Eternal
Father, you gave to your incarnate Son the holy name of Jesus to be the
sign of our salvation: Plant in every heart, we pray, the love of him
who is the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting.
Amen.
Notice that we are praying for God
to plant within the hearts of everyone love for the name of Jesus. We
are asking God to do the planting, which means that we acknowledge that
God is the one who has the power to plant seeds of love and change
within the heart of His creation. This is good news for Evangelism! Good
news because our job is not to plant, but to nurture growth and then to
harvest. Very often when we think of Evangelism we think that it is up
to us to change the hearts of people and to persuade them to become
Christians. We feel powerless to effect such change and then we feel
guilty. Once the guilt sets in, it paralyzes us and we do nothing. And
we miss where the true power lies: in the Name of Jesus.
In
the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Jesus tells his disciples that the
harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few and says that we should
pray for God to send workers into the harvest. Our job, as those who
believe in the Name of Jesus, is to be ready and prepared to work the
harvest. First Peter 3:15 tells us that we must always be prepared to
give an account for the hope that is within us. Such preparation is
actually a tool of the harvest. We must practice articulating why we
believe that the Name of Jesus is the most powerful name on the Earth.
If we don't engage in such preparation, we are like harvesters that go
into the field without hoes or other tools of the harvest. We go into
the field not expecting to bring in fruit.
How can
we engage in preparation to make us ready to harvest that which God has
planted in human hearts? We can engage in a disciplined life of prayer
and Bible study. We can deliberately execute acts of kindness and
justice. We can attend to our church community life faithfully. All of
this prepares us to be harvesters of the fruits of the Name of Jesus.
Sounds like some good New Year's resolutions doesn't it?
- Read the Bible every day.
- Start every morning with prayer - pray for others, pray for yourself, pray for the church, pray for the world. Set an alarm on your phone and pause a few times a day to pray.
- Do something every day for someone else as an act of kindness or charity (preferably anonymously)
- Resolve to attend Church weekly.
- Trust that God is planting Himself in everyone you meet and act accordingly.
As
your Bishop-elect, I ask on New Year's Day - the Feast of the Holy Name
of Jesus -- to join with me in committing to do these things in 2020;
and let's see what God plants and what kind of harvest we gather in the
Diocese of Southern Virginia in 2020.
Blessings and Peace in Christ,
Susan+
