Matthew 28.19 - 20 is the portion of scripture in which Jesus gives us what we know as The Great Commission. “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” Despite growing up in church my entire life, the Great Commission is something I did not fully comprehend until I sat through Personal Evangelism. Hearing it constantly often causes us to disregard what we hear because “we know it and hear it all the time”. I grew up knowing we are commanded to tell others of Christ, and lead souls to Him, however, even though it was nothing new to anyone else, it overwhelmed me with the realization that the Great Commission does not stop there. It continues on to say, baptizing them, and teaching them, or, discipling them. The Great Commission involves all three. Firstly, “Soul winning is not something we do, but what we are.” -Bro Pirkle. Another thing that stood out to me and was another ‘lightbulb moment’ was Matthew 4.19, “And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” I can not tell how many times I have read that verse, sang the appropriate song, heard messages preached from that passage, or memorized it for Sunday School, yet the truth in it never stood out as it did reading it in Personal Evangelism. The verse said, “He will make you fishers of men if we follow Him. Soul winning is not something we do, it is what we are. If we follow Him, He will reshape and mold your life to be more like Him; He will make us fishers of men. We cannot lead a person to Christ in our own power, but the Holy Spirit. Fear ruled my heart on visitation growing up. I have never led a person to the Lord as of the present time. The desire was there, however, the fear of not knowing what to say, or not knowing the answers paralyzed me. I was not in ministry, I had never been trained in soul winning. Yet, this verse says, Follow Him and He will make you fishers of men. The only way we can be a fisher of men is if we follow Him. If we are to convince others of their need for Christ, we must be faithful in following Him ourselves. Secondly, He must be the one to accomplish this. We can not do it on our own. The only way we can become a fisher of men is if we rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to make us into the person we should be and to empower us, and convict them. Lastly, He must make you into a fisher of men. Being one is not inherited; it does not come with a position of the ministry; you are not born with it. Rather, it is a process that He must do in your life if you allow Him.
“We are not called to win multitudes, but one person at a time.”-Bro. Pirkle. We step out of our dorms and look across Oklahoma City. We see all the people, and get this idea that it is our job to win them all. True, it is our responsibility to preach the Gospel to the world, however, never in the Bible did it say that we must win them all. It is our goal, but the Bible clearly says that there will be many who do not believe; many who do not receive His offer of salvation. Despite that it should be our goal, it is not what we were called to do. We are called to win one person at a time. And once we win one, we win another. It is not difficult, it is not confusing… it is simple and easy. The second part of the Great Commission is baptism. We can not… I can not… stop at simply winning someone to Christ. The goal is not to win people to Christ, rather to fulfill the Great Commission, and that is to lead them to Christ, baptize them, and disciple them. We must lead them to see that the next step after Salvation is baptism. In fact, this step is actually fulfilling the beginning of the last part of the Great Commission, which is discipling them. 2 Timothy 2.2, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” Our job is then to teach those we lead to Christ and disciple them to then repeat the process. Discipleship means, as defined by dictionary.com:
My responsibility specifically is everything I just stated. It is not the responsibility of the Pastor, missionaries, those involved with evangelical outreach, or staff of the church.. It is my responsibility to go out, win souls to Christ, and lead them to know Christ.
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January 2023
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