One verse from this past Sunday continues to come up in my mind over and over again. That is verse is found in Romans 10:1 where it is written, "Brothers, my heart's desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation." The Apostle Paul, writing to the Church in Rome, states clearly that he, the apostle to the Gentiles, still has a desire for the Jewish people to be saved. He has already written in the very first chapters that no man seeks God on his own and in these last chapters he has written about the fact that Jews seeks after God but they do not seek Him through Jesus.
Yet that doesn't stop Paul from praying for them to be saved, nor does it relinquish his heart from having that desire. What happens when our heart has a desire? Sunday I told how our youngest daughter disappeared one day. We were all in the front yard together one minute and the next she was missing. My heart sank the moment we realized that she had wondered off. Yes I prayed for her to be found. But I did not simply pray for that to happen, I began looking. My heart's desire to find her took me throughout the neighborhood. It was not enough to simply pray and go back to doing whatever it was that I was doing. My heart's desire put action to my prayers. We found her picking flowers in the back yard. She thought it was fun playing hide & seek. The only problem was that no one else knew that she was playing a game.
People all around us think that life is simply a game. They think that as long as they do their best, God will allow them into heaven. After all, He is a loving and merciful God. The only problem with that logic is that it isn't biblical. According to the Bible, the only way a person can have salvation and eternity in heaven is through a personal relationship with Jesus. Therefore the question for you and I is: Are we praying for people to be saved? And what is our heart's desire?
As we pray we go. As we go we pray. We go to make disciples of all people. We pray that ears would be open and that people would respond in saving faith. We pray that the Holy Spirit would prepare the way. We go taking the Holy Spirit within us into this darkened world.
Will you join the Apostle Paul by saying: "my heart's desire and prayer to God concerning them is for their salvation"?
(1) Lake O’ the Pines community of Eagle Landing
(2) State of Alabama
(3) Nation of Bolivia
(4) Southeast Asian Peoples throughout the World
(5) Romanian Gypsy village of Racatau
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