Day 12: The Heart Behind It All
Since 2021-2022 New Covenant has been the fastest growing church in our denomination each of the last three years. There has been an awesome move of God in and through our church. Sometimes when a church experiences these wonderful things, those who are on the outside make incorrect assumptions about how and why we are experiencing the growth. I will admit, when I was younger and a church was exploding in our county, I was prone to think that there was no way they were preaching sound doctrine. Unfortunately, that is a bit of our human nature rearing its head.
I haven’t experienced a lot of those things that some pastors of growing churches tend to experience. That is probably because I am highly involved on the denominational level, but there are always some folks who feel we have tossed aside Biblical convictions for the sake of numerical growth. The beautiful thing about the past several years at New Covenant is that the growth has happened because we have leaned into the Biblical values of prayer, evangelism, discipleship, and worship. We have invested in our Church, community, country, and world heavily through our ministry efforts modeling Act 1:8, and God has abundantly blessed us for it!
As we are over halfway into a season of prayer and fasting, I want to take a day to focus on the heart, or the reason why, of our efforts to be fruitful in our faith. The heart behind it all is this: we want to see as many people as possible through our efforts, testimony, and witness experiencing eternal salvation in the name of Jesus. We don’t want to see people in our sphere of influence die and be separated from God forever. And to be honest, I think that is the heart behind every healthy church. Proverbs says this:
Proverbs 24: 11 Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
That is the heart behind our efforts, to see people rescued in the name of Jesus.
During our fast, I have been reading the Epistles of Paul. Over and over, he charges his reader to share the message of the Gospel to see the lost come to Jesus. Here are a few of those passages:
Romans 10: 13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
2 Corinthians 5: 18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. 20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
1 Timothy 2:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
The Gospel is a lifesaving message of reconciliation, and you and I have the wonderful opportunity to share that message with someone who has been searching for it, in the wrong places, for all of their lives. That is the heart behind every program, service, outreach, upgrade, and even every doughnut we hand out. To share the Gospel to the world who needs to hear it.
Today, let’s refocus on the heart behind the prayer time and the fast. Let’s refocus our lives to the calling given to us from the Lord and get busy answering. Make rescuing those who are heading in the wrong directions the reason you do everything that you do! Use every avenue to share life in the name of Jesus with those who need it! That really is the heart behind it all!