“The key to the missionary’s work is the authority of Jesus
Christ, not the needs of the lost. We are inclined to look on our Lord as one
who assists us in our endeavors for God. Yet our Lord places Himself as the
absolute sovereign and supreme Lord over His disciples. He does not say that
the lost will never be saved if we don’t go— He simply says, “Go therefore and
make disciples of all the nations….” He says, “Go on the basis of the revealed
truth of My sovereignty, teaching and preaching out of your living experience
of Me.”” CHAMBERS
We are to live our lives based upon the authority of Jesus
not based upon our feelings or personal desires. People you care about are very likely on the
wide path to hell. So what can you do
about it? You can tell them that, but
unless the Spirit is at world in their lives, your words will fall on deaf
ears. I was thinking about this morning,
as I was preparing my devotion for the day, about someone I know. That person, who is not a Christian, recently
said that he had been on his knees praying.
I was thinking about the time before Martie and I became
Christians. We thought that doing the
same things and saying the same things as my parents did was what being a
Christian meant. Because we did not have
the Spirit in us, because we had not been born again, which is a spiritual
miracle, we were ignorant, deceiving ourselves.
We were practicing vain religion but had no capacity to understand that
was what we were doing. (1 Corinthians 2:14) “The person without the Spirit does not
accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them
foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through
the Spirit.”
When that person prays, our Father does not hear them. Sound harsh?
If a child walked up to me in a store and said “Will you buy this toy
for me?” My reply would be, you need to
go ask your parents. Because non-Christians,
by definition, don’t know Jesus, they do not have access to the Father. They are still “children of the devil”. The thing is, that is a spiritual truth and
they don’t understand spiritual things.
A person must have spiritual understanding and a person must have the
Spirit to have spiritual understanding and a person must have been born again
to have the Spirit. To someone who is
lost, the life of a Christian is one of activity, not relationship. So what can you do? Pray for that person. Don’t encourage them in their vain thinking
and actions. If they are on a journey to Jesus, then stay out of the way and
let God work in them. Most often when spiritually
wayward or un-saved children “pretend” to be faithful Christians, it is because
they want their parents to accept them and be proud of them. In an act of desperation, they can only do
the “Christian dance” so their parents
or spouse or friend will be happy and think good things about them. But, discerning parents or spouses or friends will
know that they are not what they would have them think. They are only deceiving themselves. What can the you do? Pray for them and love them without enabling the
behavior. Don’t pretend along with your
children or spouse or friend. Don't join the dance. Pray. Something
to think about. ELGIN
Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)
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