05 Feb Invest and Invite
Invest and Invite. The Antidote to Selfishness!
Life can be self-absorbing: no doubt about it!
Normally, it doesn’t take long before everything in our little world is about us and ours…not so intrinsically bad until it is exclusively about us and ours. Most often, this happens by default. Few of us ever start out to live self-absorbed, self-saturated, selfish lives. It’s just too easy and natural to become immersed with our problems, our issues, our concerns, and our families!
Couple this me-centered world with our frenetic pace of life and without a strategy, life will be reduced to everything about me. As Believers, we know Jesus taught us to love others!
What about the rest of the world outside of my small circle of personal influence?
We stay current with the facts of the world around us via our daily dose of evening news; however, with little personal response to what we see, our insular, self-seeking lifestyle is reinforced.
People do care about others and the world around them—but feel overwhelmed and hopeless in the face of the magnitude of the problems, and don’t know where to start!
An effective 2-step strategy that will help us move us from self-centered to a more other-centered lifestyle is to INVEST and INVITE.
1. INVEST
Invest in the lives of friends and acquaintances that don’t know Jesus yet.
Spend time with them, and ask Jesus for creative ways to develop your relationship. Pray that God will show you how you might be a help for them to get to know Jesus better.
Most of us rub shoulders occasionally with people that we might recognize, acknowledge, or even greet though we might not know their names. Introduce yourself, and begin investing to develop that relationship. In so doing, you will have ample opportunity to demonstrate Jesus’ love and focus on their lives!
2. INVITE
As your relationships develop with your new friends, look for opportunities to invite them to your home for coffee, for a BBQ, or for a meal. Use your social connections to introduce them to Christian friends. Invite them to church or other Christian activities.
When your church has a vision to reach those who are far from God, bridge events can be planned as opportunities to invite your un-churched friends—and believe God to transform their lives.
When we are consistently praying for friends and looking for chances to invest and invite them into our lives, we become free from self-centeredness!