As I pull myself together after weeks of sleep deprivation I realize I have neglected the prayer blog. As I think about prayer and as I think about new life, and startling thought has entered my mind.
The amount of excitement over a new life is indescribable: people visit from all over, gifts flood into our house, cards fill up our mail box, phone calls are made, pictures are requested...and it keeps going from there. Before the baby is here, people can hardly stand it they are so excited for his arrival, and once born the excitement level is through the roof!
Bringing a new life into this world is an incredible thing. Something that has often brought tears to my eyes. But I feel that many of us have lost perspective. We get more excited about a new physical life than a new spiritual one. Jesus tells Nicodemus (John 3): "that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of Spirit is spirit." In other words, being born physically is being born into sin, yet being born spiritually is being born into eternal life. In saying this I am not trying to lessen the excitement of physical birth, rather I am trying to heighten the excitement of spiritual birth.
Our excitement level for new disciples should exceed that of physical birth. For when someone accepts Christ they are passing from death to life. We are talking about eternity here! I believe that a major reason we don't evangelize and share our faith is that we don't find making disciplines all that exciting. So today, think about the idea that a sinful man can be reconciled to a Holy God. Think about what that took! Elevate spiritual birth in your mind to the place it should be. And maybe if we did that, the excitement we have towards evangelism would be similar to the excitement of a pregnant mom. And maybe the celebration we have towards a new believer might be similar to the excitement of a baby being born. And taking this analogy further, maybe the way we nurture and raise up new believers could be done with the same care and concern that parents and grandparents do for the new life that has been brought into the world.
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