The Make-It-Obvious Pray
By Jon Walker
We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. Acts 14:15 (NIV)
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One time when I was mentoring another writer, God pressed on my heart that I should tell him the good news about Jesus. But I wasn’t sure about the best way to bring up the subject, so I asked God to open the door in a way that was obvious.
The next day the young writer came in and started telling me about an idea for a story. He said, “What if God couldn’t get people to listen to him, and so he came to earth looking like an average guy. And there would be, you know, GOD, sitting in a bar like anybody else, telling all these people getting drunk that life had more meaning.”
The Holy Spirit nudged me as if to say, “Is that obvious enough?” So I told my friend how, in truth, that had already happened 2,000 years ago.
Sometimes we need to pray the make-it-obvious prayer and watch the wonder of God at work, opening doors for us to tell others: “We are bringing you good news, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God” (Acts 14:15 NIV).
Ask God to give you constant opportunities to tell others about Jesus, then don’t doubt that God is already answering your prayer.
Pray, also, that God will prepare the hearts of those you’ll be speaking to, and that the words of Jesus “will simply take off and race through the country to a groundswell of response” (2 Thessalonians 3:1 MSG).
Finally, pray for God to soften your heart, and watch how he gives you a burden for the lost, which is just an old-fashioned way of saying your heart is now tender towards the needs other people.
Through the apostle Paul, God teaches us to “live wisely among those who are not Christians, and make the most of every opportunity” (Colossians 4:5 NLT).
If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2009 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.
