Do You Have a Target?
Bible Reading: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
You also must run in such a way that you will win. 1 Corinthians 9:24
Picture this: You have a God’s-eye view of your school, and you’re looking down at yourself as you listen in total fascination to your favorite teacher. In fact, you’re sitting atop the Hubble Space Telescope and you have the superhuge lens zoomed up close on you. Just you. Now widen that shot.
Exactly how many students sit in your row? Count them. Name them if you can.
How about in your classroom? How many students do you see? Now pull your view out wider. How many people are in your grade? And how many students are in your whole school?
Do you have a good guesstimate of each of those numbers? Parents, can you approximate how many people work with you?
Here’s the point. God has an even better view than your superhuge zoom lens. And God’s goal for evangelism is to reach everyone he can spot in a wide-angle shot of the whole world.
Reaching the world is a job he’s given to the whole church—that’s not a task you can tackle by yourself. You could easily get discouraged by the hugeness of that task, so you need to zero in on your part of the job.
Your efforts to share Jesus need to focus first on your inner circle—your friends, teammates, classmates, neighbors, and so on. And you can zero in further by asking this: Of all the people near you, who needs to know Jesus? Ask God to remind you of several people within your zoomed-in picture frame. Write down their names.
These are people you want to pray for. You can keep your list of names in a place where you are sure to see it often, and pray for these people daily.
These are people you want to surround with love. You can help people learn to trust you by spending time with them and being their friend.
And these are the people you want to share Christ with. You can watch for and create opportunities to share Christ with them, and invite them to respond.
Someone once said, “If you aim at nothing, you will surely hit it.” You have the privilege of sharing Christ with your non-Christian friends. Do you want to know the secret to success? Zero in on your target and plan how to hit it!
TALK: God had a plan to reach you with the Good News. What is your plan to reach the people in your zoomed-in zone?
PRAY: God, help us to be willing messengers who will share the Good News. Help us create a plan to reach people, just like you had a plan to zero in on us.
ACT: Talk with other Christians about how you can work together to spread the good news of Christ to your classmates, neighbors, and teammates.