Floaters To Followers

I was praying the other day for people, not any one specific thing just for those who don't know Jesus and how I could be more effective in sharing the gospel. As I was praying the Lord shared something with me. The Holy Spirit showed me that I pray for people to have a relationship with Jesus so they can have a better life, so they can be freed from things that keep them in bondage. My desire is for them to have joy and know that God loves them and they can be healed from their physical and emotional wounds. The Holy Spirit showed me that I was looking at lost people like they were sick and could get healthy but that's not accurate. People who don't have a relationship with Jesus are dead not sick. They just don't know their dead. He gave me a mental picture of me in a row boat and there were dead bodies floating face down all around me.
My current way of thinking was like throwing life jackets to dead bodies. (Tough stuff to read I know and some of you may stop reading my jewels all together and that's a risk I'm willing to take, I'll still love ya)
The Lord showed me that dead bodies first have to have life breathed into them and then they can experience all the Lord has for them. First they have to see they are dead and then be born again.
We were all born the first time into a world filled with sin. Sin comes with a price and someone has to pay before you can be free from it. The one that paid the price for us is Jesus.
Romans 3:23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Because of this we need to be pulled into the boat and filled with the power of Jesus to give us a new life, to be born again.
Colossians 2:13 When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins.
You don't set up an IV or make an appointment for a counselor for a dead person.
Now you may be asking yourself, how can you be born again? You wouldn't be alone in this. When Jesus walked the earth and talked about it the people asked that very question thinking he was a lunatic.
John 3:4 The Message
"How can anyone," said Nicodemus, "be born who has already been born and grown up? You can't re-enter your mother's womb and be born again. What are you saying with this 'born-from-above' talk?"
John 3:3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.
People then just like today are dead and they don't know it. This put a whole new sense of urgency on me to share the good news. The situation became a lot more urgent. It made me want to resuscitate not just grab a band-aid.
John 5:24-27 (MSG)
"It's urgent that you listen carefully to this: Anyone here who believes what I am saying right now and aligns himself with the Father, who has in fact put me in charge, has at this very moment the real, lasting life and is no longer condemned to be an outsider. This person has taken a giant step from the world of the dead to the world of the living. "It's urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived—I mean right now!—when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive. Just as the Father has life in himself, he has conferred on the Son life in himself. And he has given him the authority, simply because he is the Son of Man, to decide and carry out matters of Judgment.
We have that resurrection power thanks to Jesus. God loved us enough to have a way out of our current death grip. It's God's will that we all be saved!
John 6:39-40 (MSG)
"This, in a nutshell, is that will: that everything handed over to me by the Father be completed—not a single detail missed—and at the wrap-up of time I have everything and everyone put together, upright and whole. This is what my Father wants: that anyone who sees the Son and trusts who he is and what he does and then aligns with him will enter real life, eternal life. My part is to put them on their feet alive and whole at the completion of time."
It may be kind of drastic Gems but we have to start seeing lost people as dead people and point them to the Savior. Once they are given new life they can reap the benefits of that life with Christ living in them. We can turn the tragedy of the Titanic to the joy of The Love Boat :)
1 Peter 1:3-5 (MSG) What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you'll have it all—life healed and whole.
We can help turn sins floaters into Christ followers!