Thirty five years ago today I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. I always celebrate this day like it was my birthday because it was the day that changed my life forever.
I am very lucky in a sense as I know the day and time I came to faith in Jesus. I know because I read a tract called, “A journey in to life” and I wrote the date and time on it.
I would love to say that I still had it, but being evangelistically inclined I gave it to someone who I was sharing my faith with. I said this pamphlet changed my life, I hope it will change yours too.
Usually on this day I look back and remember what my life was like before Jesus and how it has changed for the better. I reflect on how I felt before I prayed the prayer above and how I felt afterwards.
It is my hope and prayer that as you read this post that you have accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. If not I would encourage you to visit my finding salvation page here.
Galatians 1:10 TPT – I’m obviously not trying to flatter you or water down my message to be popular with men, but my supreme passion is to please God. For if all I attempt to do is please people, I would not be the true servant of the Messiah.
In today’s world we can be tempted to water down the Gospel to make it palatable to more people. But the truth of the Gospel is Jesus came to earth to save sinners. He came to die on the cross for our sin. This opened the way back to the Father in heaven from whom we were separated. He took our punishment, so we could find peace with God.
If our Gospel message does not talk about sin and the need to find peace with God, is it really the Gospel of the Bible?
Reflection passage – Romans 5:8-11 NLT
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. [9] And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. [10] For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. [11] So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
In Matthew 9:32-37 we see Jesus has been preaching, teaching about the Kingdom and healing the sick. In verse 36 He looks upon the crowd of people and it says compassion welled up within Him. He said the people looked like lost sheep without a shepherd.
Then Jesus makes an interesting request. He said to his disciples, “The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields” (v37-38).
Up until this point Jesus has done all the ministry work. He had been preaching, teaching, healing, driving out demons, raising the dead and calming storms. The disciples were following along and just watching and taking it all in.
Now the disciples were getting asked to be involved in His work. How? By praying. Jesus asked them to pray for workers to go out in to the harvest. As I reflected on this request a couple of things came to mind.
1. Prayer should always precede ministry outreach.
2. When I pray God often softens my heart and calls me to be involved.
In the start of the next chapter we see Jesus sends out the 12 disciples. We do not know how long after it was when He asked them to pray, but I suspect it was fairly soon.
Matthew 10:5-8 NLT says, “Jesus sent out the twelve apostles with these instructions: “Don’t go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, [6] but only to the people of Israel-God’s lost sheep. [7] Go and announce to them that the Kingdom of Heaven is near. [8] Heal the sick, raise the dead, cure those with leprosy, and cast out demons. Give as freely as you have received!”
In this sending out we see Jesus gave them strict instructions. Go to these people, preach the Kingdom, heal the sick and caste out demons. It was a set of clear instructions with defined boundaries.
As I dwell on these passages from Matthew 9&10. I am reminded on our early days at PASSION Australia. Our board would have a meal together and then spend an hour or two in prayer asking God what He wanted us to do.
We would simply pray, “Lord You said the harvest field is ripe, but the workers were few. Please send us out. Let us know where to go and what to do. Lead us to the people whose hearts you have been preparing, we want to lead them to You. Amen”. Then we would wait on the Lord.
Often over the next few days God would speak to us separately and when we came together again, we would share what God had been saying to us. Most times it was exactly the same and it confirmed what we needed to do.
At first we were surprised, like the disciples when they came back from their first mission. But in time we realised that if we pray first, then God would lead us to the people who needed Him and were ready to receive.
We learned a simple lesson in the early days of PASSION. The Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20 is given to us, but ultimately it is God’s mission. He wants to whole world to come to know Jesus and He uses us. But it always works best when we seek Him and pray, “What do You want us to do and where do You want us to go?”
This is an easy one to answer. The things I am passionate about are always not far from the surface and easy to see. I have many passions, but one stands above it all.
My faith in Jesus is my number one passion. Since I came to Jesus in July of 1989, my life has never been the same. He changed everything for the better. My heart is to walk with Him all the days of my life.
Walking closely with the Lord drives everything else I do in my life. He is the reason I get up early to pray and read my Bible. He is why I want to be the best husband and father I can be. He is why I am a Chaplain. He is why I have my PASSION websites to reach out with His love.
If it was not for Jesus I do not know where I would be. Jesus has given my life meaning, purpose, strength, hope and a future. He loved me and died on the cross for me. My response is to give my life back to Him each day and to take up my cross as it says in Matthew 16:24.
I heard this really good acronym for sharing your faith in a sermon recently. It uses the letters of BLAST.
B – build relationships with people
L – listen to their story and get to know them
A – ask questions so you understand them
S – share your testimony about your faith
T – tell them about Jesus and His love for them
I really like that it starts by getting to know people and listening. Then once they feel heard, they are more likely to want to know about you and your faith story.
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