What is your immediate reaction to that statement? I will admit, mine is mixed. It makes me smile to picture a world as beautiful and whole as the one mentioned above. It also makes me want to silently cry when I think of how God desires for us to be…and how many holes we leave when we don’t. Especially as Christians. His desire for how we treat others (believers or non-believers) are not always met.
Is this a wonderful dream? (A seemingly unreachable one.) Or is this your light bulb moment? The moment that God has divinely placed in front of you to start a movement. A movement that starts with one…and ripples or snowballs to reach many. The ripple effect can start with you. Own it. I have my ripple effect and you can have yours. If they can connect and cross paths…what a more powerful movement they become. And God can use those ripples to reach MANY. I don’t feel as though many is a large enough word for the mental picture I am trying to portray. It will do for now.
We are called to think outside of the box, right? =) This is outside of the box of my pea-brain thinking. But then again, so is healing. So are divine appointments. So is saving a sinner from the eternal punishment that he/she deserves. My brain doesn’t understand what is not explainable. Just because I am not able to ‘figure them out’ does NOT mean that I don’t trust they are real.
Trust…now that I can do. And my Savior has proven Himself faithful time and time again. He has healed. He has set up appointments that were clearly by His divine guiding. The timing was just toooo perfect to be by ‘chance’. And saving the sinner…is so beyond what we deserve. Therein lies the problem. We treat each other sometimes according to terms we deem deserving.
You don’t deserve my forgiveness because you have hurt me too deep.
You have offended me too often to deserve any more chances.
You don’t deserve my kindness because I see how you treat others.
You don’t deserve my compassion because your heart is hardened towards others.
You don’t deserve my love because it is too difficult to love you.
You don’t deserve grace because you don’t learn from your mistakes.
Ouch! Read those statements again. This time picture Jesus saying them to you. You can’t. It is impossible for Him to be without love. That is wonderful, almost unfathomable news for you. To know that He will always give you grace…is a life-changing realization. It is all about what people deserve with us. And we are harsh with our standards. We set ours high and expect others to set theirs low. How has that been working for you? Not too good, I assume.
Do you give your friends, your family, your church, the strangers you meet; the break that you would want?
If that question immediately makes you angry, or ashamed, or sad…that my friend is called conviction. It is how God helps us to realize His will for us is different than how we’ve been living. What you do with this information…makes all the difference. We were born with free will remember? Sometimes I wish that I didn’t have it. Then I wouldn’t mess up so badly…and soooo often. But that wouldn’t show God our reverence for Him. It wouldn’t prove how much we love, respect and fear Him. You see if God wanted puppets, he would have created them. But no He created us to be His heirs, His sons and daughters. He desires relationships with us. This is not a dictatorship.
Because we are free willin’ men and women, we sometimes are too proud to admit that we react against God’s will. Sometimes we are too busy to notice. Sometimes just flat out defiant and unwilling to change.
Let’s try to picture it if we did change. What would your world look like? Peaceful. Kind. Gentle. Fun. Joyful. Compassionate. Filled with love. Forgiven. Beautiful! And what a proud Father we would have! Help me make this happen. Start your ripple so that when it crosses mine…they are a powerhouse to be reckoned with! The bigger the combined movement…the harder it will be for the enemy to fight against us. We are strong in Jesus name! Rise up and meet the hand of your Father. He is waiting to turn what the enemy tries to use against you…for HIS purpose.
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