The Bride

This morning as I was spending time with Jesus I was burdened for THE Church. I was reading in 2 Chronicles 25. The part that specifically caught my attention and burdened me are verses 17-28. Israel God's chosen nation split, fighting against each other, ravaging through God's house... They chose idols of the nations around them. I saw an all too familiar picture as read those verses. Today the Bride is not one cohesive body. We are all chosen by God yet like Israel we are split and fight each other. Even within certain congregations... In saying all of this, I recognize that conflict is not bad because from conflict comes growth. Paul did not back down from exhorting and challenging his brothers and sisters. We need to be continually pointing each other back to Jesus, back to the Bible. And we as the receiving end of such exhortation need to be willing to hear unlike King Amaziah (2 Chronicles 25:14-16)... This burden was felt because I do not believe The Church is being The Church as God intended us to be. So will you join me in praying for God revive The Church, for The Church to rise up?


Also this is different but kind of on the same page, this morning I saw this video my friend made and I think this in the same lines as I was speaking above: 

Radiating Light

Today is one of those days my heart just breaks. It is a mixture of joy and love and urgency. Last night I listened to a woman share her story - the darkness that existed at one point and now the Holy Spirit is radiating out of her very being. This morning I was reading different stories from around the world. My heart jumped with joy as I looked upon the beautiful God created faces of the children, women, and men but then as I continued to read my heart grew heavy. There 2 billion plus people who do not know Christ. They do not know who He is. They don't know what He's done, how He loves them. They are not giving Him the glory due to His name.
A wake oh sleeper. This is why you were created.
Arise bride! Tell the world about your groom!

Stamped

I open the giant heavy oak door. It squeaks as I push it behind me to walk into of familiar faces. A few family members, several of my closest friends, individuals I have adopted as family, and acquaintances  They are all clustered together staring and whispering. I'm dressed in a professional dress suit, everything pressed perfectly. My hair is done just right, not to say "Look at me!" or "I don't care". My heels clicked as I walked confidently down the aisle, inside I was a thousand degrees and my stomach churned and was stabbing with pain. But they knew. They knew it was all a masquerade. I sat down behind the large oak table; all of their eyes pouring into the back of my head. The gavel pounded and so it began. One after another of those I love walked up to be questioned and to testify all they had witnessed and perceived. I tried not to squirm as they retold their perspective of the memories that had been haunting my dreams. Another story, another replayed conversation... the stabbing pain in my stomach had escalated. All I wanted to do was sink down into my chair and cry. Recess was called as my fate was decided. I retreated to a quiet secluded spot where I was finally able to sit, hold my stomach, and cry. This was interrupted by a man who had been sitting silently in the court room. He knelt down beside me and explained things. He helped me to my feet and led me back to my chair. The room was filled with whispering again. The man walked up to the judge and spoke softly so that no one else could hear. I tried read their lips but I couldn't see. It seemed as though they were talking for ages. The room became restless. I was trembling trying to hold back tears but unable. My eyes blurred but still on the judge and this man. The judge stamped a sheet of paper then slide it into a manila folder and handed it to the man. He walked over to me and opened the folder. The stamp covered the sheet full of the all the notes condemning me as guilty. I sat with tears streaming down my face so rapidly that I began to hiccup. The judge declared my sentence: not guilty. I heard the crowd gasp and their conversations blurred into murmurs as my mind spun. When the man had knelt beside me during the recess he told me every detail of my crime. The details I had never told anyone. He knew my motivations, desires, yearnings. He knew it all. I was horrified when he went up to the judge and spoke with him for so long. I knew he was telling the judge and that would be the end of me. I deserved death. Yet I was deemed not guilty... The red stamp on my files simply read: Redeemed.

And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. Colossians 2:13-14

Fragrance

A Text

I was with two of my friends last night. We were just chatting and laughing about different things when my phone buzzed. It was a text. I don't text. But the picture that showed was eerily familiar as if it was a deja vu from a dream. I quickly opened my phone pleading, "Oh God, please no. Please let this be a sick joke."  The text was a video. It began playing. It showed one of my good friends peering through blinds on a window. Through the window I could see the picture on the far left wall. It was of a young toddler. My friend was sobbing uncontrollably. I shut my phone, shoved it into my pocket and without telling my friends what was going on was out the door and headed to my friend's (who was in the video) apartment. I busted through the door to find my friend held by her husband as she sat hunched over crying. Their 7 month old lying on the ground playing with his blanket obvious to the current events.  I sat down to hear the story of how their beautiful 2.5 year old daughter was trafficked. The pain was unbearable. I was frantic, horrified, infuriated, and paralyzed. 

My eyes bolted awake to the darkness of my room. My heart was pounding. It was only a dream but all of my being believed it to be true. I cried out continuously to God to protect my friend's beautiful daughter that nothing like that would ever happen to her. I was restless in prayer until at some point I feel back asleep. 

How come we are able to see slavery as a distant concept? As if people are not the ones being raped of their dignity and worth? What if it was your child? Maybe you don't have a child but what if it was someone in your life who was trafficked? What then? Just a concept. Just something that sucks but I can't do anything about? I praise God that this dream is not reality but it IS reality for 27 million people like my friend's daughter.

I forgot [part 1]

I went into the theater the other night excited to learn more from another documentary.  I’m not one who likes small talk or fiction. I like to be challenged by what I read and the conversations I have I want them to have a purpose, for there to be intentionality… this life is too short to waste time.

How could I forget the 27 million? Their bondage physically, emotionally, and psychologically gripped me so hard almost three years ago I couldn’t escape it. It seemed these once hidden chains showed up in all my conversations, in classes, every day places I had seen so many times before, even the new books in my schools library told stories of those chains. So instead of run and hide, though it would have been easier, I grabbed a flash light and went in for the discoveries. I wasn’t prepared for what I read in, Siddharth Kara’s Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery or the stories Nicholas Kristof and Love146 had to share but how does one know that slavery exist and turn a blind eye? We have a history that shows us we did it once but thanks to abolitionists such as William Wilberforce the trans-atlantic slave trade was stopped. Though the stories haunted me even to the point of dreaming of it at times, I had a responsibility as Christ’s ambassador (2 Cor. 5:14-20) to know more. I heard a former prostitute share her story. I watched documentaries educating and mobilizing. I had conversations with local abolitionists. But there were times when I had to look away as I watched documentaries, I had to stop reading, and I cringed holding my stomach as I listened because of the horror. Those close to me thought I was annoying with how much I talked about it and how I would try to encourage them to buy fair trade. The horror and the words of those close to me drove me slowly to stop reading and talking and searching to know more and speak out. Eventually I forgot.

No of course not fully. You can’t. But I wasn’t doing anything it was just dead knowledge in my head.

Two nights ago as I sat in my cushioned theater seat, God moved.  Nefarious (adjective): extremely wicked or villainous; iniquitous. This is the name of the documentary I saw tonight. It is a documentary on the sex industry. I went in excited then the first ten minutes finished and the air was knocked out of my chest. God was beginning to remind me, who I had forgotten.

I had forgotten His children.


http://nefariousdocumentary.com/

Of course death will hurt

Oh how I wish I could have heard the first time Jesus said

Deny yourself...

Even in our individualistic "me" focused culture we can understand this to some point. It's good to help others. I remember in my elementary school on one of the walls was a poster that had the golden rule on it, "Do for others as you want them to do for you." Despite the fact that one could be cynical and see how that comes back around to the "me", our culture values service and otherness to some extent. This is probably because we weren't made for "me". But Jesus didn't stop there.

Pick up your cross, and follow me. 

The first time I read that I wasn't shocked. The cross is a pendant on necklaces. It is the decoration of many churches that on Easter they put a purple silky fabric draped on this arms. Alright, take up this cross... but clearly this is not what it meant to those listening. They would not understand why we have made the cross into a necklace. If we saw people walking around with electric chair pendants we would think them sadistic and this is probably how the disciples would see our crosses for to them the cross was a death sentence. And not just any death sentence but one that is of utter humiliation and it is was a death sentence for criminals.... 

If you want to follow me, don't fill up your life with stuff on this earth it won't last, you can't serve two masters do you want money or sex or people  or work to be your god? That is your choice but know...know you can't have me too. You can't ride the fence. Be white hot zealous for me or be cold against me. You must choose because I don't want part of your life. I want it all. Following me costs your life... Believe I AM who I say I AM. I will give you life to the fullest. I will reward those who earnestly seek me. I have plans to prosper you. I will continue to work in you so that one day you will be complete. I will give you joy. I will never leave you. But know this is your life. Know that the ways you are walking in now must die. You cannot make your friends your god. I am your God. You cannot hold security in money and work. I am your security. You cannot find happiness and joy in things. I am your Joy. You cannot find sanctification in sex. Only I can fully satisfy. Yes, these all have to die in order for you to find life... but know that the world hated me and if they hated me they will hate you also. They persecuted me and they will persecute you also. But don't be afraid of those that can only take your life...yes, don't be afraid of those that can kill you because all they can do is kill you but I have the power over body and soul. Don't be afraid I have overcome the world. I have all authority over all things. 

As I began to understand more of what Jesus was really saying here I used to read and think "of course, we have to deny yourself and pick up our cross." I thought of about the literal death that may ensue in following Christ and I wrestled through that but I came to a point where I was (for the most part) okay with that. And I knew that my old self had to die. But this is where I have been caught off guard, this dying hurts. Those people, practices, things, have become so ingrained in your life and to some extent they may not even be fully bad.. but they are not fully good, they are not best and therefore they must go. There must be death. Its a ripping, that is not just a word get a mental picture in your mind, think about  a viper whose teeth are ingrained in your skin and the ripping it off you... this is the ripping off that has to be done and then not only do you have to rip it out but you have to kill the snake in order that it not come back. Then there is the healing that has to come from the bites. For some reason I thought this wouldn't hurt. Of course death will hurt ... but in that hurt, we must remember He is who He says He IS.