DEVOTION FOR MONDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH, 2017
AN EVANGELIST’S HEART: HUMILITY
“Secure your own oxygen mask before assisting other passengers.” These instructions are familiar to anyone who has traveled on a commercial airplane in recent years. In order to be useful to other people, travelers should first make sure they have what they need to breathe.
In order to effectively evangelize the lost and dying people around us, we should first turn our attention to our own spiritual health. For the next few days, we will consider our hearts and the spiritual supply that equips us to help others. In today’s psalm, David cries for forgiveness after committing adultery with Bathsheba and murdering her husband, Uriah (see 2 Samuel 11).
So often we are tempted to minimize the severity of our sin—to play it off as a mistake or reframe it as the inevitable conclusion to a bad day—but David here freely confesses his own wickedness. He looks at it squarely and does not look away (v. 3), and he acknowledges that the chief object of his rebellion was God Himself (v. 4). He affirms God’s right to judge him. David measures the depth and the length of his sin, and then he casts himself on God for full and complete forgiveness.
As immense as David’s sin is, he knows that God’s mercy is greater still. David calls on a God whose love is “unfailing” (v. 1). Even in the depths of sorrow, David is confident that God can again teach him wisdom, mend his broken spirit, give him renewed joy, and bless him by His Holy Spirit. Like David, we come to the work of evangelism not because we are perfect but because we know ourselves to be sinners. As evangelists, we must plainly acknowledge our own humble position as people in need of God’s mercy.
APPLY THE WORD
The Harvard Business Review reported that humility is essential for effective leadership: “We tend to connect with people who share their imperfections and foibles—they appear more ‘human,’ more like us.” How is acknowledgment of your own sin essential to effective evangelism? Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart today.
Today in the Word is a production of Moody Global Ministries
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