Wednesday Afternoon Week 4

Text: Luke 19:41, Nehemiah 1.

This week we discussed Jesus' hurt for Jerusalem. Following his triumphant entry, he went out of the city, and looking over it, he began to weep. He saw His people hurting and oblivious to the saving hope that He was providing them.

In the Nehemiah text we hear the account of what has happened to Jerusalem. Nehemiah's reaction is to simply pray and weep for days on end.

80% of people in San Diego do not have a church home, and it is our job to pray for them. While some of us have never thought about this as a problem, some of us were unaware it was such a big problem, others of us have experienced this problem first hand.

If we take a page from Christ, and from the prophet Nehemiah, our first step is to have our hearts broken by the fact that many people in this city do not have the hope that comes from a crucified and risen Christ.

When we realize that of the 2.4 million people that reside in San Diego county, 1.9 of them are not associated with a church, we have no choice but to be broken. But the question then becomes, "What can I do?"

The answer that Scripture gives s is prayer. We are called to pray for entire cities, specific streets, and even individuals.

If we saw a stranger, let alone a close friend, walking down a train track with a train approaching, what would we do? I would hope scream, yell, jump up and down, and even run toward them to chase them off the track before destruction set in. Yet, when we see family and friends on the Spiritual track to destruction, we simply avoid the situation, afraid to even share the simple message of what Jesus has done for us.

Prayer is our first step to transforming our city.