New Year's resolution: A heart for the lost

I’d guess that most people’s New Year’s resolutions revolve around improving the body, like losing weight and raising their level of fitness. Some also want to take their careers to the next level: apply for a better position, lobby for a raise, or finish writing that book. I share some of these goals, but the most pressing one for me as we enter 2015 is spiritual.

If being an “evangelical Christian” means one who believes the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of a Creator who’s gifted me with salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, I wear the label proudly. If it also means sharing the gospel through word and deed, there’s definitely room for improvement. But I know for certain I’m underdeveloped in one area of my faith: a heart for the lost.

I think, write, and talk a lot about the government’s encroachment on our religious freedom. American Christians currently do not face life-or-death persecution from those who hate us, but the unrepentant calling our sacred beliefs a form of bigotry is only the beginning. Using the power of the government to force us not only to accept but also celebrate sin is the kind of persecution American Christians should take seriously.

Sometimes I’ve allowed myself to take it all personally and have reacted in anger. I’m being righteously indignant for the Lord, I tell myself. But I wonder if it’s unrighteous indignation. “Be angry, and do not sin,” the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, quoting from Psalms: “Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.” Am I angry at injustice, immorality, ungodliness, and evil, or am I unrighteously angry with the sinner? Am I genuinely concerned for the person’s soul, or do I just want my side to win the earth-bound battle?

Sometimes I let my very human emotions take precedence over what God requires me to do: Speak the truth in love. Although a fellow sinner’s behavior might affect me, the transgression is a direct hit against God. I should condemn the sin as a warning that he’s under God’s wrath and that there is a way to come under God’s grace, and then allow the Holy Spirit to convict him.

I pray that in this new year, I’ll be more like God’s vessel and less a judge. “Vengeance is mine,” the Lord says—it’s His prerogative to repay wickedness. As they wallow in their depravity and suffer the due penalty of their error, my attitude should be one of sorrow over their lost souls, not smugness (such an ugly word) over what’s to come if they don’t repent.

I ask God to take away my Jonah-like tendencies and the unrighteous anger that goes along with it. I’m as undeserving of His forgiveness as the most deviant unsaved sinner. There, but for God’s grace, I’d be just as condemned and content in my sin.