OneSoul OneSeed
“‘Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.’ ” – John 12:24
Jesus made this statement when some Greeks from Alexandria in Egypt came seeking Him. The visitors knew the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem wanted to kill Jesus. The Greeks probably wanted to entice Jesus to return with them to Egypt, where He could live in a very tolerant society as a Jewish philoso- pher and teacher. Jesus said, “No! Because if I live there, it will be over when I die; but if I die here, it will never be over.”
This month I have been hugely encouraged in my faith and heart by two young people. They are both Kenyans, a young man and a young woman. I met them less than ten years ago in Kenya when they were children. The girl was an AIDS orphan whom WME sponsored through school. The boy was a young Maasai from Kajaido District who asked me to help him with his educa- tion. You can read about both of them in articles that follow in this issue of World Evangelism. They are now young adults and doing very well. The young lady is in business in Nairobi; the young man is currently serving as a teacher in our Maasai mission at Emuruadikir.
So I pose these questions to you: What is the value of one soul? What is the value of one life saved unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
William Carey, the great missionary-evangelist who went to India, wrote a doc- ument with his associates known as the Serampore Compact. It spells out eleven principles of mission work. The first of these principles for missionaries is:
In order to be prepared for our great and solemn work, it is absolutely neces- sary that we set an infinite value upon immortal souls; that we often endeavor to affect our minds with the dreadful loss sustained by an unconverted soul launched into eternity.
Why such value? Because a single soul is a seed. A soul that falls into the ground of Christ and grows up into the life of Christ will bring forth a huge, mul- tiplicative seed.
These two young people of whom I speak will be a seed in Kenya, a seed of Christ and a seed of World Missionary Evangelism. I feel like saying with the Psalmist that therefore my soul rests in hope — the hope of a huge harvest of souls in my lifetime and then beyond.
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