Sunday, September 10, 2006

WE CAN DO SOMETHING

My son is so vulnerable to the world that we are his only protection. This would scare me tremendously if 'we' didn't include the LORD. With the LORD as his protector and provider, he couldn't have a better start to life.

Yet there are children out there who suffer and don't have any protection.

Yesterday I read an account of such evil about the sexual abuse on a 12 year old boy . I cried at his suffering. People must read stuff like that in the news and think where is God? How could he let this happen?

Where was my LORD when this was happening to this little boy? Was he as upset as me? Or is he like a lot of people today who have heard stuff like this on the news and it's like nothing, like listening to a weather report because it's so common.

We accept the world is full of evil and there is nothing we can do about it.

For Christians, like me, it's one thing to be angry and upset, but what about us? What are we going to do about it? These men and young boys who abused this 12 year old boy, how did they become like this?

I am just as responsible as every other christian in this world. What are we doing to change the lives of these communities, of not only the little boy but the abusers? What are we doing to make Jeremiah 29:11 true for them as it is true for us?

I live a comfortable life. But I have known evil and I never want my little ones to suffer at the hands of evil. So it's my responsibility not only to protect them but to change the world they walk in. The LORD said we are to remain in the world but not be of this world.

To all the christians out there trying to make a difference, working in the frontline. Thank you for following the LORD's calling on your lives. You are our Father's hope in this world.

The rest of us, we ARE of this world when we accept evil reigns, when we do nothing but sit in our comfortable homes, building our safe churches in safe suburbs, our little empires and accept that outside this protected environment there is evil but we are fine.

I'm not saying go out to the enemy frontline unprepared. But WE KNOW OUR LORD HAS A HEART FOR THE LOST, FOR THE PRISONERS, FOR THE BROKENHEARTED. (Isaiah 61). Jesus said, in Luke, he came to proclaim the year of the LORD's favour which is from Isaiah 61. He is God's character. The LORD would leave the 99 sheep and go out searching for ONE lost sheep. That's his heart. He celebrates when ONE lost son returns home.

Aren't we meant to be becoming like Jesus more and more every day? We are all work in progress...but what are we progressing towards? Who do we really resemble - our Lord or this world??

In this world we are his body. We are meant to be like Jesus to the world. Yet we give the world an image of Jesus which resembles this world. We take care of ourselves. We take care of the saved. There is nothing wrong with equiping the saved....but if they NEVER leave the safety of CHURCH then what exactly are we equiping them to do??

If it's not our calling or our gift to go out to save the lost in such communities, then we work in our own communities.

Instead of doing nothing EVERY CHRISTIAN can do something.

We can ALL pray. Imagine if every single christian prayed for at least 1 minute a day for the lost, the brokenhearted ........ there are millions of Christians ....... imagine the power of our united prayer? What the LORD could do with our prayers would blow our minds away. Even Jesus took time out to pray.

We can pray that the LORD raises up a generation with his passion for the LOST. An army who will go out into all the world to proclaim his good news. We can do something, we can pray he would equip them with discernment, wisdom, his heart, and his power to break through the darkness.

But in all truthfulness we can do something to change ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbours. Not by judgement but by love. God's love is irresistible. It's us, we are such bad examples of God's love that we make God RESISTIBLE. We are not enough like Jesus for the world to recognise him in us.

So where was God when this little boy was being abused? Crying like me, not only for that child but also because his body wasn't there to represent him. To bring light into his world, to heal the brokenhearted. That's just my little opinion.

God is not evil. Satan is. God gave humans from the beginning of creation FREE WILL. We chose to use that free will to help Satan in his quest to be NO. 1. We became a part of the spiritual battle by choosing to believe we knew better than God.

The consequences of Satan's betrayal and our actions, is EVIL in every sphere of our world. God's answer to EVIL is JESUS. Whoever believes in him will have eternal life. That's part of our promise. But in the meantime God waits.

He waits for us to realise that he didn't give us a spirit of timidity but of power, love and self-control. We need to believe that all things are possible in his name. That the Holy Spirit lives in each of us to teach us and guide us in this world.

If God acted now and ended the world to save that little boy from his pain. Then millions would be lost because they don't know him yet. To remove evil, is to remove even the smallest atom of evil...liars, the selfish and self-serving, the proud, anyone who does not believe in Jesus.

The LORD cannot abide by any EVIL. So he waits. He waits for his children to save the world, to go out to this little boy and help him. To go out to the abusers and save them.

I can't begin to imagine the LORD's plan but it's not just about saving one moment. It spans 1,000s of years, it spans an eternity of love. When you add up the hurt caused in the world, and put it next to eternity.......how can you compare?...only the Creator of life can measure this. Only he can make these hard choices that I can't even begin to fathom. He knows the end game.

If it was left to me I would have acted in that moment when that boy was captured. I would have destroyed those abusers and sent them straight to hell. But evil lives in me too. I would have to send myself to hell - all humanity to hell. I am still a sinner and so is every other Christian. None of us are perfect. How can we cast the first stone?

Thankfully the LORD knows better.

He waits for us. He waits for believers in every generation to save as many people as we possibly can. To bring as many people out of the dark of this world into the light. He's not waiting on a chosen few to save the lost - he is waiting on every single christian in his church body to do what only they can. Each of us has a part to play.

Only God knows the hour when he will say 'ENOUGH, the last lost sheep has returned home' and then he will unleash all the power in his hands to remove EVIL once and for all. To balance the accounts of the world in favour of love for all eternity.

1 comment:

tali said...

whoa a long post! but a lovely one. we are called to be salt. to think differently. be different.

but also to stand up to evil. not in our safe enclaves, but out in the world.

i love my wife for posts like this.