Welcome to the PMF Workshop for July 2022. I’m your host, T. M. Moore. Each month we provide teaching, encouragement, activities, and resources to help you in working your Personal Mission Field so that you can become more consistent and effective in realizing the presence, promise, and power of God’s Kingdom in your daily life.

This month’s Workshop is the second of a multi-part workshop entitled, “Process and Event.” This is Part 2, “Enemy to Evangelist.” Our text for this month’s workshop is Daniel 4.37:

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways justice. And those who walk in pride He is able to put down.

Beyond the reach of grace?
Probably every one of us has someone in our Personal Mission Field whom we regard as, well, hopeless – beyond the reach of God’s grace and not likely ever to know, love, and serve our Lord Jesus Christ.

The case of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, should change our thinking about all such “hopeless cases.”

When we first meet Nebuchadnezzar, he was the tyrant of the middle east and no friend of God. He tore down the walls of Jerusalem; sacked, razed, and burned the temple of God; and carried thousands of Judah’s brightest and best into captivity in Babylon (2 Kgs. 25.1-21).

So what happened between then and Daniel 4.37 to change the hard heart of this enemy of God?

The event of Nebuchadnezzar’s coming to faith was the result of a process. God worked in this tyrant, over a period of years, to help him come to the true knowledge of God and a commitment to serve Him faithfully. We can observe Nebuchadnezzar’s progress in faith as it unfolds in chapters 1-3 of the book of Daniel.

A gradual awakening
Nebuchadnezzar awakened to the reality of God and the power of His might only gradually. We glimpse the first rays of the dawning light of salvation in Nebuchadnezzar’s answer to Daniel’s interpretation of a troubling dream in Daniel 2.47: “The king answered Daniel, and said, ‘Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, since you could reveal this secret.’” Suddenly, God opened the eyes of the king to glimpse His greatness, power, and wisdom, far above anything he’d ever seen in Babylonian gods – but not yet sufficient to bring Nebuchadnezzar to worship and serve Him.

Nebuchadnezzar’s progress in faith continued in chapter 3, when he witnessed the deliverance of the three Hebrew youths, who escaped his judgment by divine help. When he heard their testimony about God’s delivering power, the king replied, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own God!” (Dan. 3.28)

By this point, Nebuchadnezzar has moved from enemy of God to acknowledging Him and setting Himself as God’s defender. All very nice, but not yet resulting in salvation.

It would take a direct intervention of God against the pride of Nebuchadnezzar to bring him to a confession of saving faith. We read about this in Daniel 4, which, according to verse 1, was a broadside, written and published by Nebuchadnezzar himself, and distributed throughout his empire, to confess his having been humbled by God and to proclaim his faith in Him. It was only by a direct encounter with God that Nebuchadnezzar was led to confess his sin, acknowledge the truth of God’s Word, and bless and believe in God. And he wanted the world to know.

From enemy to evangelist. The process whereby Nebuchadnezzar came to faith in the living God is in some ways a type of the salvation of all of us. Think back on the process whereby you came to believe in Jesus and to commit yourself to Him. What people did God place in your life to help you along in that process? What crisis or challenge or setback caused you to turn to Him? Who was instrumental in helping you gain a true understanding of the Gospel, and to lead you to saving faith?

At one time we were all enemies of the Lord, as the apostle Paul makes clear in Romans 5.10: “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” And for each of us – well, most of us, perhaps – making the move from enemies of God to servants with our own Personal Mission Field was a process. The event of salvation was the culmination of that process; and for the lost people in your Personal Mission Field, God is already at work wooing and striving with them (Gen. 6.3), working a process by which many of them, and perhaps even those who appear most hopeless for now, will come to believe in Jesus.

And you and I have a role in that process, as we shall see in our next workshop.

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Here are some activities you can practice and some resources to help you in working your Personal Mission Field.

1. First make sure your Personal Mission Field is updated, and you have included in your Personal Mission Field worksheet any new people God has brought into your sphere. Keep your map with you, so you can take it out and pray for the people you’ll be seeing throughout the day.
2. Meditate on Genesis 6.3. The Spirit of God “strives” with people, to rescue them from judgment and move them along the way toward faith. How did you experience that “striving” or “wooing” of the Spirit before you became a believer? Be specific. Write down your thoughts. Then give thanks and praise to God that He worked His process in your life.
3. Pray for each person in your Personal Mission Field, that God would strive with and woo them daily – believers, that they might know, love, and serve Him more, and unbelievers, that they might be drawn into His light a bit more each day.
4. Remember that God is always working for the salvation of His chosen ones, and He’s doing that through people like you. Spend time in prayer at the end of the day reviewing the work you’ve done and thanking God for each opportunity, and that He is using these to further His Kingdom.
5. Order a copy of our book, Restore Us!, and begin praying daily for revival. The more we are revived, the more we will be gladly submitted to the Lord. Order your free copy of Restore Us! by clicking here. And while you’re at it, order a free copy for your prayer partner, too.
   
   

That’s it for this month’s Personal Mission Field Workshop. Until next month, for the Fellowship of Ailbe, this has been T. M. Moore.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.