The prayer challenges so far have been focused on building relationships with people through seeing God’s image in them, listening to their stories, putting love into action, and praying about their concerns. The final four prayer challenges will focus on helping people in their relationship with God.
To begin this week’s challenge, pray, “Heavenly Father, lead me to someone in whose life you are already at work. Help me understand where they are in their spiritual journey and whether they are ready to enter your family as your beloved child. Give me the courage to invite them to new life and the grace to accept that they might be ready to hear, but not yet ready to respond.”
When the opportunity comes, how do you begin such a conversation? A friend of mine simply asks, “So how are you and God getting along these days?”
Another approach might be something like this:
Everybody relates to God one way or another.
1. Some have no interest in God and doubt that God even exists.
2. Others believe in God, but don’t think much about him until problems come and they need God’s help.
3. Still others are angry with God because of something bad that happened to them or to a loved one. They may have felt close to God at one time, but not now.
4. And then there are those who have an intimate connection with God, seeing themselves as the beloved child of a Heavenly Father who is everything they wish their own father had been.
Do any of these descriptions fit you? If not, how would you describe your relationship with God?
Would you like to see God as your Heavenly Father and yourself as God’s beloved child? John 1:9-14 explains how this can happen. Let’s look at it together.
Do you believe Jesus is the light of the world who reveals God fully and clearly to us? If so, you have the right to become God’s child.
Is there anything in your life right now that is coming between you and God? If so, tell God what it is, receive God’s forgiveness, and be born anew as God’s beloved child. This new birth is not something you can do in your own power, but something God wants to do and will do in you.
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