Jonathan.

Today was that day. 

This morning was a little different than most mornings. I woke up late, feeling slightly rushed, but preceded to quickly have brekkie and spend sometime with Jesus, read my Bible and pray about the day. They told us the night before that we were going to evangelize at ‘the stoplight’ with another team. I knew G-d was going to do something great and I asked Jesus to give us His eyes and ears. Everyone looks ready; food ready to be given out, Bibles in hand, and then before we leave, we pray. 

I didn’t know what was about to happen, but I felt freedom. 

I knew G-d was about to change someone’s life. 

His name is Jonathan. 

A young man with dark hair, bandage across his nose, his dark eyes pierced into the dirt, ashamed to look up. Broken, but ready. There was something about this man; I was drawn to him and I knew it was because G-d wanted to speak with his son.
Our translator Amy casually began conversation and asked him why he was out on the street. His response with slight snickering from his friend, “stealing.” 

Immediately, I heard the Holy Spirit say, “He was raised in a Christian family. He’s ashamed.” 

So I asked Amy to ask him if he was raised in a Christian home, sure enough, he was. He said he had gone to prison for eight years. I opened my mouth and no longer was Dura McKnight speaking, but now G-d was speaking, “Do you know that G-d calls you a son? That he loves you and does not look at your past but sees you as His and He loves you. You no longer have to be ashamed.” 

I proceeded to tell him about the story of the prodigal son and how he has been that prodigal son, but G-d is ready and has been waiting for His him to come home. 

Jonathan began to weep.
I told him his family loves him and it was by no accident that we are here today with him. We are here because G-d wants his full attention and his mom has been desperately praying for him. We then asked him what do you need freedom from, “Addiction to drugs.” 

We begin to pray and Jonathan begins to cry harder. 

As we’re praying, I felt something lift up off of this man and he then recommitted his life to G-d. After we finished, we individually came in and embraced him.
He stood up looking like a different man. In that moment Jonathan was set free from the addiction to drugs and he’ll be joining us for church on Sunday. 

We serve a very real G-d who sets people free, who calls the lost home, and breathes life into the dead. 

Jesus isn’t some character in a book that we read about, He’s a real man, who is really G-d, who sets people free, binds up and heals the broken. 

I serve a G-d who transforms men addicted to drugs and calls them sons. 

I serve a G-d who takes prostitutes off the streets and calls them daughters. 

I serve a G-d who takes normal or ‘average’ people and releases them to change the world for His namesake. 

We don’t have time to waste. 

People are dying and going to hell and I’m sick of watching it happen. 

G-d has a plan and a purpose for your life whether you’re like Jonathan who has been in prison and was addicted to drugs or you live a ‘pretty good life’. Regardless of how well you have yourself put together or don’t, the reality is you need Jesus. 

Not only can He set you free, but He will also give you life to the fullest now and for eternity. 

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” 

[John 8:36] 

“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 

And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: The old has gone, the new has come! 

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 

 [2 Corinthians 5:17-20]