By Ladi Ayodeji
Calvary greetings to all in Jesus name, amen.
It is so good to return to this platform after a long absence due to a series of health challenges. Glory to God, I am back, fully recovered, so, beloved, here we go again.
The title of this piece, Back To The Future, is not a mistake as some might think. It’s deliberate; an unusual call to the christian brethren to return to the core mandate that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to all his followers,to go into all nations and make disciples of all men, women and the young ones.
This is the main message of salvation; it is the real reason Jesus came into our world to die in the place of all sinners, so that those who believe in him will not perish, but have eternal life.
Redemption is at the heart of the message of Jesus Christ. Spreading this message of salvation, is the heart felt need of the Lord. In effect, any other thing a believer is doing to promote the gospel, is secondary. It is just a gesture that is complimentary to the core mandate, which is to get people saved.
The devil is always using divisive strategies to distract believers so that, noisy quarrels over doctrines and spiritual correctness, would dissipate our energy, and prevent us from working in unity to carry out the Great Commission; which is the winning of souls.
That’s what we see playing out today like it has always been. The devil, seeing that Paul and Banarbas were called together to fulfill a team ministry of preaching the gospel, promptly sowed a seed of division between them ,causing the duo to split even before they could step out. He is still doing the same thing today through bitter arguments in the Body of Christ over the propriety of the message of prosperity, healings, success or other issues that are actually included in the package of salvation.
In the days of Paul, there was the idle talk about who was greater between Appolos and his colleague, that is,Paul himself. Jesus addressed this problem when he reminded his disciples that, Solomon, in all his glory, didn’t covet wealth or power,yet God gave him much more than the king asked for because, our God does provide more abundantly,in far greater measure than we could ever contemplate or imagine.
So, this current media skirmishes going on in Nigeria between some elite preachers is one of the old strategies that the great serpent,Satan often deploys to divide the kingdom of God, knowing that, united we stand, divided,we fall. Let’s remember that Jesus had prayed for the unity of the brethren before he ascended, and the devil is always working to frustrate that.
Therefore, whatever our differences,we must never forget our main assignment: soul winning. Period! That’s all Jesus asked for.
Now, that said, one of the issues we should understand to get this global soul winning project back on track is to always preach to the unsaved, not the already saved believers. Every so often, churches target membership growth by stealing members from other churches. That’s not evangelism.
When someone breaks away from a church and pulls out members to start a new church over disagreements with his Pastor; that’s not a positive approach to kingdom growth. Evangelism has only one objective: to bring the unsaved to Christ.It is not about the wealth a minister has accumulated; not about building big churches, not about the fame of a minister or the followers or the crowd they attract to their meetings.Not about speaking style; the bewitching rhetoric of a pastor or the fine academic credentials of the preacher,or his good looks and charisma.
It’s all about how many souls are won. Nothing more.
The future of the kingdom of God could only be guaranteed,if we return to the core mandate that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to all believers: Go and win souls for the kingdom of God and save many from perishing.
Key Scriptures:Matt 28:16-20, John 3:16.