"Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved." -Rom 10:1
Paul’s heart desire, the thing he wanted the most in his life was to see others get saved! His heart desire wasn’t for himself; to win the lottery, get rich or to make a name for himself. He wasn’t waiting till he was set in life, till he had his retirement set up, and his kids college tuition paid off. No he had a deep here and now heartfelt longing for others. Notice the progression here from a heart's desire to a prayer to God? His desire was made evident in his prayer life. It started in his heart and it moved to his lips. You see when the right heart attitude for the lost is developed the initiative to reach them will soon follow! And it’s always like this, first we must talk to God about those we want to see saved before we talk to those we want to see saved about God. See If it doesn’t start in our the heart it’s not gonna last. Evangelism must start in our hearts before we ever allow it to move to our lips. His desire was to see them saved not necessarily to see them be better people, or to get them off of the streets and on their feet for a little while. The main thing in disciple making is to feed them the Bread of Life whether you give them food or not! You see a lot of people go to hell with a full stomach and an empty soul already. We must not lose sight of man’s primary need. People need to hear the gospel! Paul’s heart desire wasn’t the social gospel to end poverty make the world a better place to live in and maybe then give them the gospel NO! We're not environmentalists we are fishers of men we are not here to clean up the lake but catch fish! Jesus said (Mat 4:19-20) "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." you know what they did next? verse 20 “They immediately left their nets and followed Him.” Listen those nets were their livelihood they were the family business those nets were nets of safety and comfort and they left them to go deep sea fishing with Jesus! Can we do that? Are we ready for that?
- IF WE AREN'T FOLLOWING JESUS HOW CAN WE EXPECT OTHERS TO? HOW CAN YOU BEST CULTIVATE A PASSION TO SEE THE LOST SAVED?
- "At the end of the day the biggest obstacle to evangelism is Christians who don't share their faith" -Albert Mohler