Anywhere, Everywhere

This morning I prayed, “Dear Lord, I pray for Your success today.”

Then I asked myself, why?  “It’s because that’s what my heart wants.”

Then I asked myself, well what does that mean? 

So, now you know that I am crazy and am talking to and answering myself.  I’m not sure what that means with regard to my sanity, but I’m sure it means that I am not.  Everyone tells me that I’m “special” so I am sure this ability to have a conversation with myself is a part of that specialness.

However, the question still exists.  What does it mean to want God’s success today?  What is God’s success?  How is that defined? 

It has to start with any person anywhere deciding to believe that the Lord is real and that Jesus came as a substitution for their sins.  I mean if God thought it was so important that He sent a part of Himself to walk with us and then to die with no cause except as a propitiation for our sins, then the acceptance of people to believe in Jesus as His Son has to be really high on the success goals.  And the more people who decide today to repent the more successful the day.

“In the same way (as a women who has lost a treasure and searches the whole house until she finds it), there is joy in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who repents.” – Luke 15:10

I think that people who know God but have drifted away, backsliders as the Baptist refer, or have gotten so confused in some sin, no matter what it is, that they can’t see through the fog to even know that they are worshiping idols or which direction to go, but decide to follow God solely on the basis of His Word would be a close second.  They are confused and lost.  They are trying to decide whether to take the path they think they want or have justified as being the right one, or to take the one that the Lord says is the right one.  And the more people who decide to take the path just because God says it and repents, the more successful the day.

³ So Jesus told them this story: ⁴ “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵ And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. ⁶ When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ ⁷ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! – Luke 15:3-7

Following this, as if anything can, would be the exclamation in the lives of the saints of the glory of God.  This can be verbally to anyone who will listen.  It can be demonstrated through the obvious blessings in their life of joy and peace.  It is evident on their face and in their inner being.  This is towards anyone who will look.  It can be shown in compassion.  An obvious caring and concern for the well-being of others where the world shuns them or turns them away.  This is not just to the poor, but to the poor in spirit: the depressed, the one who is about to crumble under the weight of responsibility, the one who has a close relative die, the one who’s spouse leaves them.  This is towards anyone who will be loved. 

God’s success is when He is shared to anyone anywhere so that they might be moved to be nearer to His presence.  And I pray for that success today: anywhere - everywhere, to anyone - everyone.