The Western Church..what are we doing?!
I've watched video after video of third world countries, underground churches in Africa and China where people are meeting in caves or in barns to gather together and worship the One True God.. and Miracles were happening. Jesus is showing up right in these peoples midst!
blind eyes open, lame legs walking, shoot...even dead people rising! ALL in the name of JESUS.
I was blown away! Look what happens when religion is NOWHERE in sight and you have a room full of desperate people after the Truth!
He doesn't keep Himself from them! He doesn't make sure they are converted over to a "religion" first. He shows up because he LOVES them. They have felt the Love and the Glory of God and give up everything to seek Him. Hours upon hours a day they sit at His feet and rejoice because they have Truth. He has healed them and saved them and every other single thing doesn't matter. The government, the world, the enemy.. nothing holds them back from Him.
The Western Church has placed such a high level of importance of "appearing Holy"-- we have stuck our heads deep into the sand and are so focused on "hear, see, speak no evil.." that we've forgotten that He desires EVERY.SINGLE.HEART.
On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.'For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
-Matthew 9:11-13
People! God is not MAD at you! He is after you! He looks at us with eyes of Love..
It's why Jesus died.
I am done complicating who God is. He is a Father to the fatherless, a husband to the widow, refuge from the storm. The Healer, restorer, wonderful counselor, Prince of Peace...
We can not pave our own ways.. Spiritually we are no more fortunate than a dying person on their death bed if we do not know His Love. We wisp and long for air but we run out of oxygen. Our bones grow dry and we end up knowing in our hearts "There must be more!" but this is what is so beautiful...
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And God has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.
He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
Justice miscarried, and he was led off—
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.
10Still, it's what God had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life.
And God's plan will deeply prosper through him.
Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly—
the best of everything, the highest honors—
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
--Isaiah 53 (The Message version)
What I love so much about the above passage is that it was written around 700 years before Jesus ever showed up. Faith in Jesus in not blind. We serve a living, healing, loving God.
He is not concerned about where you think you are, what you think you need to do to get "right" with Him. He is a God chasing after His Beloved. He doesn't tire...
What I love about God is no matter how rough life gets..no matter how much the Devil hates us and throws every trick in the book our way..
God is bigger. His Love is fierce.
Church,
Lets be transformed. Lets call out to the God of Love and let Him change us. Lets go out and feed the hungry, heal the sick, and call the lost back home.
Stop "acting" and let Him move you.
