christ to choose to confess your faith in Christ right away. I’ll give you four reasons from the Bible to show why it’s so important for you to confess your faith in Christ.
4 Reasons to Confess Your Faith to Your Friends:
1. Confessing your faith in Christ Forever Opens the Door for Speaking Him
It’s really important to get your mouth open from the beginning of your Christian life. Confess your faith in Christ to your friends as soon as you believe and also at the soonest opportunity in a new setting. Don’t wait.
When you open your mouth as soon as you believe, the door is forever opened.
In Confession with the Mouth, Watchman Nee said,
“Confessing the Lord begins at the time a person believes. If you open your mouth the day you believe in the Lord, the way of confession will be opened to you. If a person is dumb in the first weeks, months, or year, he is likely to remain dumb for the rest of his life. Therefore, as soon as a person believes in the Lord, he should endeavor to speak to others about the Lord.” (Messages for Building Up New Believers, Vol. 1, pp. 55-56)
What’s my point? As students, you also have a first day, first weeks, and first months. If you learn to open your mouth from the very beginning of the school year, it will be easier from then on. If you fail to do so from the beginning of your Christian life or the beginning of the school year, you’ll find it more difficult later on.
The same thing also applies at a new job or in a new neighborhood. My experience confirms this.
Grasp the new beginning and open your mouth to confess your faith to your classmates, friends, colleagues or relatives.
2. Confessing Your Faith in Christ Results in Salvation
Romans 10:10 specifically relates confessing with your mouth to salvation by saying,
“For with the heart there is believing unto righteousness, and with the mouth there is confession unto salvation.”
Confessing with your mouth results in salvation, not just before God but before men. God sees the faith in your heart, but your friends don’t. If you don’t confess with your mouth, they may still consider you as an unbeliever.
Nee goes on to say,
“Every new believer must look for opportunities to confess the Lord. Among our classmates, colleagues, friends, relatives, and all those who come in contact with us, as soon as an opportunity arises, we should say to them, “I have believed in the Lord Jesus….The worst thing that can happen to a Christian is for him to keep his mouth shut.” (pp. 56-57)
3. Confessing Your Faith in Christ Saves You From a Lot of Trouble in the Future
You may ask, “How does confessing my faith in Christ save me from troubles?” Some people might despise me, say critical things about me and make my life more difficult.
Actually, when you confess your faith from the beginning, it removes the questions in people’s minds about who you are. They might have thought that you were just another person in the world–indulging in worldly pleasures, and doing sinful things.
When you make it clear from the beginning that you love the Lord Jesus and are living to Him, they will be less likely to ask you to do sinful things with them. You will not have to think of excuses to avoid their invitations.
Nee continues,
“You cannot use excuses every time. This is why you must confess from the first day, “I have believed in the Lord Jesus. I have accepted Him.” Once you put out the signboard, your colleagues, classmates, relatives, and family will know the kind of person you are. This will save you much trouble.” (pp. 57-58)
4. Confessing the Lord Before Men Results in the Lord’s Confessing Before the Heavenly Father
Finally, you need to be encouraged by the Lord’s promise. If you confess Him before men, He also will confess you before His Father (Matt. 10:32).
Finally, Nee says,
“All we have to do is confess that this excellent One, this chiefest among ten thousand, is the Son of God. He will then confess us before the heavenly Father and the angels of God….Since He will confess us in the future, let us confess Him well before men today.” (p. 67)
Some practical helps for confessing your faith in Christ:
Today there are many opportunities for you to confess your faith in Christ. You can tell a friend about what you enjoyed in the Word, give them a tract, or share what you enjoyed in your Bible study.
In addition, you can confess your faith online. In the past you had to meet up with someone face to face before you could share your faith in the Lord Jesus with them. And that is the best.
But today there are also many more opportunities for you to confess your faith online. Here are some ideas:
1. Share a Bible verse, spiritual song or ministry excerpt you enjoyed in the morning on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.
2. Like, share, 1+, favorite, or retweet, what another believer posts of their enjoyment of Christ and God’s Word.
3. Leave a confirming comment on another believer’s post–like this one.
4. Link to or email your friends a gospel video or tract.
5. Email your friends a PDF of a spiritual book.
6. Check out the resources at: http://biblesforamerica.org/share-the-gospel/
“Lord Jesus, may all your lovers be enlightened to see the blessing of confessing their faith before men. May they enjoy the saving that comes from opening their mouth to confess Your name. May many new believers and students discover the joy of confessing their faith to friends, classmates, colleagues and relatives from their first opportunity.”
If this post has encouraged you to confess your faith in Christ to your friends, I hope that you would leave a confirming comment.
References and Further Resources:
- This post is a summary of my enjoyment of Confession with the Mouth by Watchman Nee. You can read it for free online at ministrybooks.org.
- It is also Chapter 4 in Messages for Building Up New Believers, Volume 1.
- Here are some spiritual songs that convey the feeling of this post:
- Photo Credit: Joseph Barber at WavesofZoe.com
About Tom Smith
Hi. My name is Tom Smith. I'm the writer behind Holding to Truth in Love, and I love the Lord Jesus and His life-giving Word. Please feel free to send me an e-mail through the contact page if you have any questions. I hope you'd take a moment to subscribe to the Holding to Truth blog. Then you'll be sure not to miss a post. Thanks!
What a timely word! I am meeting with Irvine Christian Students (UCI & IVC) at Engedi camp in Big Bear. I will share this with them.
I can testify that speaking Christ in school saved me from much. It also helps now at work. It is good to share there too!
This is a classic chapter from Watchman Nee. I was thinking about it last week when I was preparing to share on Daniel 3. That chapter shows that one of the enemies strategies is to silence our testimony. The seduction of idol worship there was really through a sort of peer pressure.
I agree. The principle is the same between Daniel 3 and the situation today. The enemy uses peer pressure to silence our testimony trying to force us to bow to “the idol” of the world’s acceptance. But when we declare our stand with the Lord, the enemy’s hold on us is broken and we enjoy the Lord’s presence even if we’re rejected and “thrown into the furnace.” May we be encouraged to make our faith known, and reject Satan’s pressure so that we may enjoy our Lord’s presence.
Thank you brother for such a timely and helpful advise for college students who believe in the Lord! May The Lord make me a testimony by my confession of His name before my friends!
Thanks for your encouraging comment. May the Lord energize you, along with every believer, to confess your faith in the Lord Jesus. May such a confession of His dear name bring blessing to you and all those who hear you as well as the Lord’s confession before the Father at His coming.
Amen! Thank you so much brother for this very encouraging and energizing word of confessing who we are and Who we have!
I and my boardmates, three of us, were saved in college because a dear brother did not stop confessing His faith in Christ by always distributing gospel tracts in the classroom. The tracts came ‘alive’ to us for His word is “God-breathed” and is profitable…Praise the Lord, through this, we were saved!
Personally, I’ve been inserting a gospel tract with every mail that I send.
Aside from its availability 24/7, by His mercy and grace it is so beneficial to distribute tracts
Your testimony of a believer’s confessing his faith in Christ to you and your friends is a real encouragement.
Distributing tracts is a good first step. Even when you don’t know what to say, you can give someone a tract. It can “speak” when they are ready to “listen.” I like to leave one with the tip at restaurants. Putting them into your mail is also a very good practice.
I worried about the same thing when I went thourgh my confession. I just knew I’d be judged and still struggled with it even AFTER confessing. Like I would be marked forever by my train wreck. Thankfully people proved my assumptions wrong, but I know that was part of my problem.
After we confess our sins we must receive by faith what God’s word has promised us in 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us form all unrighteousness.” Stand by faith and reject the enemy’s lies.
Dear Tom, I am very much encouraged by reading your explanation on Confession with mouth about our faith in Jesus Christ. It is very powerful and very systematically explained. I pastor a Church in Mumbai, India. Our words have power to bring in life and to bring about death, both in our own lives and in the lives of our hearers. I believe that our daily confession in Jesus will refresh our own lives and commitment, and also bring life into the spiritually dying world.
The Lord bless you.
Dear Johnsy, Every believer needs to be encouraged to speak out their faith in Christ from the earliest days of their salvation.
When we witness to Christ’s reality in our lives, we give the Holy Spirit the opportunity to witness with our spirit that we are truly children of God (Rom. 8:16). Such an inner witnessing of the Spirit becomes a strong assurance within us that we are genuinely saved…not to speak of the lives our friends that may be gained for Christ by our confession of faith (John 4:29-30, 42). For sure, our speaking forth our Lord Jesus to others puts them under the hearing of faith (Gal. 3:2, Rom. 10:17) and, in the process, affords God the way to flow through us intensifying His divine operation within us and speeding up our growth in His life. May we encourage all the young believers we know to devour God’s living word and speak for Him at every opportunity (2 Tim. 4:2). Thank you for your comment…and sorry for the slow reply.