Pray for God’s Blessing
Read 1 Corinthians 3:4-11
This week we have been taking a look at the unlikely people God uses and how we go about sharing the Gospel with our neighbors, friends, and acquaintances. Yesterday we heard a great story from KPC Elder Bob Hammer and how he and his wife took the opportunity to pray for God’s blessing for a woman who waited on them in a restaurant. If you didn’t read it – look at yesterday’s blog.
Too often we think that to share Christ with others, we must have them pray and commit themselves to Christ. It’s like we think that we somehow have to “close the deal.” But if we look at our own walk of faith we may realize that the Holy Spirit used many experiences to bring us to a saving knowledge of Christ. This is born out in our reading today.
So one way to introduce this process into a person’s life is to merely ask a person if we can pray for God’s blessing for them. Most people are not put off by such a request but are even appreciative of the offer.
This offer to pray for God’s blessing on people does several significant things. One, it brings God into their level of awareness. They begin to look for evidence of God working as a result of your prayer. Good things no longer happen by chance or by luck, but they may consider that God really is working in their lives. This encounter may give them the incentive to investigate more about Christ and who God really is.
If they have had any prior connection with a church or a season of life where they were involved in a church fellowship, the Holy Spirit may use this event to impress upon them the need to return to church and again explore a walk of faith.
Finally, if it does nothing else, an offer to pray for God’s blessing for them communicates that Christians are not weird, judgmental, isolated people who only care about themselves. It gives the message that the Gospel includes loving and caring for other people.
Bob and Joyce, in spite of the fact that they were celebrating their anniversary, took the time to focus on the needs of someone else. At a time when they might have sought privacy and looked only to themselves, they “sought after the one who was lost” by offering to pray for their waitress and God blessed them for it.
Let me encourage you to ask someone the question this week, “How can I pray God’s blessing for you today?” Try it and see what the Lord does. Share your story, email us at deeper@kpc.org and let us know how it goes.