GOD LOVES CITIES 1 Peter 4:7–11 I’m a native Houstonian. I love our city. You don’t get any more Houston than I am. I was born in Hermann Hospital and raised in Houston. I’ve been there my whole life except for going away a little bit for college. A while back, somebody gave me a 1941 edition of a street guide to Houston. What’s amazing about this guide is that the phone numbers in the advertisements are four digits. At that time, you only had to dial four numbers to get someone on the phone. There was also a map to help you find the businesses listed in the street guide. It looks like an old pirate’s map. I went to a couple of stores to see if I could find another one of these guides, and I couldn’t find one, but I did find one from 2007. The city had grown tremendously, and it has grown even more since 2007. For each of these periods, though, downtown was the heartbeat of what was going on in the City of Houston. From 1841 to 1941 to 2007 to 2018, there was something happening in the city. In 1900, 10 percent of the world’s population lived in cities. In 2005, 50 percent lived in cities. Now, 55 percent of the world lives in cities. Cities are where people are going. On a planet filled with vast amounts of space, we congregate in cities. Cities are the heartbeat of the world, and you have been placed there. So it is crucial for you to reach out to your city. And reach out to the suburbs as well. In the heart of your city, be willing to say, “I want to be part of what God is doing in the smack-dab middle of my city—the epicenter.” It is part of your heart and part of history to reach your city. Go to those difficult places and reach out in a great way. Peter encouraged the people of the city to go out and make an impact.
FEBRUARY 8