The Role Of The Holy Spirit In Evangelism And Discipleship

A great Kingdom assignment has been entrusted into our hands, and opportunities abound each day for us to fulfil this assignment. By tapping into these opportunities, we bring pleasure to God who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4).

2. The Holy Spirit Teaches Us the Value of One Soul to God (Acts 16:11-15, 26-33)

What is the value of one soul to you? How much are you willing to spend just for one soul to know Christ Jesus? How much of your life are you ready to pour out to see that just one soul gets saved?

If we look at Acts 16:11-15, one would have expected based on the vision God gave Paul of a man in Macedonia crying out to him for help that when Paul got to Macedonia, there would be a man waiting to receive him at the city gate. Or he was going to preach a message and like it happened on the day of Pentecost, thousands of soul would hear him and be saved that instant. But what happened when Paul got to Macedonia? It was just some women at the riverside who gave him audience to preach to them. Even when he preached to the women, it was just one woman Lydia, a seller of purple, that accepted Jesus into her heart as Lord. Lydia and her household got baptised. Later when Paul and Silas were locked up in prison, the jailer and his household got saved.

The Holy Spirit through this experience taught Paul the value of one soul to God. The journey of over a day, the stress and strain of travelling by ship, the expenses spent on this journey, were all for God to see that Lydia and the jailer got saved. In Luke 15:4-7, God teaches that even if He has 99 sheep with Him and just one sheep is missing, He will do everything to ensure that the one sheep that has gone astray, comes back to Him. God will go to any extent to see that one soul is saved, to the extent of shedding the blood of His only Son for the salvation of that one soul. Luke 15:7, 10 tells us how the angels in heaven rejoice when just one soul is saved. They rejoice because the blood of Jesus has not been in vain in that life. They rejoice because the pain, agony and sacrifice of the cross was not wasted on that soul.

When it comes to evangelism and discipleship, many of us have the attitude and mind set of the elder brother of the prodigal son in Luke 15:25-31. We can’t understand what all the fuss is for one soul. We get annoyed and irritated when we see so much being spent by churches or Christian organisations on evangelism and discipleship just like the brother of the prodigal son was irritated with all the money his father spent to welcome his brother back home. In worldly economics, the time, money, stress and effort Paul put in to travel to Macedonia for Lydia and the jailer to be saved, doesn’t make wise economic sense. That money should have been spent on thousands of people not just on Lydia and her family, the jailer and his family. But we can’t use worldly economics to do kingdom business. Nothing we spend in our efforts at soul winning and discipleship is more expensive or can equate to the precious blood of Jesus that was shed for that lost soul.