You've Gotta Have the Spirit!

The challenge came from Nashville.....

I recently attended the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville where the president, pastor Bobby Welch issued the "Everyone Can Kingdom Challenge" to Witness, Win and Baptize a million souls to Christ in the next year! Some have called the new emphasis of soul winning in the SBC the "Acts 1:8 Challenge".

Acts 1:8 says, "After that the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you shall be witnesses unto me...."

I like the challenge of winning the masses to the Lord. I think we have lost the art of soul winning in our local churches. We've become so "seeker friendly" that we don't want to do anything that might run someone off.

But the reality of it all is that trying to win souls without doing so in the fullness of the Spirit is a joke!

Get excited about winning souls. I recently told my church that the Main Thing is to keep the Main Thing the Main Thing, and that I thought the main thing is to obey the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-19). If the church is to be about anything, it's to be about winning the lost.

But realize that the promise of the Father (Acts 1:4, 5) is that God will supply supernatural power for witnessing and winning the lost after His Holy Spirit has come UPON us. That's the "epi" experience ("epi" in the Greek designates the Spirit filling us, coming UPON us rather than IN us.) It's the filling of the Spirit that gives the power to win the lost. Never, never lose sight of that great truth.

Who would want to try to take on the task of evangelism without the power of God?

Brother B