Jerry Bridges for today
If God has promised that all nations will be blessed and that "all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord" (Psalm 22:27), how should we respond? I maintain that our response should begin with prayer. We should boldly and persistently plead in prayer the promises of God.
Daniel, one of the Bible's great men, is our example. He lived during the Babylonian captivity of Judah. He understood, from reading Jeremiah 29:10, that the captivity would last seventy years. So he took God at his word and began to pray that he would fulfill his promise to restore the Jews to their home (Daniel 9:1-19). He pleaded the promise of God. This is what we should do in response to God's promises of the success of the Gospel. We should earnestly pray over such Scriptures as Genesis 22:18 and Psalm 22:27-28, asking God to fulfill his promises.
I'm dismayed at how little we Christians pray for the success of the Gospel among the nations. If we honestly examine our prayers, we find that we give the greatest priority to our own earthly needs. Perhaps we even pray about our own or our loved ones' spiritual needs. But how many are praying about the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth? How many are pleading the promises of God?
As a personal application of this challenge, I keep a small world map with my morning devotional material. I try to pray "around the world" over the course of a week, putting my finger on specific countries, especially those more resistant to Christianity, and asking God to bless them with a significant penetration of the Gospel, so his name will be glorified among them. (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)
Daniel, one of the Bible's great men, is our example. He lived during the Babylonian captivity of Judah. He understood, from reading Jeremiah 29:10, that the captivity would last seventy years. So he took God at his word and began to pray that he would fulfill his promise to restore the Jews to their home (Daniel 9:1-19). He pleaded the promise of God. This is what we should do in response to God's promises of the success of the Gospel. We should earnestly pray over such Scriptures as Genesis 22:18 and Psalm 22:27-28, asking God to fulfill his promises.
I'm dismayed at how little we Christians pray for the success of the Gospel among the nations. If we honestly examine our prayers, we find that we give the greatest priority to our own earthly needs. Perhaps we even pray about our own or our loved ones' spiritual needs. But how many are praying about the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the earth? How many are pleading the promises of God?
As a personal application of this challenge, I keep a small world map with my morning devotional material. I try to pray "around the world" over the course of a week, putting my finger on specific countries, especially those more resistant to Christianity, and asking God to bless them with a significant penetration of the Gospel, so his name will be glorified among them. (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)
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