As you can gather from the previous devotionals, and many others throughout my writings, winning souls for Christ is such an important part of my life and has been the sole purpose of my ministry during these past years. All the programs I have developed have been built around meeting needs, but most of all reaching these people and ministering to them, and telling them about Jesus. I have found that the people who are in need are usually the ones that need Jesus the most in their lives, because they are normally in their plight because they have not followed the commands and will of God in their lives. There is so much need all around us, and it is so easy to assemble any size or group of people that we want to assemble. It is easy to assemble groups of teenagers, the elderly, the sick, the unemployed, the alcoholics and drug addicted, the blind, the disabled, the divorced, etc. These are the people that need to be ministered to by our church family the most, as God gives us his Great Commission to reach out to these people and bring them to Christ. During the past several years we have assembled groups of almost all of these people together and have tried to get our church pastors, deacons and church leaders to minister to these lost people, help them with their problems, but most of all lead them to Christ. It is sad that so few of our churches, do not seem to care enough to become involved in these types of ministries, but even sadder that they do not have any programs of their own that are reaching out. It is time for a revival of our churches and time for them to begin reaching out and fulfilling their duty to save lost souls. May God Bless All Of You.
God’s Great Commission #2
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Luke 4:18-19
The mission of Jesus is to set the captive free. Jesus declared his mission publicly from the outset of his ministry when he spoke the scripture above. The question is how can we, as the people of God fulfill the mission of Jesus and empower the people of God to do the work of Jesus in the world? I am convinced the body of Christ in America has lost its way in the matter of its mission because we have neglected the work of the Holy Spirit. Many leaders in the body of Christ are so bound up themselves and have grieved the Holy Spirit so much that the only thing that moves in the Sunday service is the clock. People leave the same way they came in, broken, bound, feeling helpless, and destitute. Many churches in America never see a conversion, a healing, deliverance, or broken hearts mended because the leaders refuse to allow it to happen, and the church people are themselves bound by the very same habits, compromise, and sinful pursuits as the ones who have never experienced God’s deliverance. The body of Christ needs revival. We need a God sent, Spirit empowered, sin cleansing revival in the church in America today. We need to pray for revival in our churches, and for the pastors, elders, deacons and others to begin a revival in their own hearts and then pass this on to their members. I have been going through some difficult times lately dealing with the issues of getting churches involved in reaching outside of their churches into the community and saving souls for Christ. Each day that passes it seems like we lose another dear person to death that we have been ministering to where we are not certain that they have received Christ in their life. When this happens I wonder have I done enough, and what could I have done better or differently? Many times it seems that no one else is concerned about the plight of our community, as our churches are not responding to the call of these people. Yes, we have some volunteers that are faithful workers that help distribute food and clothing to the needy, but such a small percentage of the need is actually met. The time our few volunteers have to spend with these people is very limited due to the volume of need. We should have the time to know them and be able to share the Word of God with them and tell them about Jesus. We have people in the local agencies that are crying out for help in dealing with family issues, financial issues and relationships issues which offers such a great avenue to minister to them and tell them about Jesus and win their souls to Christ, but we are failing miserably in our church family providing this to them. Each time I see an obituary in our local paper about one of these folks, I wonder if they were saved, and did we provide information about Jesus to them. There is so much that our churches could be doing to win souls for Christ that is going undone. I would ask all of you to pray that God will inspire our churches to respond and reach out to save these souls.
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