Good News

Praying About Sharing

An Open Door

And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Messiah, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. -Paul in Colossians 4:3-6

For us as well as Paul, the first step in sharing the good news is to pray that God will open a door for communication effective in its clarity, wisdom, and graciousness. Pray for these opportunities for this kind of effective communication. Pray for upcoming conversations to be effective in this way.

A Clear Mind

There are two spiritual reasons why people resist hearing about Yeshua with an open mind.

First, there is an Adversary that does not want people to meet Yeshua and become his followers. Moreover, Satan is especially opposed to Jewish people learning to follow Yeshua, since he knows (as Paul explains in Romans 11) that a widespread Jewish spiritual revival is an eschatological requirement before Yeshua's return.

Second, God himself has clouded the minds of Jewish people. We read in Second Corinthians 3 and Romans 11 of a "veil" that covers the minds of unbelieving Jews which prevents them from understanding prophetic references to Yeshua in the Tenach until they "turn to the Lord".

But to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart. But whenever one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. -Second Corinthians 3:15-16

What does it mean, in this context, to "turn to the Lord"? The Jewish person must stop focusing on religious history and politics and traditions, and simply consider who Yeshua was and is. Many Messianic Jews will share that for them this turn involved acknowledging needing God: either to rescue them from some problem, or to give them the goodness they saw in a believer's life. For others this turn was simply a purposeful decision to have an open mind about who Yeshua was.

Counter to these two spiritual hindrances is a much greater spiritual force. God seeks to draw people to Yeshua by their seeing and experiencing Yeshua's glory! Today this is the responsibility of all Yeshua's followers.

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him... -Yeshua in John 6:44

And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. -Yeshua in John 12:32

Furthermore, we are assured in First Timothy 2:3-4 that God desires all people to come to the knowledge of the truth and receive victory over the evil inclination. Also, Romans 11 describes how the gentile Church must learn to "fully" provoke the unbelieving Jewish people to jealousy. (All these references to Romans 11 will be explained more fully in the next essay, "To the Jew First").

We can thus have faith that we are praying in accordance with God's will when we pray for people to openly consider if Yeshua is the Messiah he claimed to be, even if we are opposed by a "veil" God himself has put over their hearts. We also need to pray that people considering Yeshua are protected from Satan and given strength, since Satan will be working to nurture confusions, doubts, fears, and weakness.

To reiterate, these prayers are not an attempt to over-ride anyone's free will, but a spiritual counter to the spiritual forces that oppose people considering Yeshua as Messiah. Most Messianic Jews will tell of a time when people were praying for them (either with or without their knowledge) and they became strangely and uncharacteristically interested in learning the truth about Yeshua. These people are examples of countless times when unbelieving Jews thought they were opposed to Yeshua, but really are only opposed to misunderstandings about Christianity, and were dramatically affected by prayer.

People who are not from a family in which past generations followed Yeshua and prayed for their descendants have probably never had anyone pray that they consider Yeshua and enjoy living in his Kingdom.

Along with these prayers, we should guard our conversations so they do not become focused on history, politics, and traditions. These are worthy topics, but they will be much more fruitfully discussed another day, by people who all have God's Spirit within them to grant them his wisdom.

Wisdom in Other Prayer Issues

Besides the two spiritual hindrances to consider Yeshua already discussed, there are other spiritual issues that prevent people from having an open mind and considering Yeshua. We must pray for discernment of the spiritual forces.

One example is how religious systems that consist of the teachings of men, rather than the teachings of God, often create a worldview and lifestyle with accopanying spiritual forces that cause an irrational prejudice against Yeshua and his followers, misunderstandings about the good news of God's Kingdom, attitudes of self-sufficiency, and avoidance of considering personal iniquity and sinfulness.

We are reminded in First Timothy 5:1-2 to pray for strong relationships. We are seeking to become brothers and sisters with more people in the family of God, not to introduce them to Yeshua and then abandon them. This includes praying for having the right words to speak and praying for more relationships between their households and yours.

We sould also pray that God will bring other devoted followers of Yeshua into people's lives, and that your life and the lives of these other believers will be a testimony of God's power (Matthew 5:16).

Most of all, pray that God's will in people's life happens.

Lastly, pray for protection and unity for the local Body of Messiah and especially its new members. Satan attacks anyone who increases their commitment to God, and where large numbers of people are entering God's Kingdom then competing ideologies and cults will quickly move in.