Pentecostal Devotions

All Believers are Called to Evangelise

by Joseph Premnath

Jesus said, Go into the world, preach, baptize and make disciples. That was the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). The Great Commission is evangelism. It has a great many activities. Proclamation of the gospel, praying for the salvation of the lost, interceding for the lost, praise and worship in a church, fasting for the lost, food parcel ministry for the poor people and the lost, community projects for the lost people, counseling a non-Christian person, giving a testimony before non-Christians, showing love, grace and empathy, living a holy life, meeting the felt needs of others etc. and it goes on.

We need to win souls for Christ. The power of evangelism is to mobilize as many people as possible to spread the gospel. Proclamation of the gospel was the major part of Jesus’ life

Today every member of the congregation should practice evangelism. Every member who is part of the body of Christ is expected to go into the world and spread the gospel.

Proclamation is only telling the word of the bible but affirmation is accepting the gospel. If there is no commitment Satan can take the people back to their old life. To evangelise is to present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, that people shall come to put their trust in God through Him, to accept Him as their saviour, and to serve him as their king in the fellowship of his church and body.

A few weeks ago I met a person during the Bankstown street evangelism, I had the Holy Spirit urging me to speak to him. At that time I did not know that he was involved with nine armed robberies. He was waiting for his friend to go for the movies. He said that no one loves him anymore. His story was so sad and pathetic. He was driven into a criminal world. When Jesus Christ was presented to him as the only saviour who loves all sinners he accepted Christ and gave himself to Jesus. While talking to him we also shared food for dinner. He has started to come to our church. This is the purpose of evangelism. He was given a valid reason and opportunity to accept Jesus Christ.

Entrusted With the Gospel

by Sharon Ingram

For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts (1 Thessalonians 2:3-4).

Paul states here that he has been entrusted with the gospel. As Christians each of us have also been entrusted with the gospel message. We have been commissioned to take this message to all nations. I see it as an honour that Almighty God would entrust such an important message to me. I want to make sure that His trust in me is not misplaced and that I do deliver the message he has given to me. I want to make sure I am delivering the full and correct message though.

In our desire to see people become Christians, it is easy to be tempted to alter the message or water it down a bit to make it more palatable and acceptable to others. We never see Paul changing his message to make it sound more acceptable, although he did make sure he used an appropriate method for each audience he gave the gospel to. We too can make our style of presentation appropriate to our listeners, but we must not compromise the full truth of the gospel. God has entrusted us to deliver this message in its entirety.

One of the reasons we sometimes present a more acceptable gospel is because we think that we are personally responsible for bringing people to a point of repentance and accepting Jesus, so we tell them what they want to hear to get them to that point. However, our responsibility is  actually to proclaim the gospel and it is the Holy Spirit’s work to bring conviction upon the recipient of the gospel and call them to respond. So let us be good stewards of the message entrusted to us. Go and preach the full gospel and trust that the Holy Spirit will do His work in calling people to respond to the message.

Rubbed Up the Wrong Way

by Bill Kirkham

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Colossians 3:12-14

Earlier in Colossians 3:5-11 Paul talked about what not to be. In this passage as God’s chosen people there are responsibilities. I have always found speaking the gospel to Australian men difficult when it goes against their image created by the media or even the ‘ocha’ down under Aussie mateship fallacy. Women in society can embrace these virtues without challenging their identity if they wanted to but men have trouble with how it is and has been portrayed in the past. Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience are considered very effeminate qualities.

The challenge therefore is to find ways to communicate to the Australian men that these virtues have a value. But the first thing to do is find these virtues inside ourselves and how do we rate these virtues. It would be true that we can show compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience to our friends with little effort but the real challenge is to show them to our community.

If you really look at what we are asked to do it is not wimpy to stand for Christ’s reality in our lives. Have you really tried to forgive someone who has done the wrong thing personally to you? Have you found compassion on those who have not had the breaks in life that we have had. Can you show patience with those who deliberately test you because they know you are a Christian? What peace do you desire when a person who has been brought up from birth in another religious faith that is contentious with what you think? These are hard choices and take serious effort to confront our own sinful desires to follow the world’s ideals and attitudes, putting aside ourselves to take up our cross and follow Christ’s example.

Evangelism in the Power of Spirit

by Noamy Gill

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witness in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

After the resurrection of Jesus Christ, He asked His disciples to go in to the world and preach the gospel. But here the question is, why did Jesus say to them to stay in Jerusalem, until they receive the Holy Spirit?

All during Jesus’ life on the earth, all His disciples were with Him. They saw all His works of wonders but even after His resurrection, they still had weak faith. As Jesus knew it very well, that’s why He said wait for the power of the Holy Spirit. It shows that as human beings it is hard for us to do work of evangelism. We need to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

Often it happens that some people start their preaching without the guidance of the Spirit, and fail. In the book of Acts we can see the consequences of preaching after receiving the power of Holy Spirit. Why were so many new believers added? Because whatever they did, they did it by the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

We all know it that preaching the gospel is a great command for us from Jesus. But after preaching, we don’t find any results. We feel a sense of failure, and we give up. Remember Jesus said "go and preach" He didn’t ask about any results. Our duty is to plant the seed. It is God who makes the things grow. (1 Corinthians 3:6)

But before planting the seed we need the power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit always guides us, he shows us how can we preach the gospel to the different people in different situations.

So, we should not give up at all. Paul writes in his 2^{nd letter to Timothy "But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardships, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry."(2 Timothy 4:5).}

It is our duty to preach the gospel but don’t give up in hard times. We should need to remember, before going for preaching we need to be filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, and when the Spirit is in us we can do our duty very well according to the will of God.

Social Action and Evangelism

by Karina Turk

‘Social action is a key part to evangelism, but you have to weigh the balance between social action and evangelism. Social action standing alone, is NOT evangelism’ - Quote from Chris Simon, week 9

During class a week or so ago Chris made the above statement, or words to that effect. Previous to this statement in class the question in my mind was ‘Is evangelism pure presentation of the full gospel message’? And if so ‘where does social action and practical outworking of Christianity along with relationship evangelism come into play?’ - obviously evangelism is not just the presentation of the gospel.

Jesus came to earth to save the world, but the Jesus I read about in my bible came and DID things for people, he healed the sick, forgave the sinners, raised dead people to life again. Jesus met people’s ‘felt needs’, to use someone else’s term, before he met their spiritual needs. So are we as a church and as individual Christians doing likewise? I think it comes down to the fact that we need to minister to the whole person, not just the spirit part of a person.

In 1 John 3:17-18 it says:

"If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

The Love spoken about here is an active thing. It is not just some nice feeling we are to have for people, we are to show and demonstrate that love for people.

In the New Testament when it is talking about love and the love of God it is not just a feeling; it is an action word. We are to DO something to show God’s love to people. Not just preach the word to them.

In reading ‘The Weight of Evangelism and Social Action’ by Erin Johnson I came across this quote "The words explain the deeds, and the deeds validate the words". This really resonated with me. This is what Jesus came and did. He not only preached with his words, but also backed them up with practical expressions of God’s love and compassion on humanity.

Evangelism is not only preaching the full gospel message, it is DOING something about it as well, though we must be careful not to swing to much towards social action. Striking the balance is KEY.

God Loves You….But There’s More…

by Simon Bartlett

John 3:16…Almost everyone who is anyone can quote this verse… It is quite a profound verse and is a neat summary of the gospel. But that is the problem: too neat. There is something that I learned within evangelism that is quite helpful when witnessing. It is not sufficient enough to just tell people that God loves them. Although this is a significant message incorporated inside the gospel, it is not the point of the gospel.

Humans need to realise that although God has an everlasting, unconditional love for them, their relationship with him is not necessarily perfect. God does love each and every one of us but he cannot stand our sin. OUR SIN is the major problem with our relationship with God. John 3:17, talks about Jesus not being sent into the world to condemn the world but to offer salvation. But pointing out sin is the work of the Holy Spirit and helps us to realise what we have done wrong. God speaks to us through a still small voice. People need to hear that God loves them. There is a problem if that is all they hear, because if I were to tell you that I loved you, you would assume that everything between you and me is absolutely fine and it probably would be. But when we tell people that God loves them we are pointing them in the wrong direction. We need to show them that God does love them but there is a problem called sin that needs to be dealt with so that this relationship can flourish, grow and develop into a personal, loving and caring relationship.

Lord help us to proclaim your gospel with a full and comprehensive understanding of your love and the way our relationship with you is broken and how it can be fixed through your son’s amazing sacrifice on the cross.

Judgement and Eternal Life

by Marcus Henningsson

And I saw the dead, the small and the great, stand before God. And books were opened, and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead in it. And death and hell delivered up the dead in them. And each one of them was judged according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death. And if anyone was not found having been written in the Book of Life, he was cast into the Lake of Fire. Revelation 20:12-15

Life on this planet has an end; life on the other side, past our earthly death is eternal. The mindset of the secular world is to be forever young. Secular society and science is constantly striving to overcome death and prolong human life, in the end make it eternal here and now. It is easy for us Christians to be consumed with this here and now only mindset of the world. Death is a natural part of life on this planet. Our mission is to remind people that life on this planet has an end and that life continues on the other side, either in hell or heaven.

This scripture has been a firm reminder in my life about the seriousness about our life. It is a reminder to us as Christians, to reach out to our community, to do what we can to communicate the Gospel to them. However, it is also a wake up call to those that haven’t received Christ yet, that the decisions that we make here and now have eternal consequences. Our challenge is to communicate this truth in such a way that they don’t view God as evil because he doesn’t let everyone into heaven. To communicate the Gospel today is cross-cultural communication. We might speak the same language, live in the same city but the Christian worldview is far removed from the mindset of secular society. The only absolute truth according to the secular society is that there are no absolute truths. This is what we need to be aware of in our evangelism. The mission might seem impossible and it truly is if we do it in our own strength. Let us not forget the empowering of the Holy Spirit in our mission. Let us pray for the unsaved and pray that the Holy Spirit will give us the anointing when we talk to those that don’t know Christ yet. Hell is a reality and the day of judgement is coming closer every day. Every person is responsible for their own actions, however our mission is to go the extra mile, love and do everything that we can in order to reach every person with the Gospel. The Holy Spirit has been given to us, so that we can do whatever we can in order to reach everyone with the love of Christ.

The Evangel

by Carissa Miller

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.  For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”
Romans 1:16-17

An evangel is a scroll. On it is recorded a testimony of the victory from a battle. Old Testament kings such as Saul or David would have received these with each battle victory. The evangelist would carry the scroll, the evangel, to the king and present the good news of the battle victory by reading the account presented on the evangel to the king himself. 

God has provided us with a testimony of the battle He has won victoriously through Jesus Christ. The gospel is our evangel. What should we do with it?   

Proclaim it without shame and boldly to all who will hear it! It is the most amazing account in all the world. It is the greatest battle ever fought or won. It is the proclamation that we should carry proudly and with great haste, to the one we are to share it with, just as the evangelists did.

Who are we meant to share it with? Everyone! To those who know the story, have heard it, and have accepted it, it can be a source of encouragement because of the greatness of such an awesome God. In those who hear it for the first time or with clarity for the first time, it will not be sown in vain: “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed…”  “…it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.”   

God’s Word and His testimony of the blood of Jesus Christ contains eternal power that penetrates a body’s soul, produces miraculous healing and transformation, and imparts God’s very being, the Holy Spirit! How could we ever deny this to anyone!? Especially once we have experienced this insane encounter ourselves.   

Father God, grant us the courage and obedience to boldly and graciously proclaim your gospel to the world. Help us to carry your evangel proudly and share it with all who will listen. Lord, do not allow us to determine who will hear it, but help us to abandon preconceptions of people we meet and those we already know and allow you room to move and to stand between us. Jesus be glorified! Praise you LORD may your victory and love be known and may your testimony resonate throughout all the earth. May our voices amplify your message. Amen!

Evangelism – A True Act of Love for God

by Adam White

“When they saw him, they worshiped him - but some of them still doubted! Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:17-20).

We read this scripture in Matthew 28 and understand that this is the great commission to every believer; this is the evangelical response to every person who tries to excuse their lack of evangelistic activity by saying “well I’m not an evangelist.” We are all commanded to do the work of an evangelist but as is so often the case, it simply doesn’t happen -Why is this?

When we look a bit further back in our text to verse 17, we see the disciples, having seen Jesus for the first time after His resurrection worshiping Him. If there were any doubts in most of their minds as to His deity previously, they were now quenched. Yet we find that some still doubted! They stood face to face with the resurrected God, and yet they still doubted - why is this?

Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” From the days of Jesus until now, the church has been full of nominal Christians. Christians who are simply there for the social interaction; perhaps for the community benefits; maybe even for the hope of salvation, but not truly in love with Jesus, reflected in a life of worship.

These disciples saw Christ and in a state of love and awe, worshiped; and as a result, went into the world upon Jesus’ command and began preaching of His love. When we as Christians love Jesus, we gladly share His love with the world through the gospel message. When we fail to love Jesus, when we doubt Him and what He has done, when we fail to honor Him in worship and merely offer lip service, we are not doing what Jesus commanded.

True evangelism, evangelism that is effective and relevant, must flow from a love and worship for Jesus Christ. It is the expression of the love He first showed us. It is a lifestyle birthed out of a desire to please Him. It is an overflow from a heart that is surrendered and obedient to Him.

So the question remains, do you love Jesus?

Sent and Returning With Joy

by Chris Simon

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go (Luke 10:1).

Two events have been coming together in recent times at Southern Cross College. The Evangelism class has been inspired and enthused by Julian Batchelor of the need to ‘evangelise’ - and the cost of the church losing it’s recognition of the need for members to witness to their faith. There has also been a call by our President to prayer and fasting. Quite clearly, Jesus set the precedent by setting aside times of prayer. Thus, it is a good time to remind us of one of my favourite quotes from Michael Green who simply says:

First comes the ministry of prayer. Without that nothing happens. Unless we are praying for people to come to the Lord, praying regularly and corporately and imaginatively and in faith, we shall not see very much. Therefore a (parish) prayer meeting of some sort is a necessity (Michael Green: Freed to Serve, London: Hodder & Stooughton 1983, p. 112).

There is no doubt about it, hearing stories of miracles of all kinds is an encouragement to both individual Christians and the Church in general, but, when all else is considered, there is nothing more exciting than hearing testimony from those who have recently found faith and commitment in Jesus. Would that churches, generally, allowed more time for brief (?edited…) testimonies from recent converts!

And so, we come to Jesus’ commissioning of the seventy. No doubt they went out with various thoughts: excitement, enthusiasm… and, no doubt, in some cases, sheer terror. What is amazing, and encouraging, is that they all returned with ‘Joy’. Not only that, it was an opportune time for Jesus to remind the seventy that they also should not cease to give thanks for the fact that their (and our) ‘names are written in heaven’ (Luke 10:20). If we keep those two things in mind it should encourage us to be always ready ‘to give an account of the hope that is within us’ (1 Peter 3:15).

Then, we too, will be able to ‘return with joy’.