Re: When did we stop believing God for souls and started believing Him for stuff?

Originally Posted by
Dani H
But sir ... it's in Scripture already that God desires ALL men to be saved. I think we can live under the assumption that this is true and real and use it as our basis for operation. What are we waiting for? Angels alighting in our living room and extending us an extra special invitation to go share the Gospel with people?
However ... I really do think many just don't flat-out believe those Scriptures. Maybe they don't like the "obligation" they think this places them under, maybe they don't like the "failure" of witnessing for Christ and hearing crickets chirp (which, granted, can be rather disheartening).
But if there is failure ... that's between God and the other person. Long as we are faithful to what we are to do ... God don't hold us accountable for what other people decide with their invitation to come to Christ. We extend party invitations and entertainment invitations and all sorts of things. We know how to invite people. Why not keep an open invitation to come to Christ for everyone we interact with, and seek opportunities to extend it? If the RSVP is "no" or "maybe" ... not our problem. Coming to Christ is a freewill offering. Always has been. So why do we think us inviting someone to come isn't freewill but obligatory?
This may come as a shocker to you ... but we don't have to do anything Jesus says. We choose to. Certainly love compels us, and I've never met a person with love for the Lord, who didn't keep His commandments or at least strive very hard to. Because love transforms and changes us. But at the end of the day, it's all still voluntary. Or love isn't love.
IF we want to see the Kingdom of God and be in it ... we MUST be born again. But ... if we don't want to ... we don't want to. Some people just don't want to. And, we have to learn to accept that, and not take it as personal failure. Because the Bible also already tells us that the world is at enmity with God, and so hostility and rejection ... should be expected. We only harvest ripe fields. You leave the others alone. Right? Cause to try and harvest them would be silly. They're not ripe yet and so God can't get anything useful from them anyway.
If you extend the invitation and you encounter hostility and rejection right out of the gate ... then move on. Like Paul moved on from the Jews to the Gentiles. 'salright. I'm pretty darn glad he did. 
It's a marvelous thing to believe God for a soul. Just one. When you realize how precious someone is and how much one person means to God. So maybe stop believing for that bigger house or that next better job and start tossing your faith into the ring to contend for the real treasures: People.
And by "you" in this context I mean "whoever feels spoken to". 
Well, I think I misunderstood your original post then. By "believing God for a soul" I take that to mean believing God for someone specifically to be saved and trusting Him that person will be saved.
What you are talking about is believing that God desires to save someone. That is different than what I imagined at first.
For instance, God woke my pastor one day and told him "I want to save 100 souls today. Start praying for them now." He got all excited about people getting saved in church that day. Well, some did but nowhere close to 100. So he was discouraged and eating lunch, his wife asked what was wrong. He told her. He wasn't sure what had happened. Then, he got a phone call from a friend. That friend had went to teach the bible that morning to some boy scouts. He was so excited about what had happened. He told my pastor he just had to call someone and let them know. He saw 100 boy scouts get saved that day! That's what I thought you meant about believing God for souls.
I've had God put people on my heart and interceded for them until they got saved. That's what I thought you meant as well.
Hearing God is important in those situations! But you are talking about believing scripture and going into the harvest as Jesus requested. I didn't know that had ever changed in our churches today.
Matt 9:13
13 "But go and learn what this means: ' I DESIRE COMPASSION,AND NOT SACRIFICE,' for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
NASU
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