Introduction - Why Share your Faith?

Hi, I'm Stephen Canup with Freedom in Jesus Prison Ministry, and I'm here with my friend Robin Cox. We're representing Prison Evangelism Ministries and Freedom in Jesus Ministries today. This is an introduction, Robin, to something we're really excited about. We're going to record a 12-video session about how to share your faith. And I want to just give some introduction to that, but before we do that, Robin, could you just pray us in? I will. Lord Jesus, we love you today. Thank you, Father, for this opportunity. Thank you for everyone watching. We pray for miracles of revelation that will pour out of your heart and your spirit into our lives and the life of everybody that'll ever watch these videos, and that you'll use us in your kingdom, and that you'll be the teacher, and that everybody watching will learn how to be a wonderful witness and soul winner. And we always give you the honor, glory, and praise. And Lord, teach us excellence in soul winning, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Robin. Well, we come to the question of why would we share our faith, and we're going to get into that in more detail in 12 sessions, but just for now, Mark 8, 36, Jesus said, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul or lose their soul? So Jesus must have meant that one soul is worth more than the whole world. That's right. Because what good is it to gain the whole world, but lose your soul? He also said in Matthew 10, 32 and 33, Jesus said, whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven, but whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.

You know, we're going to talk about a lot of other verses in the Bible that commands us and sends us out, commissions us, and sends us out as believers in Christ. And we're going to share some more of that with you as we go along. During this discipleship course about how to share your faith, one of the primary resources that we're going to refer to a lot is David Howell's book, who he's in charge of prison evangelism, his book, How to Be a Child of God. And this is a tremendous resource. There's over 2 million of these in physical form in jails and prisons across America. Your chaplain may have access to these. Also David Howell wrote three other books. He wrote Seeking God Through Prayer and Meditation. That's in English and Spanish. And this book is in English and Spanish. He also wrote Fully Alive and Finally Free. The subtitle is Knowing God as Father. That's a great book, a discipleship book. And then also a book called Breaking into Prison. That kind of sounds kind of odd, but yeah, Breaking into Prison. So you have to check those out. All those books are on your tablet. If you're watching this in Pando or Edovo, all those books, all his books are in Pando and Edovo, as well as mine, another book, a discipleship book, my latest book, Born Again in Christ, First Steps of Faith with Jesus. I'm all about trying to teach others about what it really means to follow Jesus. So I have eight books, three of which are in English and Spanish, excuse me. And they're on your tablets in Pando and Edovo. So we're going to be sharing primarily from this resource. And there's actually a video on your tablet, a video production of this little book right here. It is a wonderful soul winning tool.

And in this book, he also gets into how to share your faith. So we're going to be using some material from here and other material that Robin has put together over the years to try to show you how to share your faith. Reinhard Bonnke, who is a very famous evangelist, he really said every true believer should want to plunder hell and populate heaven. Absolutely. That's what we want to do. We want to save people from going to hell and populate heaven instead. Amen. There's no one so bad that cannot be saved, and there's no one so good that doesn't need to be saved. Amen. So we're not saved based on our own goodness. It's all because of Jesus. And so we're gonna encourage you with that through these sessions. Now, one thing that came to me this morning as I was thinking about this is about when I got saved in prison in 2009, I really went all in for Jesus. I was all about it. If I served the devil with all my heart before, now I wanted to serve God with all my heart. And early on, and of course it's been a process, but early on I began to have hope instead of despair. I began to find purpose instead of feeling like God could never do anything with my life and that I'd gone too far and done too much. No, I began to sense hope. I began to find purpose.

I began to sense restoration in me. I was getting healed of old hurts, wounds, and offenses. I was able to start forgiving people. Restoration was taking place in my life. And the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the character qualities of Christ began to be more evident in my life. I'd never been really especially kind or good or generous or any of those things, but I began to have more love and more peace and more joy, things that I'd never really experienced when I was out there in the world serving the devil. And so what should we do as if you've truly given your heart to Jesus, then you're already experiencing some of that yourself. We don't want to keep this to ourself, Robert. We want this, we want to share this with other people. If God could set me free, I ought to be concerned that other people need to be set free. Sick and tired, no more. That's right. Sick and tired of being sick and tired, no. No more, right? No more. Yeah, amen. That's what Jesus will do for you. He sure will. Give you joy and peace, amen. Adrian Rogers said that evangelism or soul winning

is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. I like that because I used to be homeless. And when I was homeless for two and a half years, you didn't ever want to go hungry. And there were missions, places and churches and other ministries that would feed the homeless. And if any of you've ever been homeless, you know what I'm talking about. You didn't want your buddy to go hungry. So if you found a good place to go eat, you wanted to let the other person know, hey, you can get a good meal down here. I've been through four days without food on the streets. And I appreciated somebody telling me where I could go to get fed, right? And so if you, I was thinking about this too, in the world, if you find a good restaurant, you're going to spread the word. You're going to say, man, I had a great steak the other night over such and such place. You ought to try that place out. Or I went to a new place and it was really good. It was good service. You know, you're going to share something good that's happening in your life. If you find a good destination, vacation, you know, a place that you really had a great time with, you're going to let others know. So Jesus, Robin, is the bread of life, right? And heaven is by far the best destination

you're ever going to find for all of eternity. So we should be excited about wanting to share what God is doing in our lives, even though we're not perfect or anything, that what God's beginning to do in our lives, as we give our heart to Jesus, we ought to be anxious for someone else to come up out of despair, someone else to start to see hope and restoration. So people tell me all the time that when they get out of prison, they want to get into prison ministry. But I look right at them and I tell them, if you're not already doing prison ministry in here, you'll never do it on the outside. You are the most important person in prison ministry. Not even the volunteers that come in, like us, ever so often, or not even the chaplain is as important as you are because you live right there 24-7, 365. You know when someone gets a bad phone call from home or gets a disturbing letter and might need prayer. You know when someone's really down and depressed and might need encouragement. And you know who's struggling. And the most important thing I can think about is about 80% of the people in prison never even go to church or chapel. You're the only church they see. You're the only Jesus they're ever going to see.

They'll never step foot in a church unless someone begins to tell them about Jesus. They'll never pick up a Bible unless they're introduced to what you've already found in Christ, if you're. are truly saved. How can someone ever be truly saved or healed or delivered or restored or be free if they don't have a true relationship with Jesus? And how can that happen if a true believer does not reach out to them? I'm reminded of Romans 10, 13 through 15, and I want to go to this, and I'm going to turn it over to Robin to give us more of an overview. But everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Now, a lot of us are familiar with that, but I want to point out what goes on in verse 14 and 15. How then can they call on the one in whom they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one in whom they have not heard? And how can they hear unless someone preaches to them or talks to them? And how can anyone do that unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news. The good news is the gospel of Jesus Christ. What he's done in your life, we want to encourage you to share with others. And this series of videos, 12 videos, is meant to teach you how to share your faith with excitement and with certainty, with assurance. Excitement? Yes, and joy. Yes. Amen. So what else are we going to be going over? Give us a rundown. You know, Stephen, something you just said just put a check in my spirit. And you're the only one that can take the gospel back to 80% of the population of your institution so that they don't die and go to hell. That's right. But so they can know Jesus and have eternal life in heaven, or at least have the opportunity to know Jesus and go to heaven. So please take this very, very seriously and watch all 12 sessions. I'm going to tell, Stephen, did you finish up what you were going to say? I wanted to say one more thing, one more quote. Yes. That you're talking about keeping somebody from going to hell. A man, this is Adrian Rogers said, a man will go to hell unsaved, but he will never go unloved. Oh, wow. God never quits loving you. It's powerful. But a person has to receive and believe the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. And man, Jesus is such good news. If you will watch every one of these sessions in session 12, I'm going to share with you, or we will, we'll talk about it. One of the most amazing testimonies of soul winning that I've ever had happened to me in 40 years. And so watch every

session in session 12, I'm going to share that with you and you'll really enjoy hearing it in session 12. But so, so what we're trying to do is we want to introduce you to the next sessions. And, um, we want you to identify your fishing pond and what is your fishing pond? Um, in X one eight, it says that we're to go with power into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. And fishing is different than hunting. I just found a note here that I wrote, but hunting requires aggressive confrontation, but fishing requires attraction. Amen. And we're called to be fishers of men. Jesus made us fishers of men. Yes. And, and if you're a follower, yeah, then you should be a fisher of men. In fact, in Matthew four 19, Jesus said he called out to some of his disciples or really all of his disciples. And he said, follow me and I will teach you and train you how to become fishers of men and fishing for the souls of men. And so right there where you're at today, Jerusalem could be the guys that are staying in your cell block or, or right sleeping right next to you. And that's Jerusalem X one eight Judea could be guys that are down the entire housing, uh, that, that your housing area and maybe the other guys in the next housing area that you see when you're going to chow, things like that. Samaria could be an entire different, uh, building in that institution. Right. And to all the world is everybody else. Plus you begin to impact your family. You begin to impact people on the outside. through your letters, through your video calls and things like that. What a great way to witness. And so we want you to identify your fishing pond. And Stephen is always saying, write down all the names of everybody that you want to see get saved and start praying for them right now. Oh, yes, I did that. And that was so effective. I began to see miracles happen while I was still locked up. Some of the people that, you know,

were mean and hateful and you just think that person could never get saved. You know what? Start praying for them. I did see some of them start to get saved. It was amazing. So if you know somebody that just really aggravates you and it's kind of like he drinks hydrochloric acid for breakfast and washes it down with gunpowder or vice versa there. He eats gunpowder for breakfast and washes it down with hydrochloric acid and they're meaner than a junkyard dog. Well, start praying for them and ask God to give you favor with them and ask God to tenderize their heart. And so you can present the gospel to him because Jesus doesn't want that person to go to hell. He wants that person to go to heaven and be born again and be saved. So make that list. Then every acquaintance that you have is part of your fishing pond. Make a list of your acquaintances and say, Lord, I wanna present the gospel to these people. Make a list of all your relatives that you can start writing to. What a great idea, Stephen. You can write to them, share Jesus with them and give them your testimony.

And really your testimony is this. I just want to share with you what's happened to me here in prison. All your close friends back home, write to them. And then any work associates like in the laundry room. Yeah, the chow hall, the wood shop, even in classes. You know, a lot of you go to classes during the day. And the people that you're around, they may not be close to your bunk, but you run into them. And what you want to do is to present the gospel. And so, listen. And not just prisoners either, officers too. Let's pray for the officers. That's right. And I have led COs to the Lord before Stephen, okay? And so what this session is gonna be about is we want to train you to be a skilled, confident, soul winner and witness all for the glory of God. And if you will, let us teach you in your heart, in the sacred chamber of your heart, that and you will take it and the Holy Spirit gives you the power, you will start winning people to Jesus Christ. And you know, that reminds me, Stephen, I have a, we're gonna teach about the big question. And I have a certain way that I ask the big question all the time. Well, you can ask the big question many different ways and just get the one that's comfortable to you. What I ask is if you were to die right now

and stand before God in judgment, just you and God, and Jesus is at the right hand of God, and they're looking into your heart and they're examining your life, and Father God were to say, son, do you know this person says they know you, but do you know them intimately and personally? And Jesus is going to do that. And that's based on Matthew chapter 7, 21 through 23. So you ask the big question your way. Now, there are a lot of ways that we can present the gospel. Some people have thought that this is the only way that I believe we can present the gospel. That's absolutely not true, but continue to witness and share Jesus with everybody that you know, the way you've always done it, but add this to your- These are some good techniques, some good things to make you feel more comfortable, some ways to look at it that'll help you. And I kind of relate that to going down a train track. I'm a very simple person going down a train track. And one of the rails going down the train track is the word of God. And then the other rail going down the train track is witnessing and becoming a soul winner. And here's what Jesus says, follow me and I will- Follow me, one side of the train track, and I will make you a fisher of men.

And if you do this, I can guarantee you that you're going to be a fisherman. You're going to be a soul winner. You're going to be able to share the gospel with other people. And you will be successful populating heaven and plundering hell for God's glory. And you know, as I was just thinking about that, the Holy Spirit would be the power of that train. And we have the Holy Spirit. We have all the power of God living in us to help us. If we'll just be bold and step out there, the Holy Spirit will help us. And so we want to encourage you to watch all the upcoming sessions, to learn from them. Watch them over. You can take notes. I did find another quote that I wanted to share. R.A. Torrey said, I'd like to ask what right any man has to call himself a follower of Jesus Christ if he is not a soul winner. Oh, wow. Let me repeat that. I'd like to ask. That's a powerful statement. I'd like to ask what right any man has to call himself a follower of Jesus if he is not a soul winner. We want to invite you on this journey with us and help us. Let's work together to be able to plunder hell and populate heaven. And one last. Can I say one last thing? Okay. One last comment. Think about the train going down a track in the in the old days, okay?

And now I think those engines burn diesel. But but back in the old days, you would see these guys shoveling coal into the engine, so that it would produce enough heat to get that train going and gain momentum and get transport either the load they're hauling or people from one location to another. And Stephen, being a soul winner and getting started and saying, okay, I'm going to witness for the glory of God. The Holy Spirit will stoke that fire in your engine, your heart and get you going. And you will never be able to say again that you're bored being a born again Christian serving Jesus for his glory. It's exciting in Jesus name. Thank you, Stephen. God bless you. Stay tuned.