GREG LAURIE - Tuesday, January 28, 2020

The Heart of an Intercessor

“While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city.”

—Acts 17:16

Have you ever experienced righteous indignation? The Bible tells us that when the apostle Paul went to Athens,

“he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city” (Acts 17:16 NLT).

In the same way, we can have righteous indignation when we look at our culture today. We can say, “I’m sick and tired of the devil ripping people off and ruining their lives. We’ve got to do something about it.”

So what are we going to do? We’ve got to get out there with the message of the gospel, because only the gospel can change the course of a life.

The Lord wants us to care about people who don’t know Him. But all too often we don’t like to share our faith. We clam up. It’s an unchallenged fact of the universe that in general, we don’t like to share.

Think back to your earliest days and how your parents or other adults in your life told you to share. You could go from happiness to misery in an instant. Do we ever outgrow this?

Sharing isn’t in our nature. But God wants to change our hearts so we have the heart of an intercessor. Let’s stop looking at nonbelievers as the enemy and realize they’re under the power of the enemy, the devil.

Paul described this in 2 Timothy, when he wrote,

“That they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will” (2:25–26 NKJV).

We could talk all day about how to start a conversation about Jesus. But that won’t matter if we don’t have a concern and a burden for people who are not believers.