What makes an outstanding soul-winner (3)? Live the gospel

Do you want to be an outstanding soulwinner? Live the gospel, In this third part of the series on what makes an outstanding soulwinner, we will look at the issue of credibility. Do we live a life that corresponds to the values of Christ? That is what I call living the gospel.

An interesting encounter

As a young graduate, I had encountered Christians on campus, had long debates with them, but was unconverted. I did not like Christians very much and had scant regard for them. However, one day, a friend and I had an encounter with a Christian man that chipped away at our wall of hostility, at least it did mine. On the Air Force base where we served during the National Youth service corps and lived, you often had no choice but to seek a ride to where you were going. And as a young woman you knew what to expect if the person who gave you a ride was male. On this particular day, a man stopped, we got in the car and he dropped us of before the house we shared and we were intrigued.

A man who met two beautiful women young and said not one word of physical compliment, nor tried to get fresh, but took us to our destination and invited us to meet his family! He had my attention. We accepted the invitation to lunch with his family and discovered a man of integrity who loved his family and honoured his wife. They spent the time sharing the gospel with us over a lovely meal. It was a novel perspective for me. I did not get saved right away, but i wish I remembered his name, I would have sought him out to let him know that the worldly young woman who had no interest in Jesus has become a preacher of the gospel and that he had a part in it.

Credibility, credibility, credibility

Indeed one major challenge many have in being soul-winners is that they lack credibility. Many believers are caught up in seemingly innocent secular pursuits that do not promote love for righteous living. In a bid to prove that we are not too heavenly minded, we may have become excessively earthly minded. The wholesale consumption of secular entertainment has dulled our indignation at ungodliness so we indulge at will.

If we do not pursue holiness, we will pursue license. And Christians who live ungodly lives are not credible soul-winners. You must earn the right to be heard, and people will not listen to you if your conduct does not tally with your speech. Worse still, they will mock you and those of your ilk who try to persuade them to change.

The power of the message

The power of a message is witnessed in the sacrifice people are willing to make for it, and in how thoroughly it transforms the adherents to the message. If people do not see that Jesus has changed your life, they will not believe He will change theirs, and they will not be willing to renounce anything to follow a God who, if He is, is woefully incapable of commanding the loyalty of His followers. Of course the logic is faulty, yet it is one that many have. A lot of preaching today focuses almost exclusively on the benefits, often material of the gospel to the exclusion of true devotion to Christ. That fosters a carnal mindset that does not shrink from sin.

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Live the gospel

How we live matters, it attests to the power of our message and the reality of our God. We must live in accordance with the gospel. When Christians live in compromise, their soul-winning edge is blunted. The devil tells them, ‘who are you to preach’? And they acquiesce. The world tells them ‘who are you to pontificate’? And they shuffle away.
People are perishing, yes, that is the word, perishing daily without Jesus. Surely we can forgo the drinking, the immorality, the gossip,the cheating, et al., if only so the Word of God will not be brought into disrepute; so those who are desperate may see a way out in Christ. No one must go to hell because my life put them off Jesus.

Yes, it does matter how we live. To be a soul-winner, we must bear the fruits of the gospel of Christ.
Shalom!

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