My heart has been broken many times over the last 8 months.
My heart broke for the families in the Indian slums that have nothing.
My heart broke for the girls working in prostitution in Nepal because they have no other option.
My heart broke for the believers in Vietnam that had to meet under bridges to speak about Jesus because it’s illegal.
My heart broke for the families in Cambodia still recovering from a gross injustice 40 years prior during the Khmer Regime.
My heart broke for those in Thailand stuck in a fruitless religion of giving offerings to idols that are nothing more than dirt and stone.
My heart broke for the Muslims in Albania that pray to a god they see as fickle and driven by hatred instead of love.
My heart broke for the men in Macedonia that are sitting in addiction to drugs and alcohol that just want their lives to end.
My heart breaks again today.
And my heart breaks again for America. For the nation that is using Jesus to fill their own desires, to escape responsibility, to justify things that He would have hated more than anything.
My deepest desire is for our hearts to break for the things that break Jesus’ heart.
His heart breaks for His children that are stuck in hatred, despair, depression, addiction, and loss.
His heart breaks fro the fact that there are people using His name to justify hate, racism, violence, abuse, and murder.
His heart breaks because so many are filled with rage and hopelessness and that even His children, the church, have seemed to forsaken love and mercy.
As Christians we are saints, a holy priesthood, a chosen nation.
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
1 Peter 2:9
We have been RESCUED from our darkness and our shame! The spirit who dwells as love and mercy fills us. We should be desperate for His glory on this earth. We should weep because of the horrors going on in our world today. We should weep for those who know nothing but hatred, weep for those who are stuck in the darkness that we have been pulled from by our Jesus.
We should stretch out our hands to pick up the weak and the broken.
There should be tears from the saints for the lost, unsaved, and blind.
Our hearts should break for the things that break Jesus’ heart. We should be so moved by our love and mercy that we search for ways to love, and see, and help, and bring the healing love of Jesus. To invite others into the marvelous light that we have so undeservedly been delivered into.
This is not a time to argue over details and political opinions, “ifs ands or buts”.
This is a time to take action to mend our world.
Children, in Christ you stand.
Stand in Christ; stand not on political sides, or on your own soapbox on social media. Stand on the Word of our Living God who loves each person just as much the last, and pour out the love and mercy that was poured out on you.
Ironically, the ones who seem most devoid of love are the ones claiming to be Christ followers.
Christians, there is a line drawn in our world now. You must choose to live fully as a follower of Christ in every way. Or you can choose the way of the world.
So many Christians dance along the line that has been drawn, wanting to stand for Jesus but not wanting to be seen as “that Christian”
The time has come where the line is definite and you follow Christ or you reject Him. There is no in-between.
Christ followers, stop standing in the grey. Stop dancing in the lukewarm.
Jesus stood for justice; he stood for truth in the hardest times, and most of all He stood for love.
He stood for love for EVERY person on the planet.
And he stood steadfastly, as should we, even when everything around us closes in.
You do not get to choose when to follow Christ.
And you do not get to choose what a Christ follower looks like. He has told us what it looks like.
It looks like standing in the truth when the world wants you to bend.
It looks like forgiving time and time again when no forgiveness was even asked for.
It looks like loving, and loving with no expectation.
Christians are just sinners, broken and crushed by the world, that know their need for a savior.
Christ followers, stand up for those who are crushed and broken by the world, love them like Jesus and sing the song of the redeemed loudly, for the whole world to hear.
Jesus, break our hearts for what breaks yours.
