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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?

The Apostle Peter said that before those questions are ever asked, we are to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” That’s the question underneath all the questions above, isn’t it? What is the source of your hope? We’ve got to be ready to answer that question in the many different forms it takes! How? By knowing God’s Word and being ready to share the gospel.

But Peter didn’t just tell us what to do. He also told us how we are to give an answer for our hope: “with gentleness and respect.” This is crucial. And I would argue that we aren’t just called to show respect to the person we’re sharing the gospel with. We must also ensure we are respecting our employers.

Remember: Your company is paying you to do a job, and I’m willing to bet that “preaching the gospel” is not in the job description they’ve handed to you. That means we need to prayerfully consider when and where we share the gospel with those we work with, as we are called to obey the Great Commission and Scripture’s frequent command that we serve our employers with excellence (see Colossians 3 and Ephesians 6).

I’m praying this series has taken some of the mystery out of how we can effectively witness to the lost people we work with. Because as we saw in the first devotional of this series, Jesus has called all of us to be “full-time missionaries” making disciples “as we go” about our life and work. Go and make disciples today!