I know
an outstanding preacher of the Gospel who often starts his messages with the
phrase, “I hope you still love me when I have finished this message”. I am sure
you have heard similar statements yourself. You probably know the feeling, you sit
there knowing that the word of God is going to challenge your heart in some way
or other. That is also God’s way when we read or listen to His word.
I hope to challenge you through scripture as you read this. Jesus knows
what we are like when we are on our own and no one sees us. He has full
knowledge of what we think, what we say and what we do; there is simply no
hiding place. He knows the very thoughts of our hearts, even to the point of
what were going to pray before we start to pray it.
Sadly,
there are many Christians that don’t share their faith on a regular basis. For
some people it is difficult and books like this can help find ways to learn how
to ‘spread the word’. That is one issue, but my concern is that there are many
Christians that don’t pray for the lost. As believers we need to pray for them
and we should be asking God to provide us with opportunities to witness about
Christ’s life-changing gospel.
Praying
for our unsaved loved ones, friends and colleagues genuinely is the best way to
start reaching them for Christ. We need to remember that it is a spiritual
battle that we, as soldiers of Christ, must get involved in out of obedience to
Christ.
“For though we live in the world,
we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the
weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish
strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up
against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it
obedient to Christ" 2
Corinthians 10:3-5
Our prayers really do make a difference. If you ask God to give you
opportunities to share Jesus, He will always answer and send people into your
path who are ready and ripe for the message. Prayer is not an easy thing for
many and it requires us to be disciplined.
We sometimes know what the right thing to do, but instead we decide to
go our own way. It is the same for some regarding prayer. I will go as far as
to say we must have a burden for the lost and part of that should be calling on
God to save them. The preacher Charles Spurgeon would actually question the
salvation of a Christian attending his church if they didn’t have a burden for
lost souls. Wow!
I have some really good news for you if you have been lacking in this
area, and that is that we have a loving, merciful and forgiving God who will
forgive us when we fail in certain areas of our walk with Him. I work in
evangelism and that have been times when I have struggled in the area of
prayer. There have been occasions when I have not been as compassionate as I
know I should have been.
A very good example of this when happened was some
time ago when I was studying as a student at the School of World Evangelism in Newport,
South Wales. The first lecture of the day was
about the price of a soul. I was impacted by this, especially when the leader
spoke about his son who was away from the Lord. As he talked about him he began
to weep for a minute or so in front of us all. None of us felt awkward because
we could see the heart of the man. I was both convicted and challenged by what
happened. It made me question myself as I sat there.
Before I tell you what the question was, I want to get things into
context. Consider the fact that God has called me to do the work of an
evangelist. I have laboured in this area over the years and seen souls saved by
the power of the Gospel and loved every second of it. The day this happened I
was actually attending a course on evangelism training, which surely means that
I have a heart for the lost doesn’t it?
The question I asked myself was. “How much am I really bothered about
the lost?” This was followed by a second question: “Do I have the same passion
for souls as this man does?” Those few minutes in that lecture made me think
seriously about my real desires and motives as a Christian and it was truly a
pivotal point in my life.
God doesn’t say to us “Why couldn’t you be more like so and so?”
The Lord doesn’t challenge us by comparing us to other people we know.
He does it by showing us the role model of Jesus or other great examples in
scripture. We all need to have some of His passion for souls and see people in
the way that He sees them. If we were able to view things His way, there would
be no reason, because we would be out there witnessing for Christ with
boldness.
My challenge to you today:
- On a scale from one to ten, one being completely cold, and ten being hot.
- How bothered are you about the lost?
- How does this affect your prayer life regarding the lost and actually attempting the share the Gospel?
COLD
WARM HOT
1-----2-----3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-----10
How did you do? If you are not where you believe that you should be,
simply give it to the Lord in prayer. Sincerely ask Him to give you some of the
passion that His Son Jesus Christ possesses. If you mean what you say, He will
do it.
Key Point: Ask Jesus to give you His passion for the lost.
Just a small portion would change your outlook.
He knows the thoughts and intentions of our hearts and where we really
are:
“For the LORD sees not
as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the
heart"
1 Samuel 16: 7
Here are a few reminders that that I use in my prayer life which may
help you:
- Write down the names of the people you want to pray for.
- Use the list in your prayer time and start sowing life into the Kingdom of God. We need to get back to praying for the lost if we are to see souls saved.
- Our attitude is a key. Plead with God to save the people on your list.
- Ask God to send workers into the harvest fields. Jesus said that we should do it.
- Ask the Holy Spirit to direct people on your prayer list to people who will share Jesus with them
“He told them, "The harvest is plentiful,
but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out
workers into his harvest field” Luke 10: 2
Let’s
get praying and believe that God will move in this important area.
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