How can I become more motivated for soul winning?

In answer to the inquiry of the daughters of Jerusalem, "What is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?" she immediately replies, and gives a full-length portrait of her well-beloved. And there is all that sharpness in the outline, and minuteness in the detail, which strong and mingled passion alone could give. Her strong affection is made doubly strong through self-reproach. Her recollection of Him is vivified through having slighted Him; and all her feelings are intensified through not finding Him. In this state of mind she portrays Him to the daughters of Jerusalem from head to foot. Oh! to be ready - always ready, on the spur of the moment, to speak of Jesus! She needed no time for premeditation. She asks for none. Delighted with the opportunity, all she wanted was the listening ear and the believing heart. Like the woman at the well of Sychar, her own heart was overflowing. Her love had grown, through disappointment, into a passion. It is relief to her heart to speak of Him. She could not help being eloquent. Love is the best gift of the evangelist - love to the Saviour - love to the sinner. But when that love rises into a passion, there must be true, burning eloquence. Never, never, O my soul, be content with less than this. Love to the Saviour - love for souls, is good, but the evangelist needs more. Seek that thy love may rise into a fervent flame. The work demands it. Art thou an evangelist? Let everything that would hinder thy work be consumed on the altar of entire consecration. Preaching is not teaching, remember, neither is teaching preaching. Appeal to souls, plead with them, lay hold on them, agonise for them. It is a matter of life or death - of ineffable, eternal blessedness; or unutterable, eternal woe. Realise the future in the present, and raise a cry to the God of all grace, that not one soul may go away unimpressed, unblessed, unsaved.

I close with a thought as to gospel ministry to the unsaved. That has marked the Holy Spirit's work from the beginning and will do so till the Lord come. Any testimony which ignores this, or makes it optional will cease to have the Lord's approval. The gospel spirit is the spirit of Christ. I do not now speak of the evangelist, but rather of us all. Do we love souls? do we long to see them saved? then we will all be ready to give the gospel to others. This readiness shows the state of soul. It is hard to speak of Christ if we are not in communion; it is hard not to speak of Him when we are. How this searches us.

This is what is needed — hearts for the salvation of souls. Oh for us all to be soul winners! We would not wait for an evangelist; we would not wait for meetings. At work, in casual intercourse, by a little tract — in countless ways we would be seeking to win souls for Christ. Dear brethren, let us pray that the Spirit of God may arouse us to this — His great work in the salvation of souls.

I feel it of all importance that we should evangelise. I quite recognise the difference of gifts, and we cannot appropriate what is not given; still there is a love to souls, the love of Christ constraining us, which is an important element in our own state. I feel it as to myself. I do not doubt I fail in everything, but in a certain sense my heart is filled with the desire of the blessing of the church, of Christ's glory in it, for that I could spend myself with His grace; but love to sinners' souls - I could not say I have none, and I anxiously evangelise when I can; but it does not press on my spirit like the other; yet I constantly see that a meeting goes on well when the love of souls is there. The same Christ does both. The Lord be abundantly with you, and give you grace, and courage, and wisdom, for it is all His. The great point is to be nearer Him in heart than even the work, and then we do the work from Him, and in some measure as He would.

After these lepers have got their own need satisfied, and have become enriched, they begin to think of others: "Then they said one to another, We do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace: if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us: now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king's household." They want everybody else to know what they have got for themselves. Sometimes people ask me, Why do you preach the gospel? Well, simply because I cannot help it. It is a joy to share what fills one's own heart with gladness. The blessing is so great, and so sweet, that, when you have it, you will want everybody else to know it. Conversion is truly contagious: if it gets into a house, it is apt to spread all through it. Each blessed one wants to communicate the blessing to his fellow.

There stands the great commission shining on the eternal page of inspiration in all its moral grandeur — its terms, its basis, its authority, its sphere! The work is not yet done. Nearly nineteen hundred years have rolled past since the risen Saviour sent forth His messengers; and still He waits, in sweet, long-suffering mercy, not willing that any should perish. Why are we not more willing-hearted in carrying out the gracious desire of His heart? It is not by any means necessary that we should be great preachers, or powerful public speakers, in order to carry on the precious work of evangelization. What we want is a heart in communion with the heart of God, the heart of Christ, and that will surely be a heart for souls. We do not, and cannot, believe that one who is not led out in loving desire after the salvation of souls can really be in communion with the mind of Christ. We cannot be in His presence and not think of the souls of those around us. For whoever cared for souls as He did? Mark His marvellous path! — His ceaseless toil as a teacher and preacher! — His thirst for the salvation and blessing of souls!

Do we crave as those four starving outcasts some morsel for our sustenance? Do we crave souls? William Easton wrote, ‘It is souls we want; and souls we go in for and mean to get. You may depend on this, that where there is a real, live gospel testimony and souls saved, there will be true happiness and less time for church troubles.' Do we want souls? Is there a thirst for the salvation of men? We used to call it ‘a love for souls' – does anyone still have this? The Lord thirsted for souls and one of those souls was mine. Does this not touch you are you not motivated? None of us like to venture beyond what we know is secure, even if it is akin to a starving leper colony. But most of us are in far more comfortable circumstances: and perhaps ease and comfort keep us fixed in an apathy that may lead to extinction. Will you sit in your cosy corners and not do anything for the gospel? or will you rise to seek increase for the Lord where you have been placed.

Oh! that our hearts could rise up more fully to the contemplation of God's own love towards the ungodly in giving His own Son to die for them (Rom. 5:8). Methinks we should thus be stirred up to increased diligence in seeking to help on the work of soul-winning.

Knowing what a terrible thing it must be for a sinner to appear before God in his sins, and under a responsibility entirely his own, the apostle is stirred up to preach the gospel with great earnestness. "We persuade men." He seeks to warn - to impress others, with the immediate and unspeakable importance of salvation. What an awful thing it must be for an unbeliever to answer personally for his rejection of Christ and salvation. Who would not be aroused to deep soul-stirring earnestness, in the preaching of the gospel, by such a consideration?

It is of the very essence of Christianity that our hearts should be set a-longing for others; and may it not be rightly said that, if our hearts are not so longing for the salvation of our fellow-men, love, real love, is on the wane with us, however great our gifts may be? In heart we are not in company with the greatest of all evangelists and teachers, who wept over guilty Jerusalem, prayed for His murderers, and saved the dying robber in the hour of His greatest anguish on Calvary.

He is not an evangelist who is satisfied with the public platform, no matter how eloquently he may discourse, but he is one who, it may be with stammering tongue and broken utterance, goes after men because he loves their souls, who carries to them the glad news because it thrills his own soul like a trumpet call, who will win them for Christ at any cost to himself because Christ has become unspeakably precious to himself. We need to pray that God will raise up such in these dead, cold days, men whose love shall make them “ache for souls,” and be in season and out of season in their determination to win them, and may we covet to be such.