August 3

“So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.” —GENESIS 19:29

No one automatically becomes a Christian. We are drawn by the Spirit of God, and when we come in humble repentance to Christ, we are indwelt by His Spirit, and become Christians. But what do we do if within our close circle of family and friends, we are the sole believer? 

When we look at the story of Lot, we are given invaluable insight. Lot was Abraham’s nephew who lived in the shadow of Abraham’s faith. His interests were entirely for himself, which led him to become one of the leaders of Sodom, a city saturated in sin and wickedness. God, planning to annihilate Sodom and its sister city, Gomorrah, because of their evil, sends two angels in the form of men to assess the situation. They stay at Lot’s house, and a mob surrounds his home, demanding the release of these two men for homosexual activity. Incredibly, Lot offers his two virgin daughters instead, but the angels strike the mob with blindness, affording time for Lot and his family to escape. 

Lot recedes from the story until we get to the New Testament, and Peter gives a startling revelation when he writes, “if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless…” (2 Peter 2:7). How are we to understand Lot as a righteous man? He not only participated in the debauchery of Sodom, but was one of its leaders. 

There is one glimmer of hope in the life of Lot, and that was his relation to Abraham. God remembered Abraham, and Lot, though hesitant to leave Sodom, becomes a beneficiary of Abraham’s righteousness and of God’s mercy. Genesis 19:16 says of Lot, “When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them.”

We cannot devalue the presence and influence of a Christian as a means of God doing something in the life of an unbeliever. We can only be saved by coming to Christ out of our own volition, but as Christians, we are bringing the presence of God into the situation, providing a channel for His grace to work in the lives of unbelievers. Perhaps all we can do is face them in the right direction, trusting God to bring them to Himself. But the one thing we cannot do is give up. We are meant to be ‘salt of the earth’, and ‘light of the world’, so that others will be saved and come to know Christ for themselves.

PRAYER: Precious Lord, I pray for everyone who has yet to know You. May your Holy Spirit draw them to the Truth, and open their hearts to You. Thank You, Lord. 

TO REFLECT UPON: Are there family members and friends I am praying will come to know Christ?