I am ready to perform My word. (Jer 1:12) God is ready. Are you?

    

    I use a simple (cheap) spiral bound notebook as a prayer journal. When one gets full, I start a new one. I recently ran across an old prayer journal that was only slightly used. It was dated from 2005-06. I turned to the page listing those for whom I was praying for salvation. Most on that old list have been saved, but only after years of prayer. The others I still lift in daily prayer.

 

   I pray because God answers prayer. His Word is replete with examples of answered prayers in both the Old and New Testaments. My life as a Christian is also replete with answered prayers. I am not sure how long I would have continued sending requests to the Lord if He had never responded. His word assures me --  Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full. (John 16:24) and... If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. (John 15:7)

 

   So I pray.

 

   In personal evangelism, I have a tendency to want to also pray. By this I mean that I can easily fall to the terrible practice of fleshy evangelism based on my skills at quoting the right scriptures and my power of persuasion. That kind of prideful evangelism doesn't emanate from the Lord. My prayer journal always contains a short list of names of people I am asking the Lord to save. I ask the Lord to lead me to a scripture to pray over them when I sit with Him in prayer. I keep my list short -- ten or twelve at the most. I lift them in prayer every time I sit with the Lord. When the Lord's salvation comes to one of them, I mark down the date, then add a new name and scripture to replace them in my daily prayer time.

 

   Today I added a name, and got a scripture to pray over them during my prayer time, and I prayed for them. Having prayed for their salvation I consider them saved. Believing the promises of God, I know it is no longer a question of if they will be saved, but instead, when. God does not disappoint me in these prayers, although His timing and His methods often baffle me. 

 

   I believe this sad truth. Millions are lost in their sin because no one is praying for their salvation.   

 

   Who are you asking daily for the Lord to save? Hoping for the salvation of others is nice, but meaningless. Telling other Christians that you wish someone you love would give their heart to Jesus is just as useless. However, spending time in prayer, worshiping God, praising Him, and then pleading for the salvation of someone you love until it arrives will produce the fruit of salvation.

   Start with a very short list - two or three loved ones you really want to find the peace of Jesus, then pray each day. Stop hoping. Start waiting expectantly.

 

  Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things..." (Jer 33:3)

Following my own advice....

    I recently mentioned the concept of searching for pieces of the image of God in everyone we meet. Remarkably, I once had decided to take my own advice. Two years ago, all day long, everywhere I went, I tried to find something in each person I encountered that reflected God in some way. The results were interesting......

 

    For lunch, I ordered a sandwich at a deli. The young woman who took my order spends her day quickly slapping sandwiches together as they come to her in the form of detailed orders on a computer screen. Her job doesn't require her to interact in any way with the people who have ordered the sandwich via a touch screen menu board. Their order arrives as a number, and when she completes the order she simply places the finished sandwich on the pick up counter and calls out the order number. Even before she made my lunch I observed that as she worked she noticed if anyone showed interest. If they did, she would ask if it was their sandwich she was making. If it was, she'd personalize the automated service and talk to them as she proceeded.

 

 

    When she engaged me in conversation, I told her I that the bible says we are made in the image of God, and that I had seen a reflection of God in her. She laughed as if that was completely impossible.... then asked me what I had seen. I told her that her job is designed by her company so that she is an invisible worker with no interaction with her customers required, but she reaches across the technology to speak directly to each customer, then quoted Paul's words from Colossians that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. I told her that when she reached across the technology to speak directly to customers it reflected the image of Jesus who reached across eternity to speak directly to us when we could not have required Him to.

 

    If you examine a hundred evangelism tracts, almost all try too quickly to reveal to people the failings of their sin. While it is a biblical truth that they must come to clearly see in order to be saved, it is so confrontational that many people immediately close the conversation. My sandwich maker was instead fascinated that something in her might reflect God, and she easily spoke with me about Jesus. She was smiling and happy to consider spiritual matters when the conversation began in an encouraging way. I think the Holy Spirit taught me something very important in that conversation. I’ve since had several others that went similarly, although the various participants reflected God in various ways. All spoke easily and openly with me about Jesus. I'm certain they each were intrigued enough at the accusation of reflecting God that they told someone else about the conversation.

 

    The bible tells us -- (Hosea 4:6 NKJV) -- My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. All of those I spoke to about the way they reflect the image of God allowed me to freely quote the bible to them as the definitive source of truth. All were told that Jesus died for their sins. I told my sandwich maker that she probably also reflected in some way images opposing God. I told her we all do from time to time and shared Romans 3:10 - There is no righteous man. No, not even one.... I was able conclude by informing her that Jesus didn't just come to talk to us, but to die to pay the price for our sins. She seemed completely unaware of this information. It's going to cost me a couple more sandwiches to complete sharing the Gospel with her, but its well worth the price.

 

    And by the way, she had some piercings and was wearing a pentagram, had a couple of not so good tattoos. She dressed in a sexual provocative way. Many things about her appearance could have informed me not to waste my time on her if I had let my natural evaluation supersede my search for God's image in her.

 

    The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV)

My Reluctant Prayer........

    Lately I've been struggling with prayer. This is not typical for me. I enjoy prayer, no - I love it. Long, deep prayer that transports me from my earthbound confinement into the presence of the Lord. Once there, I experience Jesus as I would experience having a cup of coffee with a friend at Starbucks. We talk intimately. I can tell him anything, ask anything, reveal everything. I pray expectantly. I believe His words - anything you ask in My name, whatsoever you ask, ask and you shall receive. My expectation is also based on years of experience. I pray, He heals. I pray, He provides. I pray, His peace arrives. I pray, someone is saved. When I finish, I slowly return to reality, refreshed and strengthened.

 

   But lately, it has not been like that. It has been like work. It's like I'm praying with one eye open, ready to return to the demands of my flesh. Ready to recheck Facebook or read my email, but not ready to devote myself to prayer. I feel disconnected, anxious, and concerned. I know there is nothing wrong in the heavenlies that is causing this disconnect. The problem resides in me. It isn't sin, the first suspect when I experience any interruption in my relationship with the Lord. And it isn't faltering faith, I believe as strongly today as I ever have. Lately, I must order myself to pray. I get alone, say the same words of praise I've often repeated, but they seem without purpose. I begin to pray and in five or ten minutes I want to quit. My mind drifts, and I find myself excusing myself from prayer, promising to return later. Then I don't return. Its been weeks since I've sat with the Lord for an hour in prayer.

 

   I'm not the first to experience this. The great prophet Elijah, after calling fire from heaven in prayer, and calling drought ending rain from the sky in prayer, found himself at the point of spiritual exhaustion.  But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he prayed that he might die, and said, "It is enough! Now, LORD, take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!" (1 Kings 19:4 NKJV)

That's how I feel. Exhausted. Unable to see the Lord's path for my life that leads to the next assignment. God sent Elijah an angel with food and drink and who provided safety in the shade of the broom tree where Elijah could rest. And it worked. So he arose, and ate and drank; and he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights as far as Horeb, the mountain of God. (1 Kings 19:8 NKJV) 

 

   God first revealed to Elijah his human weakness, then strengthened him to to things beyond his human ability. God met him on the mountain, and whispered hopeful redirecting words to Elijah, then told him bluntly to get back to walking in his calling.  

 

   Maybe that is what the Lord is trying to tell me too. Get out of your self absorption, and get back to walking in your calling. Until I am rested and fed and encouraged, I'll take the tried and true advice gleaned from centuries of praying intercessors -- pray through.

 

 

Copyright 2012 Mission of the Master Ministries, Inc. May be quoted in whole or in part if a link is provided to http://wordworkswednesday.blogspot.com .

   I became aware of the real meaning of sabbath (rest) the day I was saved by Grace. Rest no longer meant a time of occasional physical refreshing,  or a legalistic weekly observance, but rather a continuous spiritual refreshing which provides restful peace in my heart. That's real rest. If my heart is troubled, no amount of physical inactivity can produce spiritual peace. Jesus promised me that if I would come to Him, He would give me rest. He and Holy Spirit are more comfortable than any comfy recliner. The rest I've found in Him will never end. It cannot be confiscated or stolen. I can only lose it by considering it anything less than my birthright as a born again child of God.

 

Photo from http://pithlessthoughts.blogspot.com

   Yet as we enter a new year, there arises in me an urge to re-evaluate, to make some annual plans for self improvement, to make some resolutions. I asked my ten year old granddaughter, Quinn, if she was making any New Years resolutions. Misunderstanding what  resolutions are, she immediately responded by listing a couple of items she'd like to get for Christmas in 2013. I think a lot of resolutions are like that. They are nice things that we'd like to have if we can just name them and receive them. Even our sincerest resolutions often evaporate in the heat of the ongoing days, when the best gifts of peace and rest are available without effort, by faith alone, because the sacrifice necessary to gain them as already been offered, is being offered, and will always be offered by Christ.

 

Paul wrote ...but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 3:12a-14 NKJV) Residing in this verse I find the keys to endless years of sabbath rest.

 

1- but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. -- Each sunrise is a gift from God allowing us a new day to grow toward the image of Christ. Peace flourishes in a manageable time span, one day, ordained by God as he flung the planets into orbit.

 

2- Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended;  -- Our faith is not a destination. We'll never arrive. We begin a decline in our Christian faith walk if we recognize our own seniority in the faith. Every new breath comes with a opportunity to grow in Christ.

 

3- but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal....  Our goal is to reflect the image of Christ in a broken world. Our past failures can produce shame, so we need to forget the past, especially the sin failures in our past. We cannot walk in zeal for the Gospel if we are stuck in morbid reflection.

 

4- for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Jesus call offers real spiritual upward mobility. He calls us to higher ground, to a more profound understanding, to a deeper prayer life, to reflection on His Word, inching forward toward our real home in Heaven.

    I wish all of you a brilliant walk with Jesus in 2013. Come close to Him and He will be close to you. Seek Him and you will find Him. We cannot resolve to be better Christians, but we can submit our lives to it.

   "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20 NKJV)