Our Soul is who we are? Our soul is the result of the decisions we make concerning what our focus in life is to be, the talents we choose to develop, the careers we chose to pursue and how we use our time during the week. Jesus created you and me and when He did He had a specific intended soul-life in mind for you and I individually. To love Jesus with all your soul means to let go of Your plans for your soul life and to surrender to and obey Jesus’ instructions for you in the development of Your soul life. Jesus said in Matthew 16:24-27,

"If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his soul shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul for My sake shall find it. For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds."

Jesus tells us in this passage of Matthew that if we insist on directing our own lives and pursuing our own choice of soul development that not only in the end will we lose our souls, but we will never know what the soul-life was He had in mind for us. We will never know why He created us in the first place. A person who pursues his own soul development is not a happy person because only the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy and peace (Gal 5:22-23). The fruit of the flesh is anger, confusion, frustration and disorder (Gal 5:19-21). Self-rule does not lead to any kind of peace. Since the heart and mind of Jesus is Evangelism, our prayer to Him concerning our soul development should be:

"Jesus, what career can I go into where I can best be a light of Your love and forgiveness to others?" Or, "Jesus, how can I best use the talents and abilities You have given to me to bring others to Yourself." Not, "Jesus, I want to make lots of money, buy lots of things and travel all over the world. What field can I go into that will make this possible for me?" Jesus response to this is,

"For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds."

Therefore, to love Jesus with all your Soul means to give up the pursuit of your goals for your life and to surrender to the goals and soul development that Jesus has for your life; and to do this so He can use you in the best possible way to bring others to a saving knowledge of who He is so they also can surrender to Him as Savior and Lord and be saved and go to heaven and know the soul-life He created them to have. If you do this, when you do get to heaven, Jesus promises in Mark 10:29-30 that he will give you 100 times more than you could ever have accumulated here on earth by living only for yourself.

What does it mean to Love Jesus with all our Minds? It means to let go of your plans of intellectual development and surrender your mind to Jesus to allow Him to lead you into the development of your intellectual knowledge and skills He wants you to have. If Jesus leads you into a certain area of study it is because He wants to use you in that area of study to be a light of His love and forgiveness for Him.

What does it mean to love Jesus with all your Strength? This means many things. First it means giving Your Body to Jesus and allow Him to use it for His glory and to bring others to Him. Second, it means that once You know how you can best be a light and witness of Jesus’ love and forgiveness, to then apply all your strength, energy, heart and mind to that end. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 12:1-2,

"I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, happily-pleasing⁴ to God, which is your reasonable⁵ service. And do not be conformed⁶ to this age⁷, but be transformed⁸ by the renewing of your mind⁹, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and happily-pleasing and perfect."

If the Church were to bring 1,000,000 people a day to Christ for the next ten years, we still would not have won half the population of the world. Sadly, the figures are way way below this, but this emphasizes just how important it is that all Christians are involved in regular weekly ongoing Evangelism. The task is so large that no one can have the luxury of taking a back seat. We all need to do our part.

We all have responsibilities, jobs, school, families and other responsibilities; so the call to Evangelism is not Jesus telling us to drop everything in our lives and do nothing but Evangelism. What is Jesus asking us to do? He is asking us to do something. If after completing this School of Evangelism, Jesus does not immediately lead you into a specific ministry of Evangelism outreach, then I recommend that you start with 2 hours a week. The Bible teaches that he who is faithful in little will be faithful in much. If you try to do too much in Evangelism to start with, you will burn yourself out. I do not believe Jesus is interested in this kind of frenzied Evangelism. What He needs are faithful witnesses. By faithful, I mean that you make a decision, in agreement with the Lord and the Holy Spirit, to give so much of your time a week for the purpose of going out and sharing the Gospel with men.

Unless the Lord tells you otherwise, I recommend 2 hours a week to start with. A half hour to get to the mall, college campuses, door-to-door or parks, and a half hour to get home with one hour left over for actual time witnessing: 2 hours a week.

How much is 2 hours a week? There are 168 hours in a week. Let us assume the worst. Lets say that like tithing money you were to tithe your time for Jesus. 10% of your time a week would be 16.8 hours a week. That is a lot of time in a busy week. I don’t even spend that much time witnessing on the field, but my point here is that 2 hours a week is not 10% of your time in the week, but only 1.2% of your total time in a week. Can You give Jesus 1.2% of your time in a week to go out and do the most loving thing you can do for another human being: share Jesus’ love and forgiveness with them?

"We walk by faith, not by sight— we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore also we have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad. Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men." (2 Cor 5:7-11).

As You make a commitment to serve Jesus in Evangelism, the enemy is going to attack you and try to do all he can to discourage you and get you to give up your commitment to spend a minimum of 2 hours a week sharing your Christian faith with others. He will attack you through relatives. He will attack you through Christian brethren. If that does not work, he will attack you through your finances. If that does not work, he will attack you directly. He will do all he can to discourage you and wear you down in your commitment to go out and share the love of Jesus Christ with men. Only as you commit yourself to love Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind and strength no matter the obstacles, will you find the strength to over come Satan’s obstacles. The apostle Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5:8-10,

"Be sober, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you."

As committed as you are to sharing the love of Jesus with others, Satan is even more committed to stopping you from sharing the love of Jesus Christ with others. The only way that you will be able to over come Satan’s obstacles is by being committed to Evangelism no matter what the obstacles are by keeping and maintaining a heart for the battle. You maintain a heart for the battle by keeping in your weekly schedule time for going out and sharing the love of Jesus Christ with others and then committing yourself to not allow anything from interfering with that time. This means going whether you feel like going or not. This is loving Jesus with all your heart. This means going at the time you have committed yourself to go when doing so means missing upcoming events, losing a girl friend or a boy friend, the acceptance of your relatives, the loss of a job, the loss of Christian friends and anything else you can lose in this life which is what it means to love Jesus with all your soul. It also means committing yourself to spending a certain amount of time during your week to study Christian apologetics as the Lord leads you to be ready to give an answer to any question that may come up, which is what it means to love Jesus with all your mind. Finally, it means going out and sharing your faith as planned, even if your car breaks down by taking the bus, walking or riding your bicycle to get there, which is loving Jesus with all your strength. If you do not make this kind of commitment now, all this school of Evangelism will have meant for you is a lot of wonderful knowledge in your head. James, Jesus’ half brother, taught, in the book of James 1:23-25, that to not put into practice what you learn in this book is to be,

"Like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was."

But in verse 25 he tells us that the person who puts into practice what he has learned in this school of evangelism shall be blessed in what he does. Jesus promises us in His word that if we will endure whatever obstacles that we may encounter that he will bless us and give us His power to overcome. The Apostle Paul assures us in 2 Thessalonians 3:3, "But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil one." He further assures us that our work is never in vain in the Lord. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:58,

"Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord."

Finally, in Galatians 6:9 Paul tells us to not lose heart no matter how tough the going gets, but to keep a heart for the Battle. He wrote, "And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary."

If you are to bear fruit for Jesus in Evangelism, you must be committed to do it no matter the obstacles and determine to keep a heart for the battle no matter what the obstacles are. Make a commitment right now. Pray the following prayer to Jesus:

Unless Jesus tells you otherwise, start with only 2 hours a week. Don’t try to do too much to start with. Learn to have victory over Satan in two hours of your time a week, then you will be ready to take him on in greater projects. Jesus said that he who is faithful in little will be faithful in much. When you have victory over Satan in little, then you will be ready to have victory over him in much.

Congratulations. You have finished this Basic School of Evangelism and are fully equipped and ready to go out and attack Satan’s territory head on. Go out and take his kingdom from him Jesus purchased with His blood.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for Yehovah your Elohim is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9)

Rebecca Brown, MD. Prepare For War. Chino: Chick Publications. Copyright 1987 by rebecca Brown.