A Call To Arms

Lamentations 1:1-2

How deserted lies the city once so full of people!  How like a widow is she, who once was great among the nations!  She who was queen among the provinces has now become a slave.  Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are upon her cheeks.  Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her.  All her friends have betrayed her; they have become her enemies.

Once called the sleeping giant (Isoroku Yamamoto in WWII), America is now no greater than a country full of the walking dead.  This land is cursed in a way that  few realize.  In the search for something greater, too many have been placated by money and technology and power.  For those who have not, they have been hardened by their envy of those things.  Too many now live in kingdoms they have built for themselves.  We have been blinded to how blessed we are to have food and what a miracle it is for a child to be born.  After all, we can go out and get food for ourselves, and our hope lies in modern medicine to save our lives.  We throw out leftover food without a second thought and discard unwanted lives.  We have been given so much.  We have an abundance of food, community, love, and life, but we have said “no” to God.  We would rather corrupt every good thing to bend it to our own purposes, throwing away the lives God would bless us with.  And so we are dead.  Our once great nation is dead.

We are in need of our Savior now more than ever, but what generation can say “yes” to life when culture feeds it nothing but death?  There are some who know Christ and who carry his light into this darkness as they bear his name.  They are needed now.  We are living in the midst of an epic battle between light and darkness, and we cannot allow ourselves to be lulled to sleep by comfortable lives and the promises of safety and prosperity.  We must kill our flesh and fight.  Christ is victorious; this war is already won!  Death and sin are both defeated!  But countless numbers still choose death and sin.  It’s what they know; it’s who they are.  How many casualties must there be?  Multitudes are wounded, and we need willing soldiers to bring healing to those people that can only come from Jesus Christ.  Will you help?  Will you fight?

Will we choose to be an almost helpful generation of believers?  Or will we surrender ourselves completely to the will of God and allow Him to move through us as revolutionaries?  We always have a choice, but it seems that we are quickly running out of time.

God, send us boldness; send us urgency.  Unite us in power so that the world might see you in greater glory than it has ever seen.  Your people need you.  They would cry out to you if they knew you.  Instead they stumble deeper into darkness.  Only you can bring them life.  It is only through your Spirit that life can even be appealing to them.  Lord, only you can save, so I beg you to do just that.

Treasured.

Often I have fought the notion that I am special.  I have a hard time accepting that God created me especially for Himself and that He notices and actually misses me when I withhold my heart from Him, whether it is intentional or not.  I find myself believing the lie that I will not be missed.  And so, the Lord has been delivering me from that lie while tenderly revealing some of what He truly thinks of me.

Specifically, God has been showing me that there are things He created within me that are unique and which He can only enjoy should I choose to offer them to Him.  The same is true of every one of us.  All I have felt over the past several days is that I am treasured, created by God for God.  Reflecting on this brings me to picture a porcelain doll, one whose maker took the time and care to paint every eyelash on her fragile face, one who should be cherished.  In Psalm 139:14, King David says, “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”  Notice what he says.  I am made.  I don’t just happen to exist – I was intentionally created.

After all of this, the lifelong question which remains is, “Why?”  It is a question which has many answers, some of which differ for each person at any given time.  However, the most vital of all these answers, one that is true for every person, is that our reason for existing is to walk in right relationship with our Father and to bring glory to His name.  And both of these are made possible through Christ.

Still, each of us is unique and we all have very different reasons for being here.  I am slowly learning through seeking God’s heart some of the intricacies that He created in me which are unique to my being – those things which He can only enjoy in me.  Sadly, I cannot tell you what specialties God has stored inside of you.  However, all you have to do to start the journey of discovering those things is ask Him.  Without fail, once you begin to seek Him in this, He will start to reveal to you truths about yourself to which you have been blind for a very long time.  Like the loving Father that He is, He will reveal to you how cherished you are, and I promise that you will feel nothing less than treasured.

Different?

John 3:8

The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

This is so true!  The Holy Spirit is unpredictable, so when you live a life filled with the Spirit, you too become unpredictable.  Some people might go as far as to call you hazardous.  I say, bring it on.  Too few Christians are called crazy.  Paul said, “If I am out of my mind, it is for your sake.”  We are supposed to look different to the world.

So why don’t we (corporately as well as individually) look different?

That’s a loaded question, but, if we’re willing to answer it honestly, I think it might be the right one to ask.  What do you think?  What’s holding us back?

Ambassadors

John 4: 37-38

Thus the saying “One sows and another reaps” is true.  I sent you to reap what you have not worked for.  Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.

From the time we wake up in the morning until the time we go to bed at night, we are doing one of two things.  We are either sowing what others will reap in the future, or we are reaping what others have sown before us.  Both are vital, and each happens whether we are being intentional about it or not.

How are you sowing and reaping in your life?  Maybe you should examine not only the times you have planned out to minister to people, but also the times when you’re “off the clock.”  What kind of seeds are you sowing when you are just hanging out with your friends, being you?  What about when you are spending time with your family, your coworkers/classmates, perfect strangers?    What are you sowing during those times?  Is it the love of Christ and the good news of the salvation that we have in him?  Or are you planting seeds of hypocrisy and judgment, wounding others as you sow?

You are never actually “off the clock.”  If you claim the name of Christ, you never stop representing him.  We hold Truth inside of us – the truth that we serve a God who saves.  It seems like we never hear about Christians on the news except when they have fallen.  But if you think about it, along with the immense satisfaction the world has in seeing Christians fall, there is also a great sense of disappointment.  So many people have heard the message of Jesus Christ, and they know it sounds good.  They’re hoping it’s true, and they look to our lives to see if it is.  2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are ambassadors of Christ!  Let us show the world with our lives that this good news really is true and it is every bit as good as it sounds!  According to 1 John 2:6, we should start by walking as Jesus did.

Confession: I still need Jesus

At the moment right before I accepted Christ, I realized, “I am a wretched person, and I need Jesus.”  Now, I view myself with the recognition that “Because i know Jesus, i am no longer wretched.”  With this there is also the realization that without Christ, I would still be just as filthy and unacceptable before God as I was before I first came to know Christ.  In this realization is humility.  Every bit of change within me is a direct result of what Christ has done.  It is nothing of myself.

My name is Ashley, and I have been a Christian for four years, twelve days.  And I still need Jesus.  Every day.

Dare you to move

I have had a lot of really good conversations with some very passionate people lately.  It seems that there is a discontent starting to manifest itself; there is a restlessness stirring within the body.  We desire more of the Lord.  We want to see Christians growing in the Lord and resting in the freedom of experiencing Him as He’s coming at them.  We want to see people walking in boldness.  We want to see revival.

From history, we know that things change when there is a discontent for the status quo.

BUT that change can only happen when we are willing to move as God directs us.  He is longing to work through us, but we severely limit our roles in His movement when we are unwilling to go out.

Two things that are preventing us from going out and functioning as the hands and feet of Christ are fear of man and comfort.  I’ll address fear of man in a later post because it would make this one way too long.  But I do want to expand briefly on comfort.

When will a movement of God start?  His movement will start as soon as we are willing to move.  He’s waiting on us; I assure you that we are not waiting on Him.  The problem that I recognize is that we have grown comfortable with praying boldly and passionately in a closed group of Christians who are all at the same spiritual temperature.  We back off on boldness when we’re around Christians who don’t walk in the same things as us.  We don’t boldly proclaim the love of Jesus Christ to the lost sitting right next to us in class.  Why?  It would make people ask questions.  It would make us move from an area where we find comfort to a place where we have no control.  It would make us uncomfortable.

The thing is, God’s really not very concerned with our comfort.  He’s concerned about His glory.  Our God is a loving father who is passionate about his kids.  He’s a Daddy after the hearts of His children.  When He moves you to minister to someone in a specific way, He doesn’t care if you’re comfortable or not.  Rather, He cares that you are obedient, and He cares that His child is experiencing love from his Father.  Would we really choose to not be involved in that process of a Father reaching out to His child just because we would be uncomfortable?  We do it all the time.

I long to see this revival come to fruition.  I dream about it, and I pray for it every day.  But there has to come a time when you and I get so discontent with the status quo that we are willing to do whatever God asks, regardless of our own comfort, in order for it to happen.

Are you ready to get uncomfortable?  Are you ready to move?

Brokenness

One thing I have been learning lately is that we see and experience the Lord in moments of brokenness, whether it’s our own breaking or in the eyes of the broken.

In this learning process, I have discovered that I love to minister to people with broken hearts – people who are hurting for whatever reason.  As much as it hurts me to see people in the midst of suffering, it is my joy to love them.  I desire to encounter the broken every day and to see each one of them the way Jesus sees them.  Mark Batterson has a little bit to say about this in his book Wild Goose Chase when talking about ministering to survivors of sex trafficking:

I could see God in each of their bloodshot, traumatized, beautiful eyes, begging me to touch, to comfort, to hug, and ultimately to love them.  If Christians believe that God is in every person, why don’t we act like that?  Why do we turn our eyes from the poor, the widows, the orphans, and the prostitutes?

Like John Mark McMillan says in his song “How He Loves,” God meets us between our breaking.  Lately, there has been a longing in my soul for brokenness.  I have no idea what I want to be broken of or broken for, but I feel certain that it will ultimately leave me with a greater compassion for others.  Two things that seem important here are that 1) we can never experience healing without first experiencing brokenness of some sort, and 2) God has to break us of certain things so that He can make more room inside our hearts for Him to fill us with more of Himself.  In either scenario, why would we not desire more?

As I’m seeking the Lord for more revelation of brokenness and its implications in my life and in the lives of others, I would really appreciate hearing what you think about it.  How have you experienced God in times of suffering or brokenness?

So you think you can love?

Romans 5: 6-8

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.  Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

First of all, marinate in that for a minute because there is so much truth in these verses about the love of our God and our Savior.

I have come to the conclusion that I will never fully understand the depth of the love that led Christ right to the cross.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but sometimes people are difficult to love.  I don’t think I am very good at loving people as Christ did.  For instance, I don’t know that I could love someone as they were threatening my life.  But Jesus did!  It is our sins that put Christ on the cross.  Yet, Christ loved sinners, and He loved them especially when they were in the midst of doing the things that would ultimately contribute to His brutal and painful death.  He didn’t just love the adulterers and the drunkards.  He loved them even as they were committing adultery, even as they were becoming drunk.  He was there with them in these times, too, reaching out to them so that they would know they were loved.  He loved them as they were killing Him, and He never even had to think about it.  Through this love, He changed their lives; He changed their eternities.  According to 2 Corinthians 5:21, He gave them His righteousness.

Having said that, I desire so much for the Lord to do a huge work in the hearts of all believers.  I don’t want us to have to be motivated to love or to share Christ with others.  I want for us to do those things because we simply can’t not do them.  I want us to be so consumed with the peace and joy that comes in trusting the Lord that we can’t help but love people.  I don’t want us to have to ask the Lord how to love people.  Rather, I want for our hearts to be so aligned with His heart that we see the lost exactly how our Father sees them.  I want for us to be only vessesls such that God’s love, mercy, and grace would flow through us as an overflow of His own heart.

What would it take in my life and in yours to see that happen?

Ouch!

Thursday night at FCA, I started feeling some major conviction.  Unsurprisingly (because this is how God tends to deal with me),it was not related to the message at all.  At first I felt so convicted that it made it difficult to even worship.  However, because God is so faithful and patient, He gave me some comfort after about 20 minutes, which led to some of the most amazing worship I have experienced in a while.

Conviction:

What am I doing right now that requires God’s direction and guidance?  What am I doing that would absolutely fail without His divine intervention? Absolutely nothing.   Why would I go through life praising God with my lips for how great and good and faithful He is but not pursue things that are dependent on His greatness and goodness and faithfulness?  I can say one thing with my mouth, but my life can say something completely different.

Comfort:

2 Corinthians 3:18 says:  “And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness, with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

Speaking about God’s faithfulness brings Him greater glory, so I should speak those things all the more!  This conviction I have been feeling is evidence that there is this transformation happening in my heart right now, bringing me into a greater likeness of God the Father with “ever-increasing glory!”  Praise Jesus!

Undeserving

Is it possible to fully understand how undeserving we are of grace, or how necessary it is?

2 Corinthians 5:21 keeps coming up in conversations, almost as if God is trying to show me some of the implications of the cross.  We have the righteousness of God through Jesus Christ!  That’s huge!  That means that we get to be in the presence of the Lord; we can pray to Him with confidence that He will hear us.  I’ll say it again; that’s huge!

Somehow, I think we sometimes grow used to grace and walk around with an attitude like we deserve to be in God’s presence.  In actuality we get to be in His presence.  We only deserve death.  Instead, we get to live our lives according to God’s will.  For instance, I don’t deserve, nor am I guaranteed a nice house, a good job, a marriage, children, anything.  But I can trust that God will provide and that, regardless of the situation, He works for good.

This reminds me of something that my little brother did when he was in the first grade.  His class had a talent show, and he sang a Casting Crowns song.  He messed up at one point, but pulled it together and finished the song.  He won the talent show, but all he could do was cry.  He kept saying he didn’t understand why he should get the prize when he had messed up.  He didn’t think he deserved it, and so he wept.  I want to be at that point when it comes to grace.  I realized how undeserving I was at the point when I first received Christ into my heart, but I need to be reminded of that place.  I want to remember how good that grace was in those first few moments, bearing in mind all of my iniquities and yet that God would offer me this prize.  I am so undeserving, but God still loves me.  The same is true for all of us.  His heart is for us.  What can we do when we realize how undeserving we are but offer up praise to our beautiful Savior?