The Witness of a Faithful Life

Serving in Romania, Europe

By Olivia West

How do you witness to someone who believes that Christ died on the cross but believes this act accomplished something different than what the Bible says? How do you show that the Word of God is the only truth and authority when one claims to understand its power yet listens more to the writings of men in liturgies, confessions, and canons? And how do you explain sanctification as a life of devotion and thanksgiving when they themselves commit so much to “becoming” more like God?

An Eastern European belief is that the Holy Spirit through the church grants salvation, not Christ. Christ just made the pathway to God available. This pathway to get closer to God is called deification: a person must cite confessions and take Eucharist continually throughout life to have salvation.

Witnessing cannot just be “Here is a tract,” or “Here is what Christ did for you.” Yes, it involves that; it involves the Great Commission, but it also involves verses like 1 Thessalonians 5:5, 8–9: Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. . . . But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.

The best light to point to Christ alone is faithfulness to His truth. The best way for others to see this faithfulness is in my love toward them, a sense of community, and service to them. They know of God’s Word and will even come to services, hearing the Gospel over and over. But what makes the difference is observing a lifetime of faithfulness. This is what I have heard preached countless times over the past year, but more importantly, I have seen this lived out by other missionary families and church members here in Romania. The sense of community shows hope just like the passage in 1 Thessalonians says. Romanians would not call their religion living out of fear, but it is that because their confessions disregard the security of eternity. We live out of liberty. But what am I doing with that liberty? How am I correctly showing my devotion to God? Unfortunately, I can say that devotion is often more visible in those false religions.

It is very easy to start a conversation on the street about religion. As an American it is even easier because Romanians are curious as to why I chose to be a missionary. But the real witnessing comes through my everyday faithfulness to God’s Word with an emphasis again on the truth of the Bible alone. We do not want them to just come to church once or to add our service into a schedule of other churches they attend. Our desire is for them to want to spend time in God’s Word, seeing and understanding its power. This only comes through our own sensitivity to God’s Word. When spending time with them shows the same kind of love and compassion that Christ had, the prayer is that their curiosity will move them to see God’s truth. More than a conversation on the street, it is the way I devote time to God and to serving others. A few of the people I work with are examples of the kind of devotion I want to grow into.

There is a family that spends almost every afternoon in child care in order to give those children a better environment, and thus the parents can have extra working hours. Another family fills most of their week by meeting the needs of others more than they meet their own needs. A woman is unafraid to confront people’s questions about Christianity and takes every opportunity to sit down with them with the Bible. Her life is so untarnished by the world that her true devotion is so inviting. One lady will be in every ministry possible and still make extra time so she can tell others more about her God. On the street she meets no stranger and uses almost every encounter to mention that she cherishes her God.

The neatest examples of this complete devotion I have seen while being here are the Romanian families who came out of the Romanian Orthodox church and give testimony to claiming to be religious without knowing what the truth of the Bible was. Other families came out of the Union Baptist Church after seeing that what they were reading was not what was being preached.

My hope is that these examples encourage those who are faithful and help show the importance of doing things for the community. Also let this be a challenge to those like me to not continue to abuse God’s liberty by only doing surface-level witnessing. I want to commit myself to being faithful and living out of love as a witness to my amazing God’s love.

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