Often God will place some individual on my heart and I
will add their rock to my pile. Some of those people, I believe with all my
heart that God will help. I believe He
will do something in their hearts and lives, in His own time and in His place
and cause them to respond in a positive way and accept Him as their Lord and
Savior.
I have prayed over and over, “God save my children and grandchildren”. I believe that I have heard His voice speaking
to me these words that I will hold until my dying day, “I will save your children”.
I will not hold Him to saving them at a certain time or place. I may not ever see it in my lifetime, but I
believe it with my whole heart.
But there are some that I do not feel that confident
about. One person in particular has been
on my prayer “pile” for some time now. I
just can’t get clear on this lady. I guess with most people I can see a way
that God can touch them. I can see them
being visited by a church, making Christian friends, being touched by gospel
music, or Bible teaching or in some other way.
But for this lady I have been doubtful.
She has no religious background. He parents never took her to church. They had no church home. They had no Christians in their circle of acquaintances. She wouldn’t know conviction if she ran over
it in the street. I mean, yeah, she
probably would feel bad and troubled but most likely she would attribute those
feeling to an upset stomach or a bad day at the office.
She does not attend church, and does not want to attend
church. She stays as far away from anything she knows might even contain a
little connection to God and Jesus or anything religious. In my mind I doubt. In my mind I wonder how God could ever get to
her, much less how she could ever accept Him into her life.
*********
My sweet wife and I have developed a habit over the last
few weeks of reading a devotional together right after the evening meal. She will take down a devotional book and read
a short portion of that book and we will discuss it and have prayer. But we had missed a few days, (you know it
takes consistency to form a habit) so tonight when we finally remembered, she
took down the book and begin to read. She
probably hadn’t gotten through two paragraphs until a truth from the Lord blasted
into the room and just blessed my heart.
I shouted!. “Whew! Wow!”
That’s not my normal reaction to our devotion time and it kind of
startled my wife. She didn’t say anything
but just looked at me with that “Have you
completely lost your mind” look. Let me relate the story she was reading to you. It comes from Genesis chapters 11 and 12 and was explained by a writer named Nancy Leigh DeMoss. I hope it causes the same response in you that it did in me.
She read of a man from the land of Ur of the
Chaldees. His name was Terah. He had a son named Abram. Now Abram was raised in a Godless country. They did not worship the God of Creation nor
serve Him. I guess it stands to reason
that they didn’t go to church like we know church. They didn’t worship God as we understand
worshiping God. By all understanding, Terah and Abram were pagans. They lived in a pagan country and served
pagan Gods. Their family was pagan. Their friends and neighbors were pagan. No history, no understanding and no
desire to know the God of Creation.
Actually, Abram sounds strangely similar to the lady I spoke of earlier
in my story.
Now for some reason Terah decided to move his family from
Ur of the Chaldees to the land of Canaan.
So they loaded up the camels and donkeys and the family station wagon
and begin their trip. On the way to Canaan Terah died.
But get this, somewhere between chapter 11 and chapter 12, somewhere
between Ur and Canaan, somewhere between the place he was born and the place he
was going, somewhere between pagan worship and God worship, God spoke to
Abram.
Do you see it?
Doesn’t that just hit you right between the eyes? It did me. God had a plan, God had a time,
God had a place, and God had a big ole heart full of GRACE. God pursued Abram and promised him great
things. Because Abram listened to God, he and his decedents would be Children
of God, possess land that was never theirs and be a blessing to families of the
earth. Pretty big deal don’t you think?
Why did God do that?
Was it because of Abram’s history, his knowledge, his ancestry? Did God call him because of his leadership
abilities, his courage, his skills? No
Abram was called because of God’s GRACE.
He was hopeless in man’s eyes. But when viewed through the lens of Grace he
was special. Abram simply believed God and according to the Word,
God accounted it as righteousness. He
became a mighty man of God.
So I’m not going to stop praying for my friend. As a matter of fact I am going to increase my
prayers. I kind of know how to pray
now. “God grant her the grace you showed to
Abram. God grant her the grace you
showed me. And folks, that grace is
sufficient. That grace is amazing.
No comments:
Post a Comment