The stewardship of the gospel mystery….
Tuesday and Thursday morning we have a prayer meeting. Both of these are devoted to praying for revival. I have come to love them dearly. This morning was really encouraging. Much of the prayer was devoted to evangelism. There were several elements to those prayers. First, there is the overall problem of the fear of man. I think everyone present understood that the US church pretty much cowers in the corner when it comes to evanglizing people. The idolatry of not wanting to be thought of as “extreme” or “fanatical” has done a through job of scaring most Christians right back into the closet, so to speak. There was much prayer about boldness, and breaking the hold which the “fear of man” has on American Christianity.
There was also the awareness that we don’t need a program, or a methodology to accomplish this but what Paul describes here - My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power. (1 Cor. 2:4-5) So there was prayer and much agreement in prayer that we desperately wanted God to confirm in power the witness of the gospel.
While we very much want a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, we also wanted to understand how to articulate the gospel in a time when many of the basic elements of the biblical world view are no longer understood. So we prayed for wisdom and understanding. There is a challenge before us. It is a large one. But Jesus is bigger. We need serious thought about communicating with the culture around us in ways that people will understand. God has provided tools in every generation that were useful in explaining the gospel to people in ways that they could understand. In my generation the little pamphlet called “The Four Spiritual Laws” was very helpful. Today we need new thinking about how to communicate this wonderful message of Jesus. This doesn’t mean that we somehow compromise the message, only that we think, pray and study seriously how to communicate it effectively.
We need those who will get on there knees and pray without giving up for God to anoint His message. We need an army of intercessors who will not settle for anything less than a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We need a dedicated voice of intercession all across this county, state and nation that will pray, even agonizing in prayer for God to bring boldness and courage to the people of God. I believe with all my heart that this will happen. God will not leave us in the state we are in at the moment because He loves his bride too much, and even more He loves the bridegroom too much to offer anything less that a dazzling bride for His Son.