Laying Waste To Desolation

After I left church tonight, I was struck with new revelation from the Lord. As I was sitting with some friends enjoying a cup of coffee and great fellowship, my mind began to run a marathon.. It seems that the more a desire is birthed in me to know the Word of God extensively and to establish my relationship with Jesus more and more, the call to active, obedient response to these things kinda gets pushed to the side. Tonight, Beau Hughes @ The Village was discussing missional and intentional living, which is the avenue the Lord used to set my heart upon this idea. He proposed the question, "What do we do in response to the resurrection of Jesus?" Being the week after easter, he was using this question to more than anything ask, what do we do in response to our salvation? 

Although, it is very important to continue to establish a relationship with Jesus, where is the response? Like, in other words, if Jesus has transformed our hearts and changed us into "new creation", then what does a faithful response to this gift look like? So, all of this was running through my head as we were talking over coffee, and we began to discuss numerous missional activities that we could do to show the goodness and kindness of our Lord and express this love through pointed, intentional living, finding the chains of injustice and breaking them off in the name of Jesus. In the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no room for bondage to injustice, yet we all know people in our lives who live within these chains. I believe that it is not only our responsibility, but that we need to begin to see it as more of a faithful response to what God has done in our lives. For example, I often get overwhelmed with the simple realization of where God has led me and what He has led me out of. So, in response to this great liberation that the King has brought to me, I should be going out to the world and releasing the kindness of God to all who are bound to injustice. 

I find myself far too often focusing so much on my self, and it really is a disgusting reality. Like, in Ezekiel 34, Ezekiel prophesies over the shepherds of Israel and how selfish they are, focusing solely on themselves and how they can bring gain to themselves instead of focusing on tending their flock. Although, he is speaking to the shepherds of Israel then, I believe it is also part of a bigger divine rebuke against those who have become children of God and are called to feed the sheep, but too often focus on themselves. In verses 4-5, he says, "Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you fought for the lost; but with force and severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered." Sounds like a lot of us, doesn't it? We sit in the backs of our churches, sing songs, hear a message, then leave and as we drive home we pass by numbers of homeless people who haven't eaten in two days, or have nowhere to lay their head. I feel that we must begin to open our eyes to the way God views people, and ask Him to reveal the dark places of injustice in those whom we otherwise would overlook. And as He begins to take off the selfish blinders, we would begin to see the broken how God does, just waiting for someone to say that injustice has ruled over God's creation for long enough and begin to declare freedom over this bondage and I believe as this happens, revival breaks out in the hearts of those formerly stuck in the mud. 

So, how do we do this, I mean, how do we practically attack the chains of injustice that the enemy has worked so hard to manufacture? Well, in my opinion, we must attack these places of injustice with pointed, intentional love that reveals a gracious God to those who are stuck in darkness and fear that they will never get out. I am just so tired of standing by and watching people pass by, whom God loves and wants to show His love to.. I want the Father to empower me to forget all my fears and insecurities and to step out in son-ship and claim victory in His blessed name, and I want a body to arise whom sees God's creation the way that He sees them, simply floating through life waiting for an encounter with His love to arrive and blow their socks off. I mean, honestly, there is no way that someone who TRULY comes into an encounter with Jesus is never the same, because the love of God changes us, it truly redefines us, i.e "a new creation". So, I pray that we would corporately begin to remember how the love of God changed us and set our hearts on fire, and begin to throw gasoline on this fire so that it spreads throughout our work places, our schools, our communities, our states, so on and so forth. Let us join hands with the Father and with each other and let loose the Spirit of God residing inside of us to bind the broken, to fight for the lost, to feed the hungry, etc. 

May the chains of injustice begin to fall off in the name of Jesus like the leaves of fall, as we obediently step out in faithful response to God's grace and goodness..