Good character is central to effective evangelism. If there is anything we do in this world that pleases Heaven and attracts eternity is our capacity and capability in winning souls to the kingdom of God. No matter your level of imbibing the ten Commandments and no matter your spirituality, once you have not been winning souls to the kingdom, you are yet to fulfill the instruction of the God. When Jesus was crucified and rose, he appeared to his disciplines at Galilee and issued out these instructions that is tagged today the great commission .....Therefore go and make disciplines of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.(matt28:19). These instructions are the cradle of the work all Christians. Once you dont key into these instructions, your Christian work pale into insignificance. In fact God had made it abundantly clear that once you fail to talk to a person to turn away from his sinful ways,He said his blood is on you, but once you have done that and he refused, then you are free from judgement. Ezekiel 33:1-9 talks copiously on the consequences of failing to win soul to the kingdom. Its been emphasized in verses 8-9 and to get the gravity of inaction, let me quote verbatim when I say to the wicked that you will surely die and you do not speak to warn the wicked man from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I shall require at your hand. Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn way from his way and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul. From these two relevant books of the bible, its crystal clear that our qualification to enter heaven, to a large extent, is contingent on our evangelical work. If I want to do justice to evangelism on this thread, then I must write not less than four parts on the topic. But because of the importance of good character in winning souls to the kingdom, I decided to dwell on it. We have read and seen the work of great evangelists, they couldnt have succeeded without good character traits. Lets look at character from the general to the specific. In the general terms, evangelism was enriched because of missionaries all over the world. if they hadnt good character of resilience, tenacity, humility, generosity, courage and sacrifice, Christianity would have disappeared. Paul, Peter were jailed and eventually crucified.Height of courage. They left the comfort of their zone Israel and travelled to risky countries. That was height spirit of sacrifice. When Peter and Andrew were catching fish which was a good job in those days and when Jesus told them... Follow me and I will make you fishers of men. They immediately left their nets and followed him.(Matt 4:19). Now compare this with a rich who came to Jesus and asked what he could do enter the kingdom. When he satisfactorily answered Jesus that he had kept all commandments, but when Jesus asked him to sell all his possessions and follow him, he couldnt do that. ( See Matt19: 16- 24)The man s character of taking possessions above winning souls to God can not be compared to that of Peter and Andrew who sacrificed their income of catching fish. The activities of missionaries in Nigeria is full of stories of how their good character won a lot of souls in Nigeria. I relish the example of Dr Bronoun who left his lucrative medical profession to travel all the way from Denmark to the dark land of the present Numan Federation. In the process his wife died. That didnt deter him from doing his missionary work. He buried her, instead of being discouraged, he soldiered on and came to Numan and won thousands of souls to the kingdom. The mans character encompassed all, sacrifice, courage, resilience, tenacity and humility. Permit me to be a bit personal. While I was with my father, I observed that he was unbelievably generous, considerate, kind hearted, down to earth. Even when he became the king of our kingdom, our house accommodated countless people, the bulk of them had no relationship with him. In one of his generous attitudes, there was a Christmas that he gave out our Christmas dresses to the children of some indigent people. But for our elder brother who came with some Christmas dresses for me and my younger brother on Christmas Day, we would have celebrated the festival without dresses. When I grew older and could engage my father in conversation, I asked him why he was so generous at the expense of his nucleus family, he told me he imbibed this from the early Christian missionaries. Being one of the first mbula people to accept Christianity, he was ostracized by his father. The missionaries took him as their own. Provided him with clothes, ate the same meal with him and trained him. He said for once, they never saw him as stinky , black nigger. They tolerated his baggages of a bush boy and corrected him without being too harsh. He said this good character traits of the missionaries endeared him to Christianity and assisted him in being a good president of our customary court and a legendary king. He advised me to imbibed theses virtues of the missionaries if I want to succeed in life. The purpose of this long example is to emphasized this good character traits of the missionaries. Can you compare the missionaries with our present modern day men of God who hardly reach out to the rural areas, drive in most expensive car available, own private jets, live only with their children and house maids. One man in the country and there are few ones that demonstrate these good character traits is Brother Billy Akani. This man Inspite of access to stupendous funds from missionaries abroad and within, he moves around with a modest car and without body guards. He organises retreat in Gboko annually and for five days you are there, unless you make your private arrangements, he feeds and accommodates everybody there free and doesnt collect offerings throughout the duration of the programme. A true man of God, he said before the programmes starts, he prays to God to take over and people from far and near send in their assistance through cash and kind. A very important place of evangelism is your working place. How do you treat your staff. Do you motivate them by giving them their due or deprive them? Do you assist those that are in dire need of assistance. A lot of christians in their working places are terrors. They are complete opposite of Christian character. Tell me with all wickedness that you unleashed in your working place how can unbelievers be converted to your religion. The man that used his working place and change the most wicked act of human beings that dehumanised the entire race and led to the death of millions was William Wilberforce, a british parliamentarian This wicked human trade led to the enslavement of 11m Africans and nearly 1.4m died! When he became born again three years in his parliamentary work, he devoted his private and public life to promote Christianity and Christian ethics and his major contribution to the growth of Christian faith was his steadfastness in pursuing the abolition of slave trade. He eventually did that after more than two decades of parliamentary work. This changed the history of mankind. The point being made here is you could use your working place to win souls to the kingdom.His great work influenced the British parliamentarians to choose the path of christian ethics, rather than wicked worldly ethics. One of the most important places of winning souls to the kingdom is our conduct at home. If your way of life at home is at variance with Christian ethics, there is no way you can be an effective evangelist outside. How do you treat your husband or wife and your children at home? What is your relationship with your relations and domestic staff? In a situation when you disrespect your wife or husband, or you maltreat your domestic staff, there is no way you can be a good evangelist. Let me conclude this piece by giving a shining example of a house wife that Inspite of being persecuted by her husband for her Christian beliefs,she still respected him and because of her character the man became a born again. The woman was always attending one Christian programme to another and each time she came back a little bit late, the man would lock up the house and she would sleep on the veranda. When he opened the door for her in the morning, she wouldnt be angry, instead she would prepare his breakfast and that of the children and then prepare the children for school. One day when she came back it was raining. The man wickedly locked the door and left her outside for several hours she was in the rain till day break. When he opened the door in the morning, the woman was not annoyed, she as usual, respectfully, greeted him. shivering, she did the morning chores. The man was perplexed. On Sunday, he followed her to the church and requested the pastor to allow him speak. He told the entire congregation how he persecuted his wife and how she absorbed all the humiliation and hardship. He said because this wifes virtues he had decided to be born again. That was how his wifes good character changed the husbands entire life. The summary of this piece is that because evangelism plays a central role in Christianity, we can only be good evangelists if we imbibed good character traits in our houses, work place and in whatever we do.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 01:15:03 +0000
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