Last night, I had the awesome opportunity to serve a meal with my small group from my church to about 40 homeless people at a local homeless shelter. I feel compelled to share my reflections on what took place there. I don't think the magnitude of it hit me until I slept on it! I woke up this morning, absolutely overwhelmed and broken with compassion. After we served, my family and I then got into our nice car and headed over to a restaurant to eat dinner and then stopped at the grocery store to spend some money there and then drove home to our nice little, cozy home. I took a shower in my nice hot shower with awesome water pressure, put on my soft jammies that I got for Christmas and then crawled into my super-comfy bed and rested so comfortably under my fluffy down comforter! I thought about how those people don't get to do that! I mean, where did they go this morning after they got to sleep in the shelter last night? What are they doing right now? Where did the woman with the newborn baby go today? What about the girl expecting a baby?!? I mean seriously, I cannot imagine one day in a homeless person's shoes!
Last night, I saw people, who simply needed to receive mercy. Sure, many of them could have made, and may still be making poor decisions to end up in the state they are in today. But just like me, in many ways, my life was one giant poor decision, until I met Jesus! But Jesus is exactly what they all need and I believe Jesus is what they got last night. They did not receive a spirit of religion or judgment from us, they received regular people just loving them and giving them something they need - FOOD!! It was such a privilege to work alongside some amazing servants of Jesus Christ last night, witnessing such amazing grace in action!
Jesus, He's where it's at and it is my prayer that seeds of love and hope were planted last night and that these people would somehow, turn to the one person who can truly pull them out of their pits, just like He did for me!
Psalm 40
1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear
and put their trust in the LORD.
4 Blessed is the man
who makes the LORD his trust,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods. [a]
5 Many, O LORD my God,
are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned for us
no one can recount to you;
were I to speak and tell of them,
they would be too many to declare.
6 Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but my ears you have pierced [b] , [c] ;
burnt offerings and sin offerings
you did not require.
7 Then I said, "Here I am, I have come—
it is written about me in the scroll. [d]
8 I desire to do your will, O my God;
your law is within my heart."
9 I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly;
I do not seal my lips,
as you know, O LORD.
10 I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;
I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.
I do not conceal your love and your truth
from the great assembly.
11 Do not withhold your mercy from me, O LORD;
may your love and your truth always protect me.
12 For troubles without number surround me;
my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.
They are more than the hairs of my head,
and my heart fails within me.
13 Be pleased, O LORD, to save me;
O LORD, come quickly to help me.
14 May all who seek to take my life
be put to shame and confusion;
may all who desire my ruin
be turned back in disgrace.
15 May those who say to me, "Aha! Aha!"
be appalled at their own shame.
16 But may all who seek you
rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who love your salvation always say,
"The LORD be exalted!"
17 Yet I am poor and needy;
may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O my God, do not delay.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
God is eveywhere
"We cannot go where God is not. Look over your shoulder; that's God following you. Look into the storm,; that's Christ coming toward you."
- Max Lucado
- Max Lucado
Monday, January 4, 2010
God's chariot for you
"We have to be brought to the place where all other refuges fail us before we can say "He only." We say, "He and - something else," "He and my experience," or "He and my church relationships," or "He and my Christian work"; and all that comes after the "and" must be taken away from us or must be proved useless before we can come to the "He only." As long as visible chariots are at hand, the soul will not mount into the invisible ones.
Let us be thankful, then, for every trial that will help to destroy our earthly chariots and that will compel us to take refuge in the chariot of God which stands ready and waiting beside us in every event and circumstance of life. We are told that "God rideth upon the heavens"; and if we would ride with Him there, we need to be brought to the end of all riding upon the earth.
Joseph had a revelation of his future triumphs and reigning, but the chariots that carried him there looked to the eye of sense like dreadful Juggernaut cars of failure and defeat. Slavery and imprisonment are strange chariots to take one to a kingdom, and yet by no other way could Joseph have reached his exaltation. And our exaltation to the spiritual throne that awaits us is often reached by similar chariots.
The great point, then, is to have our eyes opened to see in everything that comes to us a "chariot of God," and to learn how to mount into these chariots. We must recognize each thing that comes to us as being really God's chariot for us and must accept it as from Him. He does not command or originate the thing, perhaps; but the moment we put it into His hands, it becomes His, and He at once turns it into a chariot for us. He makes all things, even bad things, work together for good to all those who trust Him. All He needs is to have it entirely committed to Him.
When your trial comes, then, put it right into the will of God and climb into that will as a little child climbs into its mother's arms. The baby carried in the chariot of its mother's arms rides triumphantly through the hardest places and does not even know they are hard. And how much more we, who are carried in the chariot of the "arms of God:!
Get into your chariot, then. Take each thing that is wrong in your lives as God's chariot for you. No matter who the builder of the wrong may be, whether men or devils, by the time it reaches your side it is God's chariot for you and is meant to carry you to a heavenly place of triumph. Shut out all the second causes and find the Lord in it. Say, "Lord, open my eyes that I may see, not the visible enemy, but Thy unseen chariots of deliverance."
- Hannah Whitall Smith, (1832 - 1911)
Let us be thankful, then, for every trial that will help to destroy our earthly chariots and that will compel us to take refuge in the chariot of God which stands ready and waiting beside us in every event and circumstance of life. We are told that "God rideth upon the heavens"; and if we would ride with Him there, we need to be brought to the end of all riding upon the earth.
Joseph had a revelation of his future triumphs and reigning, but the chariots that carried him there looked to the eye of sense like dreadful Juggernaut cars of failure and defeat. Slavery and imprisonment are strange chariots to take one to a kingdom, and yet by no other way could Joseph have reached his exaltation. And our exaltation to the spiritual throne that awaits us is often reached by similar chariots.
The great point, then, is to have our eyes opened to see in everything that comes to us a "chariot of God," and to learn how to mount into these chariots. We must recognize each thing that comes to us as being really God's chariot for us and must accept it as from Him. He does not command or originate the thing, perhaps; but the moment we put it into His hands, it becomes His, and He at once turns it into a chariot for us. He makes all things, even bad things, work together for good to all those who trust Him. All He needs is to have it entirely committed to Him.
When your trial comes, then, put it right into the will of God and climb into that will as a little child climbs into its mother's arms. The baby carried in the chariot of its mother's arms rides triumphantly through the hardest places and does not even know they are hard. And how much more we, who are carried in the chariot of the "arms of God:!
Get into your chariot, then. Take each thing that is wrong in your lives as God's chariot for you. No matter who the builder of the wrong may be, whether men or devils, by the time it reaches your side it is God's chariot for you and is meant to carry you to a heavenly place of triumph. Shut out all the second causes and find the Lord in it. Say, "Lord, open my eyes that I may see, not the visible enemy, but Thy unseen chariots of deliverance."
- Hannah Whitall Smith, (1832 - 1911)
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