Nehemiah Chapter 7. Things happen in stages.
In this chapter, God restored the building and his people but it came in steps and occurred over a period of time. It's a process and it takes time and means encountering obstacles. It takes perseverance.
When it comes to reaching lost souls at work, home or our neighborhood, we all too often feel we should see results right away. But it often doesn't happen! Instead we encounter resistance, obstacles, lack of support, challenges of our own faith and temptations.
God's timing is different than ours.
1. I find the beginning stages are often a time for ME to be challenged and to change and grow before I can even begin to expect others to change and grow.
2. I find it often means building real and sincere relationships with the loss through a caring loving heart. Often done by meeting needs, encouraging and being real.
3. As we build relationships then I feel God will open doors to share about Jesus not just with our actions but even with our words.
4. Results are not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to be obedient and share Jesus with our actions and words. He doesn't promise results with our obedience. God is responsible for results and they are often different than how we define results. We look for salvations to define results. And God is patient so his results are often in steps we don't see. Results to him maybe just the fact that somebody's ears were open to hear the good news for the first time. They don't accept it yet but their heart was open. We don't see that result but God does.
So seeds of salvation may be planted but may take years to blossom into salvation.
Let us not be fixed on results. Remember our call is to share the good news and it's God's responsibility to bring results.
I’m thankful for the reminder today to be patient as we faithfully serve the Lord. We don’t always see results immediately and we might not even see the results in others’ lives during our lifetime. It is a process that takes time just as we see in the parable about the growing of a seed that we read about in Mark 4:26-29.
And He (Jesus) said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”