Day 4 - A Burden for the Lost

Read: Matthew 9:35-10:42; Luke 15, and 1 Corinthians 9

What is your posture to the world around you? Not so much the thoughts, ideas, and headlines of the world, but the people? Matthew 9:36 tells us that when Jesus saw the crowd, “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” Jesus never saw the lost as a distraction or annoyance. He never wrote off a person, even those others had written off. In fact, Jesus loved the lost and always moved towards the lost.  In other words, Jesus loved every person because every person is lost until they come to faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior. Jesus models for us what it means to reach others with the gospel. He cared for people’s physical needs and their spiritual needs. He was compelled by compassion for those were separated from God. He saw people’s true condition and need—they were lost like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus not only models a burden for the lost and example of reaching others with the gospel, He invites us, His followers, to join Him. In Matthew 9:37-37, Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” When we consider the need people have for Jesus, our response ought to be a burden that moves us to prayer. And that prayer for the lost ought to lead us to act just as we see in Matthew 10. Like Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9:22, our posture should be, “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” 

Prayer Points:

• Who’s your one? Who is the person you are praying to come to faith Christ and seeking to share the gospel with?

• Pray for opportunities and boldness in sharing the gospel.

• Pray for others in our church family to have opportunities and boldness to share the gospel.

• Pray that God would use us to see 15 people come to faith in Christ this year through TCC.