Filth

Generation after generation filled with hearts set against the ways of God. Of course there were a few faithful men and women sprinkled within but as a whole, they were set against God. There would be revivals and the few faithful individuals continued to clear the stage so that there was only one to be praised, yet time and again they put others up on the stage pushing God back. But God did not want back stage or stage left, He wanted the stage. He was jealous for them as a husband is for a wife. This jealous was good and to be expected. Yet His love was not just jealous but it was like a Father and Judge. Because He loved them so much there had to be discipline....because He is just, there had to be consequences. For decades, they were displaced people under the rule and authority of foreign men; their language, customs, values, beliefs, culture no longer primary. They revolted and rebelled against the Holy, Just, Righteous, Loving God...they screwed up. But then decades after coming to that strange land through a man named Zechariah they heard God say:
I was very angry with your fathers...but return to me and I will return to you. Do no be like you fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.' but they did not hear or pay attention to me. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But my words and my statues, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? Satan is accusing you but I rebuked him. I removed your filth - your sin and I clothed you with pure clothes. I am jealous for you with great jealousy, ad I am jealous for you with great wrath. You shall be my people, and I will be your God, in faithfulness and in righteousness. You have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong. Rejoice greatly! Shout aloud! behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will strengthen you, and I will save you. I will bring you back because I have compassion on you, and you shall be as though I had not rejected you, for I am the Lord your God and I will answer you. I will bring you home. I will make you strong in my name and you shall walk in my name.


Despite their utter depravity, rebellion, and revolting He still loved them with a jealous love. He still hears their cries and answers them. He still welcomes them home. He fights for them. He washing them clean of all their dirt and filth. He gives them strength and makes them a blessing.

The King did come in the form of a baby. He was (is) righteous and brought salvation by taking upon the sins of the world. He defeated sin and death. His love was (is) so great that He died for all people and for anyone who believes there is eternal life.

What about you? What has your life been filled with? Are you still living in the filth of your own life or have you heard the Father's cry for you to abandon the ways of our fathers in rebelling and to come home to Him?  Have you know He is jealous for you? Do you know that He rebuked Satan and took your filth? Will you respond to His love and follow Him or continue in filth?

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/