This was the central focus of the earthly ministry of Jesus, so it must be the wisest thing we can do. None of us would be here today, redeemed, walking in God's grace, and ready for heaven, if Jesus and his disciples did not feel that soul winning was the most important thing we could do in life. All of the apostles were willing to lay down their lives, rather than back off from this important task.
On T uesday night, I dreamed over and over a continual dream in which the Lord presented to me the need to win Souls to Him….(have you ever had a dream that you couldn't get out of?) I believe it was prophetic and a mandate as well. I believe God was giving our ministry here a mandate. I had been praying about what we need to do to grow Eagle’s Rest, and what method, what style, what approach would change the direction of this ministry. Over and again throughout the night, I heard the Lord repeat the words Souls, Souls, as I witnessed various scenes where lives were making a commitment to Christ.
Proverbs 11:30 “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that wins souls is wise”.
According to the biography of the Life of Francis of Assisi, Francis once invited a young monk to join him on a trip to town to preach. Honored to be given the invitation, the monk eagerly accepted this opportunity with his mentor. All day long he and Francis walked through the streets, byways, and alleys, and even into the suburbs. They rubbed shoulders with hundreds of people, they interacted with them, listened to their concerns, and lifted prayers in their behalf. At the day's end, the two headed back home. Not even once had Francis addressed a crowd, nor had he talked to anyone about the gospel. Greatly disappointed, his young disciple said, "I thought we were going into town to preach." Francis responded, "My son, we have preached. We were preaching while we were walking, while we were communicating with the people, while we listened and while we prayed. It is of no use to walk anywhere to preach unless we preach everywhere as we walk!
James 1:22 “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only”.
You don’t judge the health of an army by how many soldiers sit in the mess hall and eat every week and listen to lectures. You judge the health of an army by how many are on frontlines doing battle and advancing the cause.
Every soul matters to God....good, bad, rich, poor, every color, every nationality, likable, unlikable, friends, enemies, family, neighbor, co-worker and everything in between..... Soul Winning begins with Caring…showing genuine concern for someone, and living it out before them. Soul Winning is Daring to just do it…. it takes courage to witness--courage if the person is a stranger to you, and even more if the person is a close friend or relative. Soul Winning is Sharing….If you want to make a lasting impression, share your own story. Let them share their story and be genuinely interested. get personally involved in their burden, be genuinely glad of their successes. Soul Winning is Praying together….. Let's never discount the effectiveness of prayer in the preparation of people's hearts to open up to receive Christ. God promised..."If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray, I will hear from heaven".....
Speaking of soul winning.....I came across this little story about evangelism...Two old Jewish men are strolling down the street one day when they happen to walk by a church. They see a big sign posted that says, "Join and be baptised and receive $50." One of the Jewish men stops walking and stares at the sign. His friend turns to him and says, "Murray, what's going on?" Murray, replies "Abe, I'm in a tough place financially and I'm thinking of doing it." Abe says, "What are you, crazy? Give up your Jewish faith for a price?" Murray thinks for a minute and says, "Hey, fifty bucks is fifty bucks! I'm going to do it." With that, Murray marches into the church like a man on a mission. Twenty minutes later he comes out. "So," asks Abe, a bit disgusted, "did you get your fifty dollars?" Murray looks up at him and says, "Is that all you Jews can ever think about?" Well now, you can have a change your religion, and still not be born again!!!
I am so impressed with the heart of DL Moody to winn souls to Christ.... He conducted Evangelistic crusades across the country and in
Europe…. Millions of people received Christ in these meetings. But every night, after the crusades, when Moody had rested, he would go out into the streets of whatever city he was in, and look for someone to personally lead to Christ. He would not lie down and sleep until he led at least one person to Christ.
So while Proverbs tells us that winning souls is wisdom.... Proverbs can also be telling us that winning souls requires wisdom...."He that wins souls is wise"...
Beavis and Butthead are probably not your best candidates to build a soul winning team with....
In order to be an effective witness for Christ, we need 1) Knowledge 2) Perspecive or Wisdom) 3) Conviction 4) Character 5) Skill
Let's Start with KNOWLEDGE....Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” You don’t really know something until you are able to apply it. Jesus had a problem with the Pharasees and Sadusees of His day because they knew a lot of things but they did not apply it to their own lives. He accused them of knowing the scriptures but denying the power of God, because they didn't apply it personally. The word "know" in the bible is 'Yada".... or applied knowledge...or personal knowledge of something. I can know about someone, without really knowing them. We can know about the importance of soul winning without having the applied knowledge of personally bringing others to Christ. Jesus puts a priority on bringing other to Him.
The second thing we need to be an effective witness is The right Perspective which is (Wisdom). As followers of Christ, we are to see all of life from God’s viewpoint. This is called "The wisdom that is above".... I love this paraphrase of Isaiah 55:8 in The Message Bible.... God says, “I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” Psalm 103:7 says that the Lord “made known his ways (His perspective) unto Moses, and His acts unto the children of Israel”..... His perspective will effect what we do and how we do it! In knowledge, the goal is to know the Word of God; but in perspective, the goal is to have the view point of God as much as possible. We no longer see people by their position, their wealth, their relationship to us, or their outward appearance, but we view them as believers or non-believers. God's perspective is an eternal perspective, since all people are eternal, and will spend eternity somewhere....That becomes our constant motivation....
Personal Conviction is the third thing we need to be an effective witness... With knowledge of the Word, comes perspective on why God does what he does, and as a result, we start developing personal convictions about it. What is God’s perspective on temptation? What is God’s perspective on evil? What is God’s perspective on our past, our present, and our future? What is God’s perspective on sin? What is God’s perspective on Satan? Once we start getting God's perspective, we begin developing personal convictions about it.
Conviction is not opinion. Opinion is something you argue about but conviction is something you are willing to sacrifice and even die for. Those who have had the greatest impact on our world for good or evil were not the smartest, they did not have the most knowledge, They were not the wealthiest, and they weren't the most talented, but they were those men and women, who have had the deepest convictions.
Romans 8:39 “[Nothing] . . . shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus”. That’s conviction. It’s not an opinion; it’s a conviction.
Romans 8:28–29 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. ”That’s a conviction, not an opinion.
Acts 20:35 “It is more blessed to give than to receive”. That’s a conviction.
2 Timothy 1:12 “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day”. That’s a conviction. May God give us more men and women of conviction.
With conviction we begin to touch the heart of God. We don’t want to just see what God sees but also to feel what God feels — about the world, about the lost, about his Word, about his church. We need to learn knowledge. Then we need to add to that God’s perspective. But then we need to add personal convictions that come as a result of that perspective.
The fourth ingredient which we need in order to be an effective soul winner is Character. The sum total of all the habits we develop is what we call our “character.” We cannot say that we are of honest character unless we are habitually honest. We cannot say we have the character of kindness unless we are habitually kind. Character is the sum total of all our habits.
If I were to say to my Winnie, “Honey, I’ll be faithful to you Forty--nine months out of the year,” she knows, and I know, that partial faithfulness is unfaithfulness. It is only faithfulness if it is my habit to always be faithful to her.
Those nine qualities from Galatians 5 — love, joy, peace, kindness, long suffering, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, are about having a God perspective that reflects in our character...
The last ingredient which we need in order to be an effective soul winner is Skill and this becomes a product of those habits we develop. Skill comes through doing something over and over and over.
It never gets any easier, but you can always get better.... Ecclesiastes 10:10 says, “If the ax is dull and its edge unsharpened, more strength is needed, but skill will bring success”. This is one of my “life verses.” If you are chopping wood, it helps to have a sharp ax. If you have a dull ax, it takes more energy to cut the wood. But if you have a sharp ax, it doesn’t take as much energy and you have more success in accomplishing your objective.
Without applying God's perspective, we have big heads that know a lot about a lot of stuff, but we have little hands and little hearts and little feet when it comes to doing anything about it.....
What we say we believe is only what we say we believe. But the truth is that we only really believe the parts of the Bible that we are willing to do. You may say “I believe in tithing.” But if you don't do it, Then you don’t really believe in it. You can say “I believe we should honor God as a family.” But if you don't lead your family in it, Then you don’t really believe it. You may say, “I believe in witnessing.” But if you don't do it, Then you don’t really believe in it. We only believe what we actually do. Developing these things, is not a quick process, but we can achieve it, if we are consistant and don't judge our progress by the moment we're in, but by the goals we have set for ourselves. Wisdom is about keeping your outcome in mind while you choose your input that makes it happen as you develop your skills....
We are taking notes and filling notebooks and thinking that because we are writing things down, we are really getting it. But we’re not. A wide gap exists between knowing and doing in American Christianity.
Never stop dreaming....Everything that happens in life begins with a dream. Somebody has to imagine it first. This is a gift that God gave to each of us: the ability to dream and envision and imagine something before it comes into reality. That's the big difference in day dreaming and vision dreaming. Every building we see was first imagined by an architect before it was built. Every piece of art was imagined before it was painted. Every song was imagined before it was written. Every athletic award, every gold medal, the athlete imagined before it ever happened. Every church that’s been started, somebody — either a group of people or a single church planter — imagined that church first. Rarely does anything happen until someone has a dream.
Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision dreaming, the people cast off restraints.” The word “vision” relates to dreaming. It means a kind of revelation, a vision from God. And where there is not this God-directed vision dreaming, the people “cast off restraint” — literally, their lives are “out of control.”
It's no wonder some Christians never influence anyone to follow the Lord. To talk to them, you would think life is a sexually transmitted disease!
So often, our problem with the dreams we have for our future, is not all the distractions.... but the problem is that we keep settling for lesser things than we could have had....What is it that you would attempt for God if you knew you couldn’t fail? What we don’t see with our physical eyes is often far more important than what we do see. Knowledge and Logic will get you from A to B, but imagination, dreams and vision, can take you everywhere and anywhere!
A Christian woman, living in the highlands of Nairobi, Kenya, told of a young national who was employed as her houseboy. After three months he asked the Christian to give him a letter of reference to a sheik some miles away. The Christian, not wishing the houseboy to leave after he had been a great help and had learned the routine of the household, offered to increase his pay. The young man replied that he was not leaving for higher pay. But, he had decided he would become either a Christian or a Muslem. So, he had come to work for the Christian for three months, so he could see how Christians acted. Now he wanted to work for three months for the sheik to observe the ways of the Muslems. After working for both, he said that he would decide which way of life he would follow. The Christian immidiately recalled the manner in which her family had lived in the presence of the houseboy and could only exclaim, "If I had only realized"...
It’s not enough just to guard our minds from all the garbage around us. It’s not enough to keep on learning and developing character. We must also let God develop our life skills. Because we must out-think and out-dream and outsmart the world for the glory of God — not for our private good but for the glory of God and the good of others.
Paul says in Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly all above all that we ask or think according to the power that is now working in us,” — more than we can imagine. More than we can dream. Infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes. God says, “Think of the biggest thing you can think of, and I can top that. I can outdo that.”
When we set goals, we are saying, God, I believe you want me to accomplish this and with your help in Your time it can be done. I want to challenge you. I am daring you. I am begging you: dream souls, think souls, and if you believe the dream, then win souls to Christ! You don't have to ask if it's His will, or pray for Him to make opportunity, there are opportunities all around us every day!!!
Start somewhere, set something in motion, and it may not happen all at once but it will happen.....God is in this with you, all the way!!!
Let's look to the Lord in prayer.....Lord, I pray Your blessing on every man and woman under the sound of my voice. Bless their families. Bless our church to be a soul winning church. Bless the Knowledge, the Perspectives, the Convictions, the Character, and the Skills of each one here. Protect them from the Evil One. And as the battle for sin is fought in their minds, may they not merely resist but refocus. May they fill their minds with the washing of the water of the Word. May they be transformed by the renewing of their minds so that they may know your will — which is good and pleasing and perfect. In Jesus’s name I pray.
