Praying for Others to be the same as I am

 I hope we all have the desire for other people to be truly joyful and fulfilled. I would also hope that we would do whatever we could to see that happen. I know we have a lot of things going in our own lives, but we should not be self-absorbed. We should be loving others the way Jesus loves us. That involves praying for them and giving of our time and efforts to bring them to where they ought to be in life. Hopefully, we can model for them what that kind of life looks like, too.

Paul was in prison in Caesarea because of the charges the Jewish leader brought against him. However, the governor, Festus, could not determine that Paul had really committed any crime. So he asked King Agrippa to examine him and give his take on it. After Paul's defense, he asked Agrippa if he believed what the prophets said about Jesus. He was not ready to say yes. (Acts 26:29) Paul replied, "Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that both you and everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am, except for these chains." Could you have been able to say the same thing?

Are you confident in your salvation, so that you could say that you want others to be the same as you? God wants us all to have the full assurance of our salvation. He wants us to know that our sins have been forgiven and we are adopted into His family. He wants us to be so confident in that fact not because of what we have done, but because of what Jesus did by dying and rising again for our sins. Then, when we put our faith in Him alone for our salvation, we could see the change He made in our life. If we have that, we should pray for others to be the same as we are.

However, there are some Christians who are not having the abundant life that Jesus desires for us to have. They are stressed and have no peace in the hearts. The don't really have the love of Christ for other people because they are not letting the Spirit empower them. They do not have joy, because they are focused on the wrong things in life, instead of the Lord. We should not want others to be like that. We should abide in the Lord continually, so that we have the peace that passes understanding, the love of the Lord, and the joy of the Lord all of the time. Then, we can really pray for others to be the same as we are.

Tomorrow, I intend to read Acts 27-28 and Romans 1-3.