I also want you to be intentional in reaching out to two kinds of persons. Spread this new life to those in your social fabric, that is, those persons in your day to day life. You see them every week – at work, during leisure time, at the grocery, in church – these persons already receive your influence.

Your life is like a patch-work quilt; each square represents a social unit. You stand at the center of your social unit, which probably includes 30 or 40 persons. You make significant contact with these persons each week. They are the primary group with which you have influence. Because you are a bearer of my presence, being to think of the various ways that I can act through you to spread my life to them. And, don’t forget, they may also be the bearers of life to you.

The other persons I want you to notice are the cross-overs. These are the person who cross the boundary of your “patch.” They enter into your space. They bring their influence from another sector in society. Receive them. See these persons as transmitters of life in their social connections.

– Ben Johnson, I Stand at the Door, CTS Press, 1986, 20.

7  Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. ⁸ Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! ⁹ We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! ¹⁰ No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.

Ephesians 2:7-10

What does salvation mean to you?  How has the grace and kindness of Christ Jesus changed your life?  How is God calling you to share of that grace and kindness with others? Who in your day to day life might God be inviting you to reach out to?  What’s the good work God has ready for you to do?

Holy Lord,
Thank you for the gift of salvation –
the gift of your grace that has let me know
that my life begins and ends and begins again
with your love.
Help me to live my life out of that love –
seeking to share it with those you bring into my life.
Help me to do the good work
you have gotten ready for me to do.
Amen