When I FaceTime home and I get to talk to my Mimi, there is one question she will ask me without fail:
Have you won any souls to Jesus?
I remember distinctly the first time she inquired about that. To be honest, it struck me across the face.
“Well, Mimi, I’ve prayed for people and I am doing a lot of PRACTICAL work to help people.”
However, that question hung in the air everywhere I went. It would nag at me everywhere I walked. It would sit on my soul at 3:00 AM when I couldn’t sleep.
Have I won any souls to Jesus?
I can assure you that the World Race has afforded me countless opportunities to genuinely and sustainably help the people we are reaching. One of the reasons I picked the Race over a different mission trip is that their desire is to not rob people of their God-given dignity in “helping” but rather come alongside the locals to give them tools and principles to bring about change in their own community.
But…Have I won any souls to Jesus?
Helping is great. It really is. In fact, the world could use more authentic, life-extending help.
However…
Am I really HELPING someone if I am not intentionally, passionately attempting to share Jesus with them? Or am I merely putting a bandaid on a gaping wound by “helping” them with a smile and hoping they see Jesus in that alone?
Friends, the glaring reality is that I am not helping someone if I don’t share the only thing that can truly help them which is Jesus Christ.
I am not saying bible-thump people until they finally decide to submit to Jesus. That is a truly terrible idea.
What I am saying is that if I believe in the innermost and outermost part of my being that Life is only found in Jesus, why am I not sharing that with literally every person I come into contact with? Why am I not seeking to bring Him into every conversation if I know that He is the only thing that can help a person?
The truth of the matter is that my main concern, goal, priority, drive, and desire SHOULD be to win souls to Jesus.
If I am more concerned with talking about Rogue One than the Savior of my soul, that’s alarming. If I am more concerned with giving someone a shirt and that’s IT than telling them about Who can give them Life, that’s depressing. If I am more concerned with being socially acceptable and liked than being BOLD about the Redeemer of the world, that’s frightening.
Praise God it’s not my job or your job to win a soul. ONLY the wooing of the Holy Spirit and His loving-kindness can do that.
But am I being faithful to my role? Am I actually sharing Jesus BY name to these people I am supposedly helping?
Not so I have anything to boast in or to add it to a list of seemingly “good deeds”
Not at all.
But so that they may KNOW there’s hope. So that they may KNOW there’s an unfailing Love. So that they may KNOW there’s redemption. So that they may KNOW there’s an actual Helper for you.
If Jesus is not the center of my actions, words, thoughts, and intentions towards someone, I am being no help at all.
Campbell Stewart of herself is useless.
But Jesus Christ in me is EVERYTHING.
I pray, the the Lord would put in me the boldness of a Lion to win souls to Jesus. Because the world does not need more mortality, it needs more JESUS. The world does not need more good intentions, it needs more JESUS. The world does not need more help, its needs more JESUS.
Jesus. Only Jesus.
