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- The presence
of God means a change in people.
When God's people really love someone
with the Lord's love, it results in change - not necessarily
on our schedules, but on His.
I have seen deep transformation
in believers old and new (in the Lord) who were in their seventies
and eighties. I have seen a young child accept the Lord and change
so much that in one day, her face was completely different, and
she looked physically like another child.
We must love without looking
for the changes. They are the Lord's business, and if we are
watching the pot, there can be no unconditional love. The Lord
goes to the bottom of the root and works. Most of the time He
does not exhibit His work in the heart of the unsaved
because we would try to help in ways that would not conform to
His.
We must love in order to
express who the Lord is, not to try to show someone how loving
we can be so that they will come to Him. If that is my reason
for love, I will wear thin as the other person seems to resist
the Lord, or seems blind to spiritual things.
On the other hand, when we
pray for the lost, He listens every time. Prayer releases the
work and power of God in the heart of that person like the ripening
of a fruit happens whether the farmer is there or not.
We do not pray because we
long for the other person to change, we pray because we know
that the person is without Christ and needs sight and eternal
life.
Do not be discouraged.
Be faithful in prayer, and
remind yourself that for the Lord, some people are not
harder than others. We do not have a formula, but all who are
won to Him are won because of prayer.
- There
is no bitterness too deep, no wound too festered, that the Great
Physician cannot heal with a single touch.
- Don't
tell the Lord how to do it - just continue to ask in humility,
because He is able. And He is listening. And He is working!
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