Category: “Focused” Series

Focused Prayer

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(Genesis 18:20-32)

August is here, which means it’s time to ask: are you done with your Christmas wish list yet? Don’t you know there are only 130 days left until Christmas??? What are you waiting for? It’s time to get cracking on that Christmas list!

But before you do, have you ever taken the time to go through your past lists to determine the success rate? What percentage of the gifts that you asked for did you actually receive? Has it ever been 100%? I suppose that rate of success would be easy to hit if, like my dad throughout my whole childhood, you asked for total dad things every Christmas, like socks and oil change coupons, and nothing else. But most tend to put a little more thought into our lists and, the longer the list, the less likely we are to have all of our wishes granted. 

Prayer is not like your Christmas list in that regard. Prayer has a 100% success rate. No, that doesn’t mean you’ll always get everything you ask for, but it does mean that every prayer you’ve ever offered up to God has been answered. And, it’s been answered in one of two ways: God either gave you what you asked for, or he answered it with something better in mind. In which one of those ways did the Lord answer Abraham’s prayer in Genesis 18? And how can we apply this account to ourselves so that our own lives reflect more focused prayer?

Abraham had just finished up sparing no expense in hosting three strangers in his home. Actually, as it turned out, they weren’t really strangers. Rather, his three visitors were the Lord God himself and two accompanying angels! That impromptu dinner party culminated in the Lord’s promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would finally welcome their promised child within the year.  

Following that revelation, the guests were about to leave and be on their way. But before they did, the Lord made known what he was about to do. He explained that he had heard the lamenting over the degree of depravity that had become quite well-known in Sodom and Gomorrah. His intent was to pay a personal visit to see if it was truly as bad as it was made out to be.

You might understandably be wondering why God would need to pay a personal visit to confirm what he had heard. Is the Lord not omniscient? Doesn’t he know all things? Why a seemingly unnecessary trip to experience firsthand what he surely already knew?

To arrive at the answer to that question, let’s ask another. Why does the Lord bother to share his itinerary and plans with Abraham? Why does he not just leave to conduct his divine business elsewhere? He surely doesn’t need Abraham’s approval or permission. God’s plans for Sodom and Gomorrah didn’t require Abraham’s input or insights.

In his mercy, he was leaving the door open for Abraham to intervene. Yes, the Lord was well-aware of Sodom and Gomorrah’s reputation; but the Lord also had covenant plans to carry out through his servant, Abraham. This was a growth opportunity for him.

The Lord had reiterated his plans for Abraham in the preceding verses. “Then the Lord said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him’” (vs. 17-19). God didn’t need anything at all from Abraham. Purely by his grace he had chosen Abraham as the family line through which the Savior would come. On this occasion then, we see God giving Abraham the opportunity to do “what is right and just,” acting in a way that reflected well on his gracious God.

And Abraham revealed the kind of heart that God desires all of us to have: one that is filled with mercy and compassion for others. Upon hearing of God’s plans for Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham seized the opportunity to plead on their behalf. “Then Abraham approached [the Lord] and said: ‘Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?’” (v.23-24).

Depending on your level of familiarity with the Bible, you may know that something else was certainly on Abraham’s heart at this point: he had family living in Sodom. Abraham’s nephew, Lot, had chosen to live there, so Lot and his family were surely a part of Abraham’s concern. Nevertheless, note that Abraham’s request was not limited to the rescue of his own flesh and blood, but rather that God would also spare the whole city on their behalf. 

Do you think Abraham’s request would stand out just a bit in our cancel culture society today? For that matter, do you think Abraham’s request would stand out even in our own midst or that of any Christian congregation today? Are we as quick as he was to ask for mercy on behalf of “people like Sodom and Gomorrah?” Are we as interested in seeing God show patience and grace to the people of the world today who would undoubtedly rival Sodom’s wickedness?

Or are we more like Jonah than Abraham? Would we be responding to God’s stated plan to destroy Sodom with our highest approval rating, rallying behind him to “see those sinners get what they deserve?” After all, mercy and grace aren’t for people like that; it’s reserved for the good folks sitting in the pews on Sunday morning, right?

Already that says quite a bit about our prayer lives, doesn’t it? When is the last time you prayed for God to show mercy to the wicked and change their hearts? When is the last time you prayed for the conversion of an unbelieving acquaintance of yours by name, especially the ones who brazenly live godless lives? When is the last time that your prayers didn’t revolve at all around you?

These questions lead us all to the same conclusion: there is room for us to grow in our prayer lives. That is probably the first step in becoming more focused in prayer – acknowledging that we often aren’t. And we ought to then go a step further and also acknowledge that God really doesn’t need to waste another second of eternity bending his ear to hear anything that we ask of him or say to him.

But God is merciful. Jesus’ perfect prayer life satisfied the Father. Our often pitiful prayer lives have been forgiven at the cross, along with our reluctance or flat-out refusal to make growing in our faith our greatest priority. God has taken the worst of us and nailed it to the cross, removing it from us and paying for it through his own Son’s sacrifice. That means there is never a bad signal between believers and God.

We have all experienced the phone conversation with a bad signal – where the person on one end or the other has a spotty signal. A few words cut out here and there. The person on one end informs the person on the other that they’re cutting out. So they attempt to get to where a better signal is. But it doesn’t get better and patience wears thin. Finally, either the call is dropped or the decision is made to hang up and try later when the signal is better.

Jesus’ work on our behalf ensures that prayer to God will never be like that. We won’t cut out or get cut off. He won’t have trouble hearing what we’re saying on his end. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit promises to clear up whatever is muddled on our end so that by the time it reaches the Father’s ears, our prayers and requests are perfectly pleasing to him (cf. Romans 8:26-27).

Do you get what that means? It means God isn’t waiting for you to step up your prayer life in order for your relationship status with him to improve; in Christ, he’s already done all that is necessary to put you on the best terms possible with him. Your status before God has been established by Jesus’ perfection, not your prayers; by his sacrifice, not your supplications.

So let our prayer lives reflect that. Let our prayers reflect a renewed focus. Let them imitate the qualities that Abraham demonstrated in his dialogue with the Lord: Persist, Repent, Ask, and Yield (PRAY).

Persist

Too often our prayer life resembles the Hail Mary. We throw up a prayer at the last minute and hope a miracle results. Hail Mary’s work… occasionally. But the more passes a quarterback throws, the more chances there are for receptions. The more persistently you ask of God, the more opportunities you give him to answer. Abraham peppered the Lord with one request after another as he adjusted his prayer. Don’t hesitate to do the same. After all, He won’t answer the prayer you haven’t asked. Think of the infinite means God has at his disposal to grant your every request. As James writes, you don’t have because you don’t ask (James 4:2). Infrequent prayers mean infrequent requests. Be boldly persistent – which also means to keep praying for the same thing until there is a result, or PUSH (Pray Until Something Happens).

Repent

Do not confuse a bold persistence with arrogance, however. Abraham remained humble. He displayed a repentant heart even as he persisted in his request of the Lord, confessing, “though I am nothing but dust and ashes” (v.27). Abraham knew full well who the Lord was – that he was able to destroy not only Sodom and Gomorrah but any unholy human in his presence! And that was what he was. His tone and attitude in the midst of his prayer reflected the self-awareness of his own unworthiness. Our prayers should reflect the same repentant spirits.

Ask

This one seems unnecessary – of course we ask! It’s a prayer, after all, right? But bear with me. Sometimes in our prayers, we end up rambling without really saying much, not even focusing on what exactly we’re asking God to do. We jump right into the prayer and haven’t given enough thought to what we’re asking of God. But it’s a no-brainer, you reason. The person is sick, so we ask God to make them well.

But is that it? Is that the only ask we’d have of God in that situation? Can you think of anything else to ask for when a person is sick? Here are a few suggestions: ask for God to be glorified through the sickness. Ask for God to provide strength and perseverance to the sick person. Ask God to stretch the faith of the sick person. Ask for God to use the sickness to impact others. Ask God to work in your own heart the willing faith to accept the outcome of the sickness. Yes, ask – but think through exactly what you’re asking the Lord to do in prayer.

Yield

Be all of these things in prayer, and then yield to however the Lord chooses to answer your prayer. That shows that you trust that his answer is the best possible one. God may not answer your prayer the way that you asked him to, because just maaaaaaybe he had a little more insider information than you did.

So did God answer Abraham’s prayer? Abraham asked God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah for the sake of ten people. God agreed. But… God didn’t. Why? Because God couldn’t! He couldn’t find ten believers in the whole city! So he destroyed it. He allowed his response to make it very clear that he does not tolerate sin and that it must be punished (which is exactly what he did for us in punishing Jesus!).

But he also showed mercy and grace, rescuing Lot and his family from the destruction. So he answered Abraham’s prayer in a way that was even better than what Abraham had asked. To have relented against Sodom and Gomorrah could have given the impression that God is actually quite OK with sin, quite tolerant of it, and that it’s not really a big deal to him, as so many in the world today presume. But to destroy all of it would be to miss the opportunity to show that he is also a God of deliverance, of rescue and redemption. Even in the midst of destruction, God desires to deliver. 

It’s OK if you don’t have your Christmas list done yet. In fact, you’re better off giving more attention to your prayer life instead. It will make a much bigger difference. Focused prayer will bless others, grow you, and glorify God.

Focused Finances

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(Luke 12:13-21)

Consider the source. That phrase can mean a lot of things. We might apply it to some juicy gossip being passed along by someone with a questionable reputation. In such a case we either avoid him or at least don’t put much stock in his words. Consider the source. Another person provides guidance or direction on a matter in which they have zero expertise. We don’t weigh their advice heavily. Consider the source. A threat is made by someone with little to no ability to actually carry it out. We brush it off. Consider the source. 

This morning we hear Jesus warn us, “Watch out! Be on your guard…” (v.15). Do you consider the source? Does this warning hit you differently than the “Caution: wet floor” sign on a newly-mopped surface? It should, shouldn’t it?

After all, it is Jesus warning us, the same Jesus who just before this had warned the crowds, “Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has the power to those you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him” (12:5). Yikes! The hypocrisy of the Pharisees revealed their greater concern for how they appeared to others on the outside than how their hearts actually appeared before God – the only One with the power to condemn any soul to hell. That’s the Jesus who responded to the man in Luke 12’s request with the warning to watch out. 

Notice that Jesus didn’t chastise the man in the crowd for his request. He didn’t call it wrong for him to discuss the matter of dividing the inheritance with his brother. In such matters it was the normal practice for a rabbi to help carry out the division of property so that the older son received the double portion of the inheritance. So whether this brother was the older or younger, it didn’t matter – it wasn’t a sin for him to be concerned about his financial situation, so Jesus didn’t call it sin.  

But I wonder if it would have been easier if he had. If Jesus had clearly stated in no uncertain terms that it was sin, it was wrong to be concerned about such things, it might have been easier. If Jesus had laid it out in black and white then it would have been so easy for him – and us – to know when we’ve crossed the line between right and wrong. Laws serve that purpose. Clear rules make it known to everyone when they are being followed and when they are being broken. 

And wouldn’t the managing of God’s gifts to us be so much easier if Jesus had done that for us? He calls us to manage his blessings faithfully. How much easier that would be if only a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” accompanied the call to be faithful so we could gauge whether or not we are! He calls us to give generously. How much easier if we just had a formula where we plugged in income and expenses and it spit out our own personal number representing God’s definition of “generous” giving! He calls us to meet the needs of others. How much easier if we had a simple quote laid out for us that we had to meet each week or month!

All of that would be easier. Instead, Jesus doesn’t even call it wrong – but he did seize the opportunity to give a warning. “Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions’” (Luke 12:15). Consider the source and take very seriously Jesus’ urging to be careful. Watch out – greed is tricky, Jesus says.

He doesn’t say it’s a sin to be rich or to build wealth. He does say that greed is something to be on guard against, because it can so easily lead one to believe the lie that the best things in life are things in life. Stuff. Belongings. Clothes. Possessions. Technology. Memorabilia. Cars. Vacations. Etc. Greed wouldn’t dare go so far as calling those things sin – because they’re not; greed is content in its role of serving as the gateway drug to idolatry – to loving those things more than the gracious God who granted them to manage in the first place. 

If we are going to have a healthy relationship with God’s physical blessings, if we want to be focused financially, then we have to better understand the relationship between greed and idolatry. In fact, they are so closely related that in our Colossians, Paul equates greed with idolatry. When we define idolatry, we think as the explanation to the First Commandment has taught us to – we should fear, love, and trust in God above all things. “Well, I don’t fear, love, or trust in anything more than I do God,” we reason, “so I must not be an idolator.” Wrong. 

Think differently with me for a moment. It’s quite easy for us to claim to fear, love, and trust God above all else, but our hypocrisy is often exposed when something – or someone – in our lives is suddenly taken from us. What loss could you experience that would rattle your soul? What would leave you absolutely devastated tomorrow if no longer in your life? A family heirloom? Your pet? An empty bank or retirement account? Your child(ren)? Your spouse? 

Greed and idolatry are partners in crime, and it’s not always the love of a thing, but the loss of it, that might more effectively expose them in our lives. When we comfortably convince ourselves that loving something too much isn’t an issue for us, it might be the loss of it that reveals a sinful fixation. It might be the loss of it that reflects where our hearts truly are.

Consider how this applies to Jesus’ words elsewhere: “Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:20-21). Jesus said that in order to find out what it is that we treasure, we only need to look where are hearts are. But our hearts deceive us. So how does our heart often come to speak the truth? How does our heart finally fess up and reveal what it truly treasures? When what it loves most is taken away from it. 

I miss church for a Sunday or two. Oh well – my heart can manage. I go days or weeks without reading my Bible. Eh – my heart tends to hold up OK. I make no effort to engage in any Bible study. My heart learns to live with it just fine. 

But a tanking stock market and depleted retirement portfolio? The death of a family member? A word or action that disrespects me or makes me look foolish in front of others? A president or politician who tramples on my Constitution? Now the heart rate has jumped! Now the heart is engaged! Now the emotions follow and the passion is flowing! Because now… my heart has shown its true colors and revealed where its true treasure is.

And it’s not Jesus. It isn’t the God we claimed to fear, love, and trust in above all else. And for that idolatry, we deserve the very hell Jesus warned about. And we deserve to spend eternity not with the God who gave us everything we’ve ever owned or experienced, but with those empty and vain things to which our hearts attach themselves.

Dismiss greed then. Disregard Jesus’ warning. Take lightly his urging to be on guard against all kinds of greed. And you will regret it for eternity. 

Or, like the man in the parable, be sure to focus on how to hoard and protect as much as you can during this lifetime, while leaving God out of the picture – with the exception of the occasional Sunday morning appearance of course! For that is surely what he is interested in! That is surely what will tide him over! Never mind the fate of the rich man who was not rich toward God. For him it was too late. Do not let it be too late for you! Do not let your possessions possess you! Do not let the this life be a stumbling block that forfeits your eternal life. 

Instead, let this life be an opportunity for you to be rich toward God. And that doesn’t come naturally. It springs from an awareness of how rich God has been toward us. 

Do you know when we often see this most clearly, when we truly grasp how rich God has been toward us? It’s when he brings into focus for us what truly matters, and that often happens in the thick of heartache and hardship.

I had been home three full days from vacation, and in that time have had three different opportunities to be reminded of this bittersweet truth. A young couple whose only son, not even a year old, was taken home to heaven. A man unexpectedly and rather suddenly hit with a cancer diagnosis. Another cancer fighter found out it is no longer contained, but has spread to other parts of his body. 

As devastating as these things are, and as heavily as they weigh on our hearts, they have a way of clearing out the clutter in life and focusing our attention on what matters. What matters is how richly God has treated us in lavishing us with his love, even when our own love is extended so freely to the world and its trappings. Paul wrote it beautifully in his letter to the Christians in the church in Ephesus: “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace” (1:7). God’s grace is so rich because it has no limits. It doesn’t run out. There is no end. It is an account that will never be depleted, an abundance out of which he has an endless supply of forgiveness, which he lavishes on us.

For him to treat us so richly naturally begs us to respond in kind. With all that we have. With all that he has given us. With a focus that sees every physical blessing and every gift that he has given us as a means to an end – his end and his purposes. To love him first and best is the only way to have a healthy relationship with the stuff of this world. It allows us to see the stuff of this world as resources to help focus our attention – and the attention of others – not on this world, but on the world to come, the heaven that has been won for us already. 

We want others to consider the source. We want others to know how richly God’s grace abounds and extends to everyone in the world. We want others to look beyond the gifts to the source of those gifts, the Giver himself, who has so much more to offer than the fleeting stuff of this world. Let us focus on how we manage his blessings to us in a way that shows he has freed us from being possessed by our possessions and freed us for a focused life of managing what he gives us for his kingdom purposes.

Focused Friendship

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(Ruth 1:1-19)

It’s catching up to me. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to put it off. I’m squinting more than I used to and, while I wish I could say it’s because of the bright sun, it’s not. No, it’s because things further away have somehow managed to get blurrier in recent years. So squinting is an attempt to sharpen my focus in order to see things more clearly. It’s frustrating when things are blurry. When things are blurry they’re out of focus.

When the blurred vision is gradual, it’s often so subtle that a person isn’t aware of how out of focus things have become. We get used to what is blurry. You’ve experienced this if you’ve thought your eyesight was just fine, only to try on someone else’s glasses and find they allowed you to see things much more clearly. You might remember thinking that you don’t need one of those fancy new 4K Ultra super high definition televisions you see walking into the electronics store because the picture on your current television is just fine. But if you saw the two screens right next to each other, you would realize how much you’ve gotten used to a lower-quality picture.

While we could probably get by faking it through a lot of areas in life not realizing how blurry things are, doing so spiritually could have devastating results. So we want to bring our spiritual lives into focus over the next several weeks. 

We start by looking at friendship. Much has been made of the rampant loneliness affecting people today, which is rather surprising given that social media and online activity have allowed us to connect to more people than ever before. Nevertheless, we’re isolated. We’re alone. We don’t have as many friends as we used to. 

Yet, we all value friendship. We all crave it. When we think of meaningful friendships, we do so in terms of how other people treat us. We assess our friends on the basis of how reliable they are, how quickly they respond, how interested in us they are, how much they share with us, etc.

Do you notice this? Our valuation of friendships is almost entirely based on what others do or don’t do for us (as opposed to a focus on what we do or don’t do for others). Doesn’t this betray how innately self-centered we are? It’s like we view our friendships as if we’re in the HR department and constantly either conducting interviews to hire new friends or doing performance reviews on our current friends to see if they still measure up. Our view of friendship is naturally out of focus. It’s blurry – at least when we compare our view of friendship with God’s view of it and his desire for it.

As we look at Ruth, we start to see things more clearly. We start to see what focused friendship looks like; friendship that seeks first to be friendly rather than to be friended. Why does it matter? Is our goal simply to be more like Ruth as we pursue focused friendship? No, but as we do, our own relationships will blossom and God’s kingdom will bloom. 

Stick with that picture for a moment. You don’t have to be a green thumb or a garden guy or gal to appreciate flowers. Even if you don’t fancy yourself the flower type, we can all agree that plants, trees, and flowers that are healthy and blooming with bright colors and fascinating structure and growth liven up a yard or a room in a way that neglected or dying plants cannot. Think about it – have you ever given someone flowers or a plant only to see a downcast expression on their face as a result? Never! Such things cheer and uplift! In the same way, so does focused friendship. So let us pursue focused friendship with the confidence that our own relationships will blossom and God’s kingdom will bloom.

One introductory detail serves to make Ruth’s story stand out: “In the days when the judges ruled…” (v.1). Yes, Ruth’s dedication, her focused friendship which we see in this account, is inspiring in its own right. However, what makes her story pop even more is the backdrop against which it is set.

The “days when the judges ruled” were not Israel’s finest! In fact, the main theme that runs through the time of the judges is Israel’s self-centered rebellious disregard of friendship with the Lord! They repeatedly pursued friendship with the heathen nations around them – which might have been noble on their part if the intent was to turn them to the true God – but it wasn’t! Their pursuit of friendship with the world was based on worldly, godless attraction, the very kind God demanded they avoid as he prepared them for the promised land. 

And to shine an even brighter light on Ruth, notice that she wasn’t even an Israelite; she was a Moabite! A quick little refresher on the Moabites: their beginning was “ewwww.” After fleeing from Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot allowed his daughters to get him drunk and then they each slept with him. The oldest daughter’s son was named Moab, from where the Moabites came (Genesis 19:30ff). And if you remember the account of the talking donkey and the king who tried to enlist the help of a prophet to call down curses on Israel – that King Balak was king of Moab (Numbers 22-24). So not only was Ruth not a Jew, but as a Moabite, her family history was less than favorable!

It’s hard not to see the parallels with the Gospel account of the Good Samaritan. The good samaritan was the last individual anyone listening to Jesus would have expected to be the good one! Surely the priest or the levite should have been good! But neither was. Instead it was the Samaritan, degraded inferiors as far as the Jewish people were concerned. God truly goes to great lengths to see that his lessons hit the mark! He allows those who would be considered the least to take the lead in exemplifying who and what we are to be.

Now let us look to Ruth’s example of focused friendship. It starts with Naomi. Ruth’s mother-in-law, Naomi, had lost her husband over a decade ago. Naomi’s two sons had married Moabite women, Orpah and Ruth. Then Naomi’s sons both died, leaving Naomi without any male at all in her house, which at that time would have had a devastating impact on how Naomi would be able to get by. With Naomi’s blessing, Orpah left Naomi and returned to her people to make a fresh start re-establish her life. While we don’t take issue with Orpah’s decision to do so, her actions end up showcasing the selflessness of Ruth even more. 

Rather than follow suit and make a new beginning for herself as her mother-in-law encouraged her to, Ruth makes a remarkable decision. She opts to put her mother-in-law’s needs – and really her life – ahead of her own. Ruth was such a devoted daughter-in-law that she could only think of Naomi’s needs. That prompted her heart-felt commitment to Naomi: “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me” (v.16-17).    

Through Ruth, God provided for Naomi’s physical needs, but through Ruth’s greater Son, God provided for the spiritual needs of all people. Through Jesus, God provided for eternity. And no, Jesus was not merely another fine example, as Ruth and the Good Samaritan were; he was much more. His focused friendship toward fallen mankind was prompted by agape love, and unconditional love that was determined to do not what was in his own best interest, but what was absolutely necessary for the salvation of souls. His focused friendship meant a willingness to allow his Father forget and abandon him so he could forgive and absolve us. He put our needs before his own. Though again and again Satan tried to entice Jesus with some self-care, that surely just a little bit here and there he could put himself first, Jesus refused. He cared too much about us to put himself first. What focus! What devotion! What love! What friendship!

Do you have any friendships like that? Yes. You have Jesus. But do you treat your relationship with him as you do a dear friend? Do you put him first? Are you eager to spend time with him and hear from his Word what is on his heart and mind? Or… do you treat his friendship like we do so many others, giving attention to them only on the basis of “what have you done for me lately?” The answer for all of us is the same – too often, in too many ways, we don’t treat Jesus like a very good friend in our relationship with him. We don’t even deserve his friendship as a result.

Despite that though, he treats each and every one of us as if we’re his absolute best friend. And he always will. His friendship with us is grace-driven; it’s not based on how we treat him. May I ask a silly question? Do you enjoy knowing that your relationship with Jesus is grace-driven? Does that feel good?

What if someone else was able to first experience that good feeling through your friendship with them? What if you were their first experience with a grace-filled friendship – a friendship not because of what they gave you first or in return, but simply because you cared about them and chose to befriend them no matter what?

Focused friendship sees other people the way Jesus sees us. When our existing relationships are grace-driven and when we look to establish new grace-driven friendships, it’s as if we’re giving out free samples of what a grace-driven friendship with Jesus is like.

Has a free sample ever worked for you? Did you ever decide on that flavor of ice cream because you got to sample it first? Of course! Do you think others might be drawn more to Jesus if they experience more grace-driven friendship from Jesus’ followers, instead of only believing our culture’s negative narrative about Christians and Christianity? If you agree about any of this, then join me in being more focused in friendship – existing friendships and establishing new friendships, with the understanding that our grace-driven friendship with others could very likely make an eternal difference. He may very well be waiting to use your grace-driven friendship with them to ultimately bring others into an eternal grace-driven friendship with him.