LifeLink Devotions for Monday, June 17, 2024

It’s the beginning of another week, and I have a question nagging at me that just won’t go away. I believe it is God’s question for all of us today, and for every day. It comes from the very heart of God and His concern for a lost world of people. Listen to these words of wisdom in the form of questions in Proverbs 24 verses 11-12.

“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?”

My burning  question is this: “How many people over the weekend did I see through the eyes of God and recognize their hopeless condition of being led away to death by their sin?”

I saw lots of people. They seem to be everywhere. I saw normal people. I saw happy people. I saw angry people. I saw determined people. I saw distracted people. I saw people I would want to know better. I saw people I tried to avoid. I saw people in all kinds of situations going about their duties and recreation and calling it life.

I made judgments about people based on my perceptions of them. I responded to people in different ways because of those judgments. I saw their exterior and determined their worth and value, usually based on the return or hurt I would get from contact with them.

What I did not do very often was to see their heart from God’s perspective and realize that whatever was on the outside could be radically changed by the transforming power of Jesus in their heart. I noticed their physical condition without recognizing the spiritual need that caused it. I need to sit up and take notice from God’s perspective.

But then another question nags at me: “What will I do about it when I do see people through the eyes of God?”

It doesn’t do us any good to sit up and take notice if we keep on sitting. Taking notice of people’s spiritual condition puts us on the right track, but as Will Rogers once said, “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” Once I recognize the spiritual need in a person’s life, I must also recognize that I have already experienced the answer to that need, and that I now have the Power to give that answer away to others.

Yesterday as you worshipped in the gathering of your church, you were equipped in some way to better represent Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world of people. You will see many of those people every day. Will you see them through the eyes of God? How many of them will pass into a Christ-less eternity because we did nothing about it?

Pastor John