I remember a lesson the Holy Spirit taught me several years ago. The members of the local church I was attending at the time had been sent to a community to preach the gospel and win souls. The church population was rapidly declining at the time, and it was affecting everything we were doing as a parish. The pastor and the leadership team decided at the time that we had been slack in our evangelism duties, and therefore, as the members we had made progress in life and began leaving the church for other states and countries abroad, we had been left empty. The deal with evangelism is this: it had to be done by someone who genuinely knows the Lord and has really counted this world as dung. People who are self-conscious make very poor evangelists because they lack empathy and compassion. Without these two powerful emotional tools, the evangelist will at best only be an inviter of people to church and not a true soul winner.

As we went looking for people to speak with that day, I realised how judgmental I was in my heart. I found myself becoming quite picky about whom I spoke to and who I really wanted to associate with, even on evangelism duty. After almost three hours of walking through the GRA, I had spoken only to five people about the Lord Jesus, and I had no returns on my invested time. We returned to church, prayed, and I returned home. When I got home, I turned to the Lord in prayer. I wanted to know why He allowed me to waste the whole morning chasing shadows. I personally didn’t feel the exercise was fruitful, and to be very candid, I had prayed for days before the event, asking the Lord to bring the right kind of people my way during the evangelism trip. The Lord then had mercy on me and showed me what I had done wrong. And he did so in a spectacular manner.

After my prayer, I turned to YouTube and played the song of a gospel artist while I worked, the music ended, and YouTube selected another minstrel’s song by itself. This minstrel was not someone I would naturally listen to She was at a student crusade, and she was invited to minister in songs. She began to sing, and with tears, she began to tell the story of her journey as a believer. She said that when she was born, her father rejected her, and her mother didn’t want anything to do with her either, She said her grandmother, who was an idol worshipper and a practicing muslim, was the one who agreed to care for her from the moment she was born As she grew with her grandmother, she discovered from a young age that she loved to sing, and her voice was quite good, but she was only exposed to idol worship and only sang songs to idols, and when those practicing the same religion as her grandmother sang their songs, She said she also sang along to songs on the radio whenever she had the opportunity to listen to songs through cassette players and when songs were played on radio stations.

She said that when she was eight years old, she began to hawk palm oil and cornmeal for her grandmother, and this exposed her to the outside world. She made some male and female friends and had her first boyfriend at the age of twelve She said this boyfriend was much older than her and was only taking advantage of her sexually, but she clung to him because she was looking for true love She wanted to be with someone who wanted her, who loved her, and desired to be with her for who she was. She said she was with this person for many years, and through him, she began to attend a white garment church. At the white garment church, she was exposed to a lot of Christian songs, and she also joined the choir because she loved to sing, and the church sang quite a lot, She said she was soon discovered by the choir master of the church and was invited to join a group of young minstrels who sang at concerts, musical jamborees, and other events, She said singing made her so happy, and she associated music with her boyfriend, who was just sleeping with her for the fun of it at the time She said she had too many abortions that she lost count of them at the time, but as she grew older, she got wiser and realised the so-called boyfriend was also sleeping with other ladies and didn’t really love her.

She said one day, this boyfriend of hers told her there was an audition at another white garment church, and it is likely they would pay selected singers a stipend for singing in the church choir She said she went for the audition, and when it was her turn to sing, the choir master, who was a trained classical music professor, came out of his office to listen to her She said the man said, “This one is a striker, a soloist,” and that was how she was selected After her selection, she had to change churches, and this oddly made her boyfriend angry, so he threw her out She said she applied to the same church as their sexton, and she was employed, and this was how she began to clean the church premises, and also sleep in the church premises She said this was how she taught herself how to play the piano, and this was also how she learnt about music school and eventually gained admission to study music in the polytechnic. After her graduation from the polytechnic, she said she still played for the church, but she began to look for an opportunity to launch her music career This entails doing a lot of auditioning and singing in a lot of jingles and adverts to make ends meet She said someone made a movie and needed a musician to make the soundtrack. A music promoter whom she had done some jingles with mentioned her, and this was how she landed her first soundtrack gig in the movie industry She said in all this, she was still searching for love She had been alone in the world, and she desperately needed to have love in her life, but she had tried the love that men had to offer and found it to be hollow. She had been in church for many years, but she had not known the Lord Jesus beyond the surface of religion She turned to him one evening and asked that the emptiness she felt in her heart, as if she would die unloved and unowned by anyone, should be taken away.

She said she met her husband, who was a banker, the next day She said the moment they saw each other, there were no words; he was a teller, and she went to the bank to deposit some money. Their eyes met, and she just couldn’t move, He was mesmerized, too. It was through him that she learnt the gospel and became a born-again Christian He was well-versed in scriptures, and he didn’t mind her past or background He just loved her, and she just loved him She followed him to his church, which was not a white garment church, and she began to serve the Lord there. The gulf in her heart disappeared, her ministry was established, her desire to be married was fulfilled, and God gave her children of her own.

By the time I was done listening to her, I was weeping I saw the souls who came to the concert to hear her sing also trooping out to give their lives to Christ. The Holy Spirit said, “You were full of you and empty of me, and therefore you were self-conscious; she was full of me and empty of self, therefore she was Christ-conscious. This is what makes the difference! Was it not Apostle Paul who said the following words to the church at Galatia? I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later, I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas[b] and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they praised God because of me.

PS: We tell our stories, not because we are shameless, but because that old life was gone and our new life in Christ is being written daily in the volume of the works. Who we were and where we had been is a testimony of how far we have come in the cause of Christ. We empty ourselves that Christ may become our fullness.

We tell the story of where we have been, that we may shine the light of Christ on where He is taking us. Our stories lies not in the shame of our past but in the transformative power of the one who has redeemed us from the curse of the law. If, as a believer, you don’t know this yet, you cannot be full of Christ unless you are first emptied of self.

Please pay attention to July 19, 2025 Some mighty things will be happening in Nigeria, Canada and The USA. We will be having The Platform 7 at the Supernatural Life Assembly in Surulere, Lagos. The GSWMI North America Retreat will be holding from the 18th of July to the 20th of July in Canada We will be having Platform 7 at the Supernatural Life Assembly in Surulere, Lagos.

-GSW-