"I Just Want Them To Get Saved Already"

For a few years after I got saved, nobody came to Christ through me.

Not one person.

I knew the Bible and I used it on people, my family most of all. I could take anybody at that table apart with a verse.

I wanted to win. I got real good at winning, and nobody ever came with me.

You've got somebody. A brother, your mom, a friend since you were kids.

You've had the same conversation four times and it ends the same way.

Why won't they just listen to you?

It makes sense. You've seen what God did with you.

Somewhere in there, though, it stops being about them. What you want now is for the worry to be over and the dinners to quit going sideways.

Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament letters, was writing to a church proud of its spiritual equipment.

Look at where he starts. Tongues of men and of angels, the best material anybody could have, and without charity he says it comes out as brass.

Charity there isn't a check we write. It's the King James word for love.

Then he raises it. Prophecy, all mysteries, all knowledge, faith big enough to move a mountain, and no charity, and watch where he lands it.

Nothing.

He doesn't grade the sermon. He grades the man giving it.

Catch the last three words. It profiteth me nothing.

Wanting them saved so you can finally rest is the one version of it that'll never let you rest.

Peter, one of the twelve who walked with Jesus, shows you the clean version. Read it slow:

"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

2 Peter 3:9 (KJV)

Longsuffering means what it sounds like, putting up with somebody a long time and doing it on purpose.

Then He says what He isn't willing to have happen. Not willing that any should perish.

His wanting is aimed at where they end up, not at what they cost Him.

We were all on the other side of that patience once.

Every wrong thing we've ever done got charged to Jesus while He hung there, and He didn't open His mouth to win the argument.

They put a stone over Him that same night.

Sunday morning He was alive, and the first people He looked for were the ones who ran out on Him.

God never wanted you saved so you'd get off His back.

I'm not going to tell you that fixing your motive is what gets them saved, because it doesn't work like that.

Your wanting was never what was holding them up. God has been longsuffering with that person far longer than you have, and He was that patient with you back when you were somebody's project.

You don't have to work the love up. Charity is His, and you can ask Him for it.

Here's how to want it for them today:

1. Finish the sentence out loud. I want them saved so that.

Whatever comes after "so that" is your honest answer. Say the real one to God even if it's ugly, because He already knows it and He isn't going anywhere.

2. Ask God for love you don't have yet.

You can't talk yourself into it on a bad morning. Ask Him for it the same way you'd ask Him for anything else you've run out of.

3. Ask them one question about their life and let the answer just be the answer.

No turn at the end of it. One conversation where they don't feel worked is worth more than four where they do.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, I've been praying about this person for a long time, and a lot of it has been about me.

I wanted the worry to stop and the arguments to stop.

Today I quit asking You to fix my life through them.

Thank You that You never came at me that way, and that You kept coming while I was still telling You no.

Give me love for them I can't work up on my own.

Help me want what You want for them, and help me stay in the room without needing anything back.

I'm putting them in Your hands and I'm leaving them there.

In Jesus' wonderful name we pray. Amen.