Now we have to start our action for the increase. Recently I visited a group of saints, and I made a very positive discovery. I found out that they were not vital and that they do not pray much. They have not gotten into the prayer life. The only way that we can touch the Spirit is by prayer. In the Bible the Spirit is linked with our prayer. Praying and the Spirit are one. If we are without prayer, we will be without the Spirit. Of course, we can also say that without the Spirit, there can be no prayer. This is why we are told that we have to pray in spirit (Eph. 6:18). Since we are regenerated believers in Christ, our human spirit and the Holy Spirit are mingled together as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).
If we do not pray even for one day, we have the feeling that we are short of the Spirit. When we pray, even with just a few sentences, we have the feeling that we are touching the Spirit. We all need to have a time with the Lord every morning in prayer. If you do not pray in the morning for one week, you will be dead spiritually. There is no other way to be vital except by prayer. We have to pray and get into a prayer life.
Most of us are living in a situation in which it is difficult to find a solid time of half an hour to pray. Whenever we set aside a definite time to pray, the enemy will always try to disturb us. When we begin to pray, someone may knock on our door or call us on the telephone. We may not have any telephone calls for a long period of time, but as soon as we begin to pray, the telephone will ring. Eventually, after three phone calls, our heart for prayer may be gone. We may have to wait for a period of time until we can be recovered back to prayer. It is not easy for us to pray for half an hour without being disturbed. We need to look to the Lord so that we can free ourselves from all distractions to have solid times of prayer with Him. Prayer makes us vital. We have to take the lead to be vital. If we are not vital, we cannot pray for others to be vital.
To be vital means to be released in the spirit, and this cannot be performed. If we pray for half an hour, we will be released. If we are not released, we are not vital. To contact people we have to be released persons. If we are not bound, we will be able to release others. A dejected, weeping person cannot make other people happy. If we are going to make people happy, we have to be happy persons. We can only help people to be what we are. In order to go out to effectively labor in the gospel, we must be vital.
Before going out, we must have some preparation. First, we must prepare some candidates for us to go to visit. We need to consider all of our relatives, neighbors, classmates, colleagues, and friends. Out of these ones whom we know, we need to choose some to labor on for the gospel. Of course, we have to do this by prayer. We should pray, “Lord, who are the best two or three right now for me to work on?” I shared in a previous message that we all should make a list of the people we know who need to be saved. When we read this list prayerfully, we will have some kind of inner registration of the two or three whom we should labor on now. We have to consider their situation and labor on them appropriately.
We need to consider all of our acquaintances, and we need the proper discernment in our consideration of whom we should labor on. We should spend our time to labor on those whom we consider to be promising and not waste our time on others who are not open. In our group meetings we should pray and study our candidates for the gospel together. We need to consider people’s condition, especially spiritually, and then act appropriately to meet their need in the gospel. We need to decide how we should visit a certain person and who would be the right one or ones to go.
How you talk to a person is crucial, and how you answer his questions is more crucial. Your word may save him, or it could delay him for many years. A person may have a question, and although you may speak many things from the Bible to answer him, he will not receive anything.
If a person asks you what eternal life is, you should not answer him in a complicated way. You should answer him strictly and simply. You may say, “Eternal life is God Himself, and God is Jesus Christ. Therefore, eternal life is just Jesus Christ. Today Christ is the Spirit with us. He is waiting for a time to enter into you to be your eternal life. Would you receive Him?” Then he may ask, “By what way?” Then you can lead him to pray and call upon the Lord’s name. Within a short time this person will be helped to know what eternal life is, who is eternal life, and how he can receive this life. Eternal life is God, God today is Jesus Christ, and He is the Spirit. By praying and calling upon the name of the Lord we can receive Him into us to be our very life.
When we go to visit someone, we should not speak too many points to him. Otherwise, he will be complicated and receive nothing. If we go to visit someone and speak many points to him in a complicating way, our speaking will delay him. He may feel that the things in the Bible are too hard to understand, and his interest will be gone. Then he will not want to have any further contact with us. This will delay him for many years. We should be in fear and trembling when we contact people (1 Cor. 2:3). We should pray, “Lord, how should I answer this person? Help me.”
You also need to know the proper Bible verses, especially those verses which are referred to as “golden verses.” Surely you have to remember John 3:16, but in John 3 there are other crucial verses. Verses 3 and 5 speak of being born anew, being regenerated, to enter into the kingdom of God. You need to know the best verses concerning God, concerning Christ, concerning Christ’s blood, concerning Christ’s redemption, and concerning all the crucial truths related to the gospel. Your answers to people should be concise and to the point. It is somewhat simple for me to coach you, but for you to do it is not that simple. This needs your practice.
In our vital group meetings, we need to spend some time to study our gospel candidates. After we go to contact a person, the following week we should give a report in the group meeting of our experience. Then we should look to the Lord and fellowship about how to take the next step with this person.
We must remember that in our gospel labor we are fishers of men (Matt. 4:19), and human society is like a big ocean full of fish. Certain fish may be very hard to catch, so we should not spend our time on them. We need to go to the fish that are available for us to catch. This is why we need the proper discernment concerning whom we should labor on. God surely loves everyone, but I am not talking about God loving the world. I am speaking about how to “hook” people with the limited amount of time available to us.
We must have something to meet people’s need. If a person goes to a store to buy something, and the store does not carry what he wants, he will go away unhappy. But if he finds a store that carries what he needs, he will surely be happy. We must have something to meet people’s need. Furthermore, we may have something, but do we know how to present what we have? We need to learn to present things to people in a way that they can receive them. We should learn to present the truth of the gospel according to the practical situation of our daily life. This requires our practice. To become proficient in any kind of athletic endeavor, a person must practice all the time. Our success in reaching people with the gospel for the increase of the Body of Christ all depends upon our practice.
I hope that we will get ourselves prepared to come to the following group meeting. We need to come prepared with the gospel candidates whom we feel we should labor on. Then we can consider how to go to them and begin our labor together in the gospel. When we labor on certain ones, we must be consistent. We should not hope that within three months someone will be saved and within another half year another one will be saved. It may be that the three for whom we are burdened will not be saved until two years have passed. In the past we may have been very busy, but we did not bear any fruit. We must pray to get a few definite candidates. Then we need to work on them. We need to learn how to concentrate our work in order to get some definite results.