Gospel Intentionality

For most of my life I have prayed.  I remember some of the earliest memories I have are of being in church, and my little Sunday school class in that old church building basement, praying about a variety of things.  I remember the impression I got from my parents that prayer was important.  Oh how right they were.  I remember even by the time I was ten years old making a list one new year's eve putting down the names of a number of family members and friends who didn't know Christ and praying that they might know Christ.  

I have continued in such for all the years since first learning about prayer, and in the meantime learned much more about it all.  Yet, I don't feel I really grasped much.  Indeed even now I hardly understand it, but at least one thing has become all the more clear to me.  It is right to pray.  It is right to think of people and pray that God might save them, call them, draw them to faith in Christ.  It is every bit proper to do this.  Keep praying all you who pray to God for Christ to be known in the lives of those who don't know Him.  But don't miss out on your responsibility.  

It is as though for so many years we figured the gospel would somehow magically or miraculously be known to those we pray for apart from human involvement.  And for those on our lists who lived right next door, somehow we were willing to identify it was God's job to save them and so we prayed, but side-stepped our responsibility in telling them.  

I bring all this up because lately it has really struck me.  I want to see God birth a brand new local body of believers (a church) out of the efforts I make here.  It is why I moved my family, it is why I wrestle in planning, meeting, dreaming, praying every day.  But I have come to realize that I don't do right to merely pray for souls.  It is too generic to say, "Lord, give us the lost."  It is inadequate to say, "Send revival."  It is insufficient to pray, "Save these souls Lord," if we are not engaging them with the gospel.  

Lately I have found myself praying all the more for the salvation of souls around me.  Suddenly I say, "Lord save Donald and allow me to get into his world."  And you know what?  I have found I desire to meet with him over a coffee to talk life.  I may not know him well, but I need to get to know him better and find ways and means through which I can better make the gospel known.  And so I find my prayer is working in that I am finally getting involved at the level at which my prayer should have drawn me in the first place.  God ever delights to use humans to bring this divine message to lost souls.  I call it Gospel Intentionality.  It is my way of saying that rather than solely praying, I will also put together a plan (flawed at best) to get into the lives of non-believers.  

So start where you are at.  Start by identifying even just ONE.  Identify one person around you (at work, school, places you "play", neighborhood) with whom you can start engaging.  Think of taking your relationship with them to a deeper level.  If you don't know them well, get to know them better.  If you can already talk to them, talk at a deeper level.  And allow for all to continually lead to the GOSPEL.  Be intentional.  Even today, set up an appointment to meet a couple for dinner, or an individual for coffee, or invite someone over to your place for dessert, and do what so many have done before you: boast of what JESUS has done.  This is the gospel and it requires we are intentional.