Job 11:13

"If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him"

I understand the context of this verse is Job's friend condemning him and trying to lead Job to rest in the Lord. But I would have us view this from our own perspective in leading souls to Christ and for our own personal walk with Him. If thou prepare thine heart - the heart is needed to be made right; This is no easy task, for too many things are against the soul seeking salvation and righteousness. 'the heart is desperately wicked, who can know it?' 'Out of the heart proceedeth sinful things'. Here is found where it begins. When Jesus taught the parable of the sower and the seed. It is the seed landing on the diffeent kinds of soil, the soil is the heart. 'Break uip the fallowed ground', it is the heart given to self and sin. We are born in sin, lost and without salvation. A soul must come to where it can be saved, to Jesus. But is the ground prepared? Is it made ready to receive the Gospel? A hard heart cannot be broken with reason, or rhyme. A hard heart must be made ready to break the hardness so that it is softened to receive the Word. Prayer is the main way to prepare a soul to hear and respond to the Gospel. I don't know of an instance that a soul was not saved without prayer going up for preparation. The more a ground is saturated with prayer, the greater the opporutnity for harvest. But withdraw prayer in preparing the heart and it is wasted. We find our great sin right here in the way evangelism is done today. The work and the effort is done, but what of the labor of prayer in preparing. Too many services today begin with a 80 second prayer for God to bless the services. And it should have been 80 minutes of praying for God to prepare the ground for the reception fo the Word, for the speaker, for the listener and everyone else involved. How much time is spent in your preparing? how much time does your church spend in preparing for the worship time with God on Sundays? And when we go forth in a weeks time to be a witness, prepare the ground. Even though, most Christians do not witness to any one, the few who do prepare the ground by praying for those Divine moments when God puts someone in front of us. We may not know when it is going to happen, but we have prepared ourselves to be ready to speak. For we have prayed up, studied up and been filled up. Now when the opportunity arises, we are ready to serve our Lord by opening our mouths to speak words of eternal life. All because we prepared our hearts to be used of Him. We prepare the hearts by praying for those that God will give to us to witness, He is able to do this. And stretch out thine hands toward him - Lifting up holy hands unto the Lord God Almighty; No heart will be prepared; no heart will be softened; no heart will receive the Gospel unless God's people stretch out their hands unto Him. It is the image of a child of God reaching out to lay hold on the hem of His garment. It is the desperation within the soul reaching out to God for help. 'Put your hand in the nail scarred hand'. It is the reaching up to Him, Who is able to help and save. the body position of a child of God in prayer says a lot. in the book of Acts, when the church prayed without ceasing, RA Torrey, defined thatt prayer time as stretching one's self out for the cause. What has touched your heart so clearly that you stretch you physical body out to Him? do you have enough passion and zeal within you for your lost loved ones to stretch out toward God? You cannot float around in daily activities and accomplish this type of praying. You must be prostrate, down before Him and crying out with all your heart. This is urgent, desperate praying, and it is prevailing prayer. May you forth today to prepare your heart and ask for God to prepare the hearts of those that need the Gospel message of salvation. And may you glean fruit for the kingdom because you stretched out yourself toward Him.