James

"My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God's truth, don't write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction and prevented an epidemic of wandering away from God."

James 5:19-20(The Message)

Last month the house church that meets in our house began a study in James. We have specific verses to read each week with specific homework and then we all come together each Sunday and share what God shared with us.

Since James is such a short book I decided to read it all before doing the first week's homework. I arrived at the end of the book and was really hit by the verses above. God immediately put 3 people on my heart who have, for various reasons, fallen away from our church family over the last 1-2 years.

I shared these verses and these people with Benay and then with the accountability group on Wednesday morning. I (we) began praying for these people. I confess that it's easy for me to focus on new people and to always be looking for ways to introduce people to the body of Christ, but I don't spend enough time praying for those who have accepted Christ as Lord and, for whatever reason, have fallen away. I felt like God was trying to remind me of the importance of doing this.

The very next Monday I got a text on my phone from one of the three people. I literally had seen her once or twice over the last year. The text floored me. I guess it shows my shallow prayer life to not believe that God could act so quickly to our prayers. She and her son (keep praying Sascha and Jennifer) came to our house the following Sunday. Everyone loved on them. It was a blessing to have them in our house again. She then came back the next week.

I called the second person on my list. He didn't answer and so I left a message on his voice mail. I told him of our study and of the verses that God used to put his name on my heart. I told him his Christian family missed him and we wanted them back. I heard nothing for almost a week. He then called me to wish me a happy birthday. I thanked him and took the opportunity to ask him if I had hurt him in some way to make him not want to come around anymore. He said no one did anything like that but he just allowed some other things to take him away from his family. He wanted to know if he could come to my house right then. He did and we had a great talk in our backyard for about 30 minutes. He says he is ready to come back but did not want to come to the end of the month celebration because he wasn't ready to answer questions about where he had been. He wanted to wait until we had house church in our house. I reminded him that his church family loved him, that we weren't the police and that we were ready to welcome him (without one question if needed) back just like the father welcomed the prodigal son home. I told him of his sister who returned just 10 days earlier and how everyone loved on her. He told me that he plans on being in our house with his wife and two sons this coming Sunday.

I shared these things with our teammate Matt and how I was amazed at how fast God was working. He said, "Well now it's time for the third person on the list."

I agree. Just yesterday I received an email from this third person regarding something totally un-church related. I feel God is wanting to use this as an opportunity to remind him of the love that the family of Christ has for him.

Please pray for these three people. That the first two will stay strong, not allow Satan to regain ground and will continue being a part of what God is doing here and that the third will feel a desire to reconnect with God's family.....his family.