Attitude and Prayer Changes

Lately I've been doing some deep repenting. There are attitudes that I've held for years that have contaminated the way I view the world and relate with others, and I've been working very hard on resolving these. Today I'd like to share three areas in which I am seeking a change in perspective and in my prayer life, for the sake of spiritual growth and the work to which I believe God has called me as a Christian.

First, I am asking God to give me a heart for the lost.

No, I don't mean a morbid fear that 50,000 people a day are dying and going to a fiery hell. I've been there, done that and refuse to go back. When I was in Brazil from 2001 to 2003 I had this attitude in mind. I remember looking around the city bus and thinking that probably most of those people would enter a "Christ-less eternity." It should come as no surprise, then, to discover that my faith at that point was heading towards a toxicity that would nearly destroy me.

When I say that I want a heart for the lost, I am thinking about how I felt when I came back from my first mission trip to Brazil in 1997. I would look around and see addictions, abuse and misplaced loyalties destroying people. It was clear to me that being "lost" meant being out of fellowship with the Father, and being out of fellowship with Him damaged us spiritually and diminished our humanity. God wants to save us, to restore us to our true, full humanity.

I want to have this desire, to see people liberated and transformed through the knowledge and communion with the triune God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.

Second, I desperately want to believe that through the Good News of Christ, people and their institutions can be changed. This might sound very odd coming from a Christian who says he's a "bivocational missionary," but I'm being honest. Unfortunately, for a long time I've held to a pessimistic outlook and a sadly static view of human nature. When I hear about chaos in some war-torn nation of Africa, I inwardly think that I know what will come of it: genocide.

What I want is to yearn for things to be better. I don't plan to buy into the myth of progress, but I also don't want to continue seeing things as impossible or same-ol', same ol'. The Scriptures teach us that people really can be set free through the Good News, and that positive change can take place on a national or global scale when the powers and authorities are faced with the testimony that Jesus is Lord.

I need to believe in what I am proclaiming. I believe, Lord Jesus, help thou mine unbelief.

Third and finally, I'm making a commitment to change the way I pray about other people's spiritual lives. For too long I've prayed as though my way were the right way. Not recently, mind you, but in times not too far in the past. I've prayed for the unbaptized to be baptized (not a bad thing in itself) and then join a Christian Church or Church of Christ. I've prayed for those in other fellowships to learn better and join this fellowship as well. That is just ridiculous.

It isn't that I'm a relativist now, by any means. I believe I'm on the best way right now, or else I wouldn't be on it. I'd love for others to agree with me. Then again, I could be wrong. God alone knows what is right. I have been wrong before, many times, about the path I was on. Would I really want now for anyone I knew to be on one of those trails?

No.

My prayer for others now is that God the Father would work in their lives for their salvation, and that he would draw them ever nearer to Himself through Jesus by the working of the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures. This is what I want people to ask in prayer for me.

So there it is. I'm asking God for a heart for the lost, a solid belief and true conviction that people and their institutions can change through the Good News of Jesus, and I'm seeking to pray for others as I would want them to pray for me.