Praying for Someone to Minister to:

In church we are starting a new campaign.  We are thinking more and more about our “ones.”  These are the people who we really want to befriend and show God’s love to on a regular basis.  These are the people who we want to share God’s message of truth with and hopefully encourage them to start following Jesus. It is not necessarily supposed to be someone we pick out, but someone we already love from our regular lives that we want to start investing more and more time and love into.  This is also someone who we know is not regularly going to church or is not in a committed relationship with Christ.  

Today both our message in church as well as what I was teaching in Sunday school, was trying to find and build a friendship of trust.  I spent time in prayer with the kids I was teaching about the importance of praying for good friendships, so this way we can better teach these people about Jesus and his love for them.  This gives them a chance to realize God will do a great job of putting people into your lives, so that way you can put the love of Jesus into theirs.

Jesus really does showcase the importance of friendship.  In our story, we learned about Jesus and his relationship with Peter.  He didn’t necessarily start this relationship getting Peter to be a disciple.  He eventually would call Peter to be a major part of his ministry, but this was after first getting to know him as well as spending time loving him. Jesus found Peter on his boat, so this gave him a chance to know his work life as well as a passion of his.  He would then show Peter how he ministers when he started ministering near Peter’s boat.  Jesus would also go to Peter when he was upset, such as after the death of a family member. Through all of this, Peter was then willing to follow Jesus to become a fisher of man.  Jesus had put in the initial work of developing a friendship of trust, and then it turned into a ministry calling.  

This makes me wonder if I ever spend time praying for good friendships, so I can spread God’s love to them.  I definitely have spent time in prayer for friends, but it is mostly for a selfish reason.  I am not really praying to have friends because my core desire is to share God’s Gospel with them.  I am usually praying for friends because I am lonely or because I want to build more community for my own heart and my own joy.  It is good to have friends, and it can help our mental and spiritual health, but it is also important to realize how good a friendship can be in spreading God’s Gospel.  

I just moved to a new area, and I really need to think about what friendships I want to develop.  Who is someone I can start to reach out to and talk to, build a relationship, and then initiate good conversations with them about God?  Of course, I will need to figure out where they are in their relationship with God originally, but if I do meet someone along the way who is not walking or has stepped away from Jesus, then I have a very good opportunity to share God’s love and God’s Gospel.  Being in this new community with these new groups and organizations is very much an open opportunity for me.  

I’m glad my church group focused this time with the kids praying for developing these relationships.   I loved that we are teaching a young group of kids how we can best pray to God about our relationships and that we teach them to have good thoughts on the relationships we have with others.   It is only through God these relationships will really prosper and will come into fruition.  It is only through God we are able to really have good spiritual conversations with others.  

I want to say what my church has been very good about saying it is not a project.  We are not trying to be good friends with people, so we can look good in front of the rest of the church.  It is because a person genuinely knows someone or meets someone they really care about and then they want to tell them about the love and care of Jesus.  There is another important verse I believe showcases this really well and that is John 15:13.  This says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  We should be willing to lay down our lives for our loved ones and we will be willing to also offer up other things like time and energy and eventually, hopefully, spiritual leadership.   

I want to end this time with talking to the Lord. I think it is important we practice what we preach and therefore, I need to spend this time in prayer for those who are maybe going to be my ones or the person I am going to invest time in.  This way when I talk to the children in my church groups, I can teach them some examples of how to best to pray over those who we want to serve, and love, and teach Jesus to.   

Dear Lord, 

Thank you for the relationships you have given me.  Thank you for the chance to make new relationships and develop good friendships.  I pray you use me for the best of your ability to make your words known in all areas.  Please help me to be a good steward of your word but more importantly a good demonstrator of your love through my actions and through my words.  

In Jesus’ name, 

Amen