forgiveness

Lent Day #7: Confession

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I have never been to confession as the Catholic’s do, but I see the value in it. There is something about confessing to another living soul…..the words hanging out there in the air like dirty laundry on a neighborhood clothesline. I confessed some things this morning in prayer. In my prayer closet. It was between me and God. But right now I want to confess this to my readers.

I have been a “hater.”

A hater of certain physical things about myself that I can’t change. Turning 55 has brought new challenges that I have been grappling with over the past year. I used to be able to cut back on a few meals, or sugar, or exercise more, and lose the extra 5 pounds. My body did what I commanded it to do. Now it argues with me and refuses to budge. I have to work extra hard just to stay in the same clothes. Just the other day I tried on something I had planned to wear on vacation. A year ago it was very comfortable, now it’s snug in the middle. Again.

And there are other things as well. I won’t list them all. The point of it all is that this morning I made peace with myself. I stared into the mirror…….the magnified side, that is. And I confessed to God that I was sorry, because after all, He created me. From two living breathing souls I came into being; two wonderful people who I will forever be grateful to for having me.

I came here with my own special blend of DNA that no one else has. What a miracle. The truth is, I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

So forgive me Father for being a hater. Of myself. I am embracing a gift today, one my Mom gave me. She always says, “We need to do the best we can with what God gives us.” So today, I will pull my hair back, put my face on and go to the gym.

Thank you Mom. And thank you God, for that power inside myself that has always made it possible for me to never give up.

Ever.

Amen.

But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?'” Romans 9:20

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:14

 

I hope it bombs (but it probably won’t)

Gratitude for Grace

I’m talking about that movie that’s coming out in a few days. You’ve seen the previews. Maybe you’ve read the book. I won’t even post the name here or use any image from it because I don’t want to highlight it in any way. I am using it as an opener because it’s movies like this that are a barometer of just how morally sick our society has become. Last night I was at the gym and I was parked on the elliptical catty-corner to one of those shows where men and women were doing all sorts of things with very little clothing. There were all kinds of sexual situations, some of which were women with other women. And this was in a public place at six o’ clock in the evening.

I remember when Ricky and Lucy had to have separate beds, and they were married! (I think that is a little extreme, especially since they were really married)

You might wonder why my views are so extreme. Well, I guess because God has some pretty extreme views about when sex is appropriate. When two people: (one man, one woman) are married. This is what I believe: God is the creator of sex. Part of his purpose in creating sex was for our pleasure. But God also set limits for the enjoyment of sex, for our protection. When we go outside those boundaries, we enter into sexual sin. God even goes one step further than that, He says that sex between a married couple is actually Holy.

Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Hebrews 13:4

People say, “God is love, He wants you to be happy, well no not really. Mostly He wants me to be Holy, and that in turn brings something far deeper than happiness. It brings lasting joy and peace of mind. I believe that as a Christian, God calls me to sacrifice a few things, because Jesus sacrificed everything. I was bought with a price, the Bible says. And that price tag was hefty. So if God tells me no to something I know it’s for my own good. All I have to do is look to the Word to find out what He expects.

Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. Ephesians 5:3

Here’s where we are today:

Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. Ephesians 4:19

And God is not a cruel God, He is a loving God. He would never expect us to do something that wasn’t entirely possible for us to do, with His help.

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13

The best way I can describe the Christian life is how a Pastor illustrated it one Sunday. He stood in front of us with a long rope spread out across the stage. About 2 inches worth on the end was painted bright red. That represented our life on earth. The rest represented eternity, well the rope would have had to be endless, but we got the point. This life is short, friends and if you believe in Jesus and trusted Him for your eternal salvation then you have a future filled with hope. If not, there is still hope.

There is nothing we can ever do under the sun that could cause God to withdraw His offer of forgiveness and reconciliation. There in no place we could ever go where His love could not reach us. We have all fallen short, we all sin, yet each day there is a fresh supply of Grace manna, at every point during the day He stands ready to forgive and forget.

What can it possibly mean?

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I woke early this morning and it was cold. Cold for here anyway. Wrapping myself in the huge robe guaranteed to ward off any chill, I slogged out the door in my slippers to look at the temperature which read 46 degrees. All you people in the snow, I don’t know how you do it. I wimped out of praying in my usual spot out in the shop. I came back inside and settled back in my easy chair and turned the heat up. I felt a momentary sadness knowing that tomorrow I would be spending Christmas at work, but that sadness was fleeting.

On December 26 all the frenzy will be over, but Christ will remain, big as life. As I gaze figuratively at the face of the babe in the manger, I ask myself all over again what it really means. This God coming to earth. Who can possibly understand that kind of love? Who can truly grasp it? The love of a God who would voluntarily come down here to this planet rife with turbulence and every kind of heartache and sin.

How can I feel anything but unbridled joy, knowing He would do that for me? For you?

What it means for us Christians is that we pick up our crosses all over again as we do everyday, knowing that He will never expect us to carry as much as He did. My little cross, whatever it is will never lead to Calvary, but ultimately to Heaven. How can it possibly be?

The babe in the manger scares me sometimes to be honest because I look at that baby and I ask myself how my life would change if I really truly believed as I say I do? The manger means hard questions sometimes. Look what it meant for those to whom He came then……..

Mary was afraid.

Joseph wanted to divorce her quietly.

The Shepherd’s were shaking in their sandals on that night.

Herod was so threatened he murdered all first-born babies up to two years old.

The wise men journeyed hundreds of miles just to worship Him.

As I sit here in my chair pondering all this, I am overwhelmed with thanksgiving for a God that would love so much that He would risk it all, knowing we might still push Him away.

Every light is lit and the tree casts a glow that fills the room. Even these two old cats have caught my joy. They have turned into kittens momentarily, playing tag and dashing back and forth. I smile at their play as I opened to my devotional and read these words:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    throughout all generations.
 Before the mountains were born
    or you brought forth the whole world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn people back to dust,
    saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
A thousand years in your sight
    are like a day that has just gone by,
    or like a watch in the night.

Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
    they are like the new grass of the morning:
 In the morning it springs up new,
    but by evening it is dry and withered.

Psalm 90: 1-6

The question remains: What can it possibly mean? To me it means saying yes all over again. Sometimes it’s a feeble yes, sometimes a shaky yes. But it’s always a yes.

Merry Christmas from Lori’s Prayer Closet. I pray you know the joy of the Savior today.

Let me Introduce you………

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The LORD said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you.” Then Moses told the LORD what the people had said. Exodus 24:15

I love living by the Superstition mountains because they remind me of when God met Moses on the mountain. It reminds me of how He meets me, every single day. A few years ago there was a song called Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. Well, I have none for him, but as I thought of writing this post, one of the lines went over and over in my head.

So, Let me introduce you……………..to my approachable God.

How you view God, if you believe in Him, has the power to shape your whole life. For many of us, the way we view Him was set in stone from what we heard sitting in the church pew. Maybe you had a Pastor who bored you to tears and made sitting in church for an hour or so an excruciating experience.

Maybe you heard fire and brimstone, sermons stripped of any love at all and walked away condemned, bereft of hope. You came away empty, thinking that kind of God was nobody you would want to know, or would want to know you. Maybe experiences you had with God’s people left you out in the cold. Maybe you went to them with nowhere else to turn seeking a kind heart and a listening ear but got pelted with stones instead.

All those things have made you reject even the idea of God. Or maybe you have manufactured your own version of a warm and fuzzy God who is only love and nothing else. Benign God. Let me introduce you to the real God. The up close and personal version. The one who longs to know you, to hear from you. The one who wants to be a part of your every day life, until your final breath.

This is what His book says about Him:

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. (That means, God wants to dine with you, and he wants to dine with you in a very intimate way, the way you dine with close friends or family.)

The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

From the very beginning, He was with us. Yet it was always us who drew away from Him and went our own way. But the God who walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, wants to walk with you too. At work, in line at the grocery store, on the subway, at your job, at home with your family. God was never satisfied to let us go our own way, He has always created a way for us to get home.

The cross is our way home.

Because Jesus bridged the gap between God and man, we have restored fellowship. That is the message I would like every single person on earth to know. Really, it’s the only thing in this life that matters. All the other stuff is just stuff unless we know Him.

Let me tell you, that when you have that relationship? Nothing compares to it. The God of the universe wants to walk alongside you in this life. I don’t know what could be better news than that. I can only tell you how it plays out in my own life. It means I will never, ever have to go it alone. It means His own Spirit lives within me. It plays out in joy unspeakable and full of glory on an ordinary day. It means that sometimes I feel so much gratitude that I want to shout it out to all who will hear.

It means that even in the midst of sorrow and heartbreak I don’t have to be overwhelmed, because He has promised to be with me. And He has been faithful. Since I said yes to Him all those years ago He has never left me, even though at times I have walked away from Him.

Never again. I am here to stay.

And you can be too.

Throw away all your previous notions and ideas of God. Open His word today and get to know the God who’s willing to fight for you. Who longs to be as close as your next breath. Open the windows of your soul and let the wind of His Spirit flow through. He is big enough to keep this whole thing in motion and yet small enough to fit in your heart.

It’s the one thing in life you will never regret. And the thing you will most regret if you don’t.

Prayer changes things

What Ferguson needs is what we all need.

Thankful to be Thankful

I was in prayer as to what to write about today, waiting for a direction……a word. I click on the news events, the chief one being the funeral of Michael Brown. I pause when I read these words by Jesse Washington in the A.P article:

He was a “gentle giant” headed to college. Pictures of Brown circulate that show him smiling, baby-faced — reminiscent of the childlike photos that first introduced us to Trayvon Martin.

I try to reconcile that with what I saw on the video of him strong-arming that clerk when he and his companion robbed the convenience store. My mind wants to make sense of it…..wants to reconcile it somehow, settle it. That’s what we want in times like this. We want a definite right and wrong. Black or white, if you will. But sometimes we are left with no right answers but only our emotions, anger, confusion, sadness.

Each side wants to paint a picture, this is how I see it anyway when I look at the media. One side wants us to believe Michael Brown was an innocent young kid on his way to college full of hopes and dreams. The other side wants us to believe he was a thug, a would-be rapper, up to no good and going nowhere fast.

Our minds and hearts grapple……..we want to know what to believe. When it happened, the barriers went up. The battle lines were drawn, and there were those of us who stood back and just wanted to get the facts. We wanted to make sense of the anger and the violence. And then there were those who just wanted to go and see for themselves, to stand in the gap and pray. And I know that’s always right.

To be truthful, right after it happened and I saw Al Sharpton spewing anger on the news, I rolled my eyes. “Here we go again,” I thought, “Why does it always have to be someone like him or Jesse Jackson when there are so many other more intelligent, well-spoken individuals out there who we might listen to.” I believe I am speaking for many people here and not just white people either.

And after that I kind of shut my ears to it all. It just got too noisy.

But now, this morning, I see family members and a community grieving and that’s never good. I know how it feels to put someone in the ground. You can never forget that sorrow.

I’ve read a little about the history of the town of Ferguson and I want to have a deeper understanding. I think of how I would feel if it had been my dear friend’s son standing in the street that night and what if it had been him who had been shot. I would be at that funeral right now. And it wouldn’t matter if he’d been in the right or wrong, or if he’d been inside or outside the law because grief is grief and heartache is heartache.

Kids aren’t perfect, any of them. Neither are any of us. We all have the capacity to make good decisions and bad ones. We sometimes find ourselves doing things we don’t want to do. I do know one thing, violence will never solve anything, but prayer is always right. My prayer is that healing can begin, not just for Ferguson but for the whole world.

In times like these I believe the Church has a unique opportunity to pull together, that’s what Jesus would have us do. Because the world is watching. In fact, that is what Jesus is praying for right at this moment. Unified hearts united with Him. We are called to love each other, and sometimes love means standing back and seeing things from a different perspective.

Deep down, it’s not about black or white or anything in between, it’s about the battle we each fight within our own hearts. And the only way we will ever have true peace, true healing in our hearts is when we invite Jesus in.

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin. Apostle Paul

What’s your sign?

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I had not planned on getting any cash back at the store until the Holy Spirit insisted on not letting me pass by this one. He was standing in a place where it’s not surprising to see someone holding up a sign, there are many homeless who hang out at this particular store. He stood on the corner, on the road where everyone exits and enters the shopping center.

His sign said, “A little goes a long way.” Something about it shook me and wouldn’t let me go. The Holy Spirit nudged me all the way into the store and as I ticked things off my list, He was there. And so was he. I separated a five dollar bill from the rest and as I drove out I motioned him over and handed it to him. I felt a spark of human connection as I smiled into his eyes and said, “God bless you.” Which really meant that I didn’t know what else to say.

It meant, “I’m sorry you are in this predicament whatever the cause.”

It meant, “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

It meant, “I can’t imagine how it would be to have to stand out here with a sign.”

It meant, “Where is your mother?”

Both of us part of the human race, both of us struggling in different ways.

“Semper Fi! He said with a gap-toothed smile as I waved and drove off. And today in prayer, he was still making me cry, because really, there but for the Grace of God go any of us. I don’t know how he spent my measly five dollars and I don’t care. What matters is that I didn’t ignore the Holy Spirit when he whispered, albeit insistently.

The truth is we’re all carrying signs. The difference is most of us carry them on the inside. I wonder what would happen if we all got out and stood by that man in solidarity, each with our own signs held up right alongside his.

“Scarred by life”

“Desperate to be loved”

“Deeply in debt”

“Misunderstood”

“Angry and hurting”

“Lost and alone”

Some of us have signs others have put on us that couldn’t be further than the truth. Jesus had one of those. The sign over the cross said, “The King of the Jews.” That ticked the religious people off, they wanted it to say, “He said I am King of the Jews.” What it should have said was, “Savior of the World.”

It was written, “JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’” Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.” John 19:19-22

What’s your sign?

Until our hearts break at what breaks God’s we might as well be acting in a play. The greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength and mind and our neighbor as ourselves.

Most of the time I suck at it.

I don’t think it means we all quit our jobs and head to Africa or India, but it does mean we have to keep our hearts soft and be open to the Spirit. It’s so easy to be cynical. This world gives us plenty of reasons, and so do people. But the wonderful thing about God is that despite our failings to love each other, God still loves us enormously. He remembers we are dust.

Today, I read this through tears……..receive it with me today:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with loving-kindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,

So great is His loving-kindness toward those who fear (respect) Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust.

Psalm 103:1-5, 8-14

photo credit: creative commons

To the White Mustang

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I saw the White Mustang fly by us and I knew exactly what he was going to do. We all did. I say “he” but it could have easily been a “she.” It was 5:15 and we were all in line to get on the freeway. We were waiting our turn like all law abiding citizens. The light was green and we had just started to move, when he sped by on the right and butted in line ahead of everyone.

Brake lights flashed, I fumed.

I hit my horn out of frustration and said a prayer that the person behind me was paying attention. They were, thankfully. When we finally got on the freeway the White Mustang screeched around and sped down the fast lane and I wished, I wished I wished……I hoped to see him stopped on the side of the road behind some red and blue flashing lights.

This kind of thing happens everyday. Just like people crowding ahead at the grocery store, or climbing over you at the theater. Rudeness is everywhere. You can’t escape it, but you can choose to deal with it in a healthy way. I don’t know why it got to me this morning. I guess something within us all wants to see someone get what they deserve. We want justice…..but at the same time, we want to escape it ourselves.

We breathe a sigh of relief when we get away with going over the speed limit when we are late for work. We want others to be punished but we want a “get out of jail free card.”

There have been many times where I didn’t get what I deserved, Instead I got a big helping of GRACE.

A little helping of grace goes a long way. And when we extend it to others, we are helping ourselves too. It’s like healing from the inside out. When we offer up God’s grace to others, even in small ways, we offer up the Grace of the Cross.

When we forgive, we become a living testimony because in the physical act of forgiveness we demonstrate that we remember what He did and what He continues to do for us every single day.

Maybe it’s someone else you need to forgive today, or maybe it’s yourself. Whoever it is, take a deep breath and give them a pass. Your heart will love you for it.

For those who long for freedom

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You feel grounded, rooted to this spot, and you feel like things can’t change soon enough. You feel discouragement nipping at your heels because you have the sense that by the time things do finally change it will be too late.

This is a prayer for those who are in the uncomfortable place of waiting:

For a change…..the crack of dawn in the darkness……for healing to come…..to get out from under that boss…..to not have to view the world from the window anymore. Maybe it’s the past that keeps pulling you back. Maybe it’s just one person.

You want to hit the open road and never look back because fighting the good fight is tiring. You don’t want to be the one left behind anymore, you want to be the one planning to fly off to fun without a care in the world. You want to get off the Merry-Go-Round and take a turn on the Ferris Wheel.

Maybe you’re in a care-taking role you never asked for, and you feel like you have been playing that role most of your life and you want another part in the play. Maybe it’s a parent who really hasn’t ever been there, and you wonder why in the world you feel you have to be there for them.

And even now, in their weakness, their neediness, their disease, their negative words still have the power to deliver a death sentence to your hopes and dreams, to rob you of every victory you ever almost enjoyed. But only if you let them.

Sometimes you wonder why God keeps them alive and you feel like it’ll only be after they’re gone that you will taste true freedom………part of that freedom will be the absence of the albatross of all that guilt hanging around your neck.

Stand tall, and know that God is fighting with you and for you today. Even now, it’s His freedom, His salvation that makes it possible to continue doing what you do. You have the living promise “that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Because of Him, hope has made a permanent home in your heart and right now, today you are a living testimony with a future filled with promise.

Hope flickers like a candle in her heart and this hope is what the negative voices have tried to stamp out again and again but the voices are becoming silent now because this is her time. The seed that hope planted in her heart has given birth to success, and no one and nothing can ever take that away, because now she knows she is worthy. Sometimes you must have the courage to step over the loss of that thing you never had in order to have the strength to move on.

Take heart, take hope today. He has already given you success. He is with you in the middle of wherever you are. It’s true freedom He gives and it belongs to you today!

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17

 

When you’re nursing a hurt

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You’re walking around in your day minding your own business. Maybe it’s even a good day and you have had some things happen that can only be described as a “God touching you on the shoulder” moment. Something happened that you just know was God arranged.

Basking in the glow of that light you can almost still feel warming your shoulders,  you are blindsided by something you never saw coming. Oh how it hurts, I know, I have been there. I have asked the questions right along with you:

Why me, why this, why now? And in the silence, the hurt you find yourself in the middle of searches for a safe place to go.

It feels like you have been through enough already. Didn’t all those tears you cried in the dark of night, didn’t those add up to something? David’s couch swam with tears too, even he wasn’t exempt, but somehow that doesn’t make right now any better.

When the wound is raw, it is tempting to ignore that good thing that happened in the wake of the pain that threatens to swallow it up. You’re not sure whether to sit in a corner and lick your wounds, or pour it out to anyone who will listen. And though it’s tempting to dump out hurtful words to the one who hurt you, don’t do it.

Because wounding them doesn’t take your own away, it only multiplies your own pain.

But don’t you hear me God?  I’m your child. The injustice of it all. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it happened. And now?

There is something you need to do. You need to let Him be your justice. He can’t work on anyone else’s heart unless you release yours. You be amazed what happens once you do this. Our God is so big and generous that He not only wants to heal you, He wants to heal that other person too.

And when the Bible says that He binds up the brokenhearted? Friend, that is for right now, not some vague time in the hereafter, it is here…..now…….as well as after.

Who doesn’t have pain? Who doesn’t have sorrow. This is a universal fact. What follows that there can only be a universal answer:

It’s found in the person of Jesus. He is the only one who can actually do something about it. In fact, He already did. That dead old thing was wadded up, crumpled in a ball and tossed into the fire long ago.

This is what we can know as believers. He can meet that ache right this moment by the power of the Holy Spirit who is your comforter. Right now……He can reach in and put His hand into your heart where it stings the most. Don’t doubt that He sees you.

He sees your every effort to focus on the positive, to keep moving forward even when it hurts. And He will reward it.

He had to do that once, you know.  And with you in mind, He did it.

He could never forget you. You are in His thoughts day and night.

And there’s nothing that happens to you or to me that’s too big for Him to handle. That is the hope I hold out to you today. The world needs love, but more than love it needs hope.

If I could reach behind those prison walls……

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“This is what God the Lord says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,
who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it:
 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
    to free captives from prison
    and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

Isaiah 42:6,7

I don’t know what you did to get you where you are, in prison or jail. And it really doesn’t matter. I’m not here to debate your guilt or innocence today. Just share hope. I am here to tell you that the playing field is equal at the foot of the cross. That, my friends is good news. It’s the good news the early Church was so excited about. And it’s what I am excited about today. You’re in good company. Just about every hero of the Bible was in prison at one time or another. Back then, being a believer got you prison or death. In some parts of the world it still does.

They felt the weight of the iron chains and they heard the same slam of those iron bars. I never have and I never want to. But I want to tell you that if you have heard them, and that’s where you are right now, hope is not out of your grasp.

You might have thought it was over when you entered that cell. And let me tell you, most people will applaud the fact that you are there. They might even want you there for good or dead. And if you have done something to deserve it, then I don’t feel bad you are there either. But I do feel very bad about the prison your soul is in if you don’t know Christ.

But I do feel bad for your eternal state if you have never felt the love His redemption brings.

All is not lost. The hope that the early church had can be yours too. None of us is too far out of the reach of His love. His love is like the sun, it’s everywhere. The hope that modern-day believers have even as they are facing prison or death in China, In Indonesia, and many other parts of the world can be yours too. They have hope because burning in their hearts is the knowledge that they know this prison is temporary. They have something worth sharing. And they won’t stop, even it means loss of their physical freedom here on earth.

You say, well I don’t want to be here at all. I want to be out there. I want to be free. There is only one person who can truly make us free.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Romans 8:1,2

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11

Listen, there are all kinds of prisons in this world, prisons of illness, prisons in our minds, prisons of addiction. Everyday I see people walking around in the free light of day, imprisoned. I can see it in their faces, they have no hope. Jesus saw it too and moved with compassion, He said, “they are like sheep without a shepherd.”

But I am here to tell you that the most dangerous prison in the world is the one you don’t know you’re in. You can’t ignore yours, they can. I can.

There are many people living the good life, flying here and there, surrounding themselves with the best this life has to offer. And you might want what they have, sometimes I  do too, but don’t. Their prison might look a lot better than the one you’re in, but the bars are just as solid. And if they have never taken that step of faith that God requires, they need deliverance just as much as you.

I am not saying prison is easy or admirable, or good. I am sure it’s terrible.

But much more terrible is the eternal sentence we face without Jesus’ pardon. It’s something we all have to decide.

My prayers are with you. My hope is that you will listen to the people who come in with the Good Word. Don’t close your ears. Don’t scoff. Don’t make others feel weak if they go to those meetings. I know they have them there.

It’s freedom they’ve found.

And you can find it too.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Rejoicing in my freedom today.

Photo credit flickr: Some rights reserved, by Janrito Karamazov