Monday September 19 | Everyone
Read 1 Timothy 2:1-6
All. 1 Timothy 2:4 tells us that God wants ALL people to be saved and to know Him.
Last week we talked about God’s mission to restore shalom: being known by all and all creation flourishing. We said that our mission (helping people find their way back to God) is informed and derived from God’s big mission. We ended with the acknowledgement that this is a BIG job. There are a lot of people who need to know God. A lot of creation needs to be restored.
This week, we’ll talk about our FOCUS. In this big mission we’re invited to join in, what’s our focus? What’s the target?
Sometimes, businesses will design their business around the idea of a “target audience.” This is a way of acknowledging the kind of person their product is designed for. As the Church, the first thing we have to wrestle with is that our target is broad: the target audience is EVERYONE. God wants to be known by all.
Luke 15, which we’ll look at tomorrow, tells us that the religious folks in Jesus’ day had a hard time with the reality that EVERYONE was invited to God’s party. They wanted people to act a certain way or believe a certain thing before they would count them as “one of them.”
I have struggled with this, to be honest. I have found myself more preoccupied with changing someone’s behavior or beliefs than I am focusing on helping them know God.
Have you struggled with this idea too? Are there those you struggle to just invite to know God without focusing on their behavior? Are there people you struggle to believe can belong to God’s Kingdom? Spend some time confessing that now and asking God to help you to long for everyone to know Him.