This Epiphany, we’re asking you to consider the people around you that are disconnected from God and/or the Church. We’re asking you to think about them and asking the question: is this person unreceptive, curious, or seeking?
Today we’re going to talk about the people in our lives who are unreceptive to the Gospel. Being unreceptive means that they are simply not interested in Christianity at this time. They could be on a spectrum from hostile to Christians to being more ambivalent about us. Whichever side they are on, they’re not that interested. This could also include people that were once a part of a church, but have renounced their connection to Christianity. This person also may be a part of another, non-Christian faith.
When we pray for these people, we obviously want to pray that their hearts would be softened to hearing the Gospel. Many of the people in this category have some very negative perceptions of Christians and/or Christianity, and so we also need to pray that God would lead them to “bump into” positive Christian witnesses in their lives. Remember, for most of the unreceptive, a “likeable Christian” is a rare thing in their perspective.
As we pray for this person, we also pray for ourselves and our own intentional actions. God works through His Church, through believers like us. Specifically with people that are unreceptive, we as Christians need to show that we can earn being listened to. I know, it’s a punch to the gut to think that someone many not trust your judgment because you identify as a Christian, but for many of the unreceptive – this is a very real thing.
With the unreceptive, it is especially important for us to remember John 3:16 — no, not so that we can quote this verse to them ad nauseum, but so that we ourselves remember what it says: “For God so loved the WORLD that He sent His only Son….” God doesn’t just love Christians. He loves everyone of His beautiful human creatures.
Most of all, we need to pray for our own change in behavior towards the unreceptive. We need to pray that we would be witnesses to a winsome, joy-filled, and compassionate Christianity. We need to pray that we would go out of our way to cultivate the relationships with have with the unreceptive. Before they will ever hear us, we need to gain a hearing – we need to earn their respect. We also need to do this not in a false way (that will become transparent, trust me) but in a way that really loves them for the human being that they are.
This is also where you need to believe the Gospel yourself. A part of the Gospel is that you are finite. You can only do so much. The Gospel is that God knows that you are finite. God is not asking you to befriend every unreceptive person in the world, just the few around you that you could actually engage with. We’re not saving people – Jesus is, He is just using us as His Body (the Church) to do it.
So with that, go out this week and say something nice to someone you know is unreceptive. Compliment them. Bless them in some way. Be a nice human being to them. Love the unreceptive until they start to get curious – the next category that we’ll talk about next time.