As I see life around me, the culture I live in I see a much different culture that Jesus intended for me to live. I recognize that I have many weaknesses, but some strengths that God has given me. It has been a difficult year of ups and downs, but one thing is true is that Jesus has challenged me to go deeper into His mission. I have prayed constantly that He would transform my heart, that I will get over the small things that plague my life and really be what I am called to be. I don’t want just the typical life, and I know that Jesus has called me to be set apart. He taught us principles in how to live in the kingdom. In His way of life, we forget about our constant pursuit of going up the ladder so to speak, and lowering oneself to the bottom. In His whole life, Jesus was always humbling Himself to be with the outcasts, the poor, the sick, and the sinners. Jesus didn’t reject these people He was able to show them love and affection that they would not get from the so called “holy” people. I have been for years one of the “holy” people like the Pharisees. In these times I was never able to reach those people with the good news of Jesus. In these times I am always too stuck up on myself to even recognize these are the people that Jesus calls me to love. I have had numerous encounters with Jesus over my short lifetime, in which He pressed on my heart to reach out to the broken, the oppressed, the poor and the sinners. When I have responded to His calling, in the middle of complete inconvenience, I have experienced His love and power more fully. I have recently read a book called Interrupted…in which God called a couple to do something out of their comfort zones. There whole life was changed when the wife was feeling for a long season of being dry in her serving the Lord, she didn’t feel complete. In an effort to seek help from God, she said “God, stir up in me a holy passion.” God answered this prayer, but it took much sacrifice to get to the point were God was calling the couple. This call to reach out to “the least of these” was the mission God put on their hearts, and that they would have to sacrifice all their positions in their church and go out in faith. In this book they began to reach out to the least of these, but still had much things keeping them from fully being what Jesus teaches all His disciples to be. They were doing things, but didn’t truly have love for the people. I then remember that Jesus constantly told me, love these people, love them more than yourself and all your possessions. They experienced a dramatic change in how they viewed money, themselves, and people. They were interrupted, and their lives were changed. They currently are apart of a mission mindset church where denominations don’t matter, but the love for the people who are oppressed and poor is center to the activity of the church. They became less about their personal business but reached out those who need to be healed by Jesus. They realize now the life Jesus says to live, and are on mission to know His heart and live out the kingdom.
I really want to stop pretending, being beaten up by the world and truly live out the faith, the teaching and training I have received from Christ. All about the kingdom! All about removing away the pursuit of climbing the ladder of success, being sold out for the gospel and being like-minded with Jesus. My prayer is that others will see the urgency now to be different, to reach out and love the “least of these”. I want to be apart of a body of believers that ARE the hands and feet of Jesus. No more being fake, being afraid of what others think, trying to impress others. To come unity in faith, in realizing that Jesus is for real that only those that care for the least of these will enter His kingdom. In so many ways, I have seen Jesus at work and my prayer is that He continues to wake people up from the sleep. That the body of Christ in America will discern the time, and will at all costs redeem the time by fulfilling the calling Jesus has, to seek and save those which are lost…to love one another…to set the captives free…to be the hands and feet. May Jesus come to have first place in all that we think, say, do, being the center of life.
