Devotion 7.31.23

Habakkuk 2

"2 Then the Lord replied:

“Write down the revelation

    and make it plain on tablets

    so that a herald may run with it.

3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;

    it speaks of the end

    and will not prove false.

Though it linger, wait for it;

    it will certainly come

    and will not delay."

Matt Peeples is a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod pastor located in St. Louis, MO. He is over what is called the Oikos Project and helps develop online materials for evangelist training and other ministries. He has a phrase he has used that is very true: "Mission happens at the speed of relationship."

That phrase is so well liked that the Lutheran Hour's speaker, Rev. Dr. Michael Ziegler, used it as the central theme for yesterday's message based on Habakkuk 2:3.

We are not a patient society. We want answers to come at the speed of our digital world we have created. We want solutions to our problems yesterday. Ziegler points out the length of time it took to rid some countries of the disease known as cholera, which can still have a grip on some areas of this world. The disease devastated Bangladesh, Ziegler notes, until people slowly developed trust in the medical professionals over a period of years. Those medical professionals intentionally fanned out person by person, day by day, to establish a relationship with them until they would believe in the cure.

As Matt points out, evangelism used to be a knock on a door inviting a stranger to visit your church, and maybe even worse, the popular method in the 1960s and 1970s would be to go door to door and ask, "If you were to die today, would you go to heaven or to hell?" But we learn from scripture that evangelism and mission outreach happens "at the speed of relationship."

God's revelation, Jesus Christ, came a really long time after the fall of man in the garden, and wasn't just around the corner when Habakkuk spoke on behalf of God as a prophet. God was building and refining His people from whom a savior would come, and He does that today with us. He brings us to faith and refines us for His purpose (Ephesians 2:8-10). As Matt notes, people aren't likely to respond to a stranger who comes to them unannounced, but rather someone who cares to get to know you, speak to you, learn about you and develop a relationship with you based on love (your neighbor as yourself) and care.

As we get to know our neighbors, pray we share with them that Good News as we develop those relationships. Ask God to give us words to use to share and to speak to them boldly and with confidence as we get to know them and walk with them. Mission outreach is not just the role of the pastor. It is each of ours to nurture and develop in our daily walk. Pray we fulfill the Great Commission Christ set before us.