His Mercies are New Every Morning

I cannot believe how fast these last 6 and a half weeks have gone! Seriously! My heart is fully alive beating with a steady beat. My heart is full; full of delight, full of laughter, full of grace. My heart is happy. I have never in my life let my guard down long enough, opened my heart up wide enough, embraced friendships with long term expectation, and smiled this much consistently.

I am so in love with this man Jesus! His mercies are more than I can handle! His Love is ridiculously extravegant! He knows me! He knows me! He loves me! He protects! He provides! His voice... oh His voice!! With one word He creates! With one word He breaks chains! With one word He has stolen my heart! I am forever wrecked. I cannot ever live an ordinary life. I must go where He is. I must walk where He has walked. I must be available for disposal. I must die to my desires for others to live. I want to see the broken restored, the deaf hearing, the blind seeing, the dead raised to life again, and the lost saved. Does it really take death for all that? Yes!

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Philippians 3:7-11

A Cry Heard Around the World

I woke up hearing a child crying this morning. He was hungry. He was broken. He was dying. As I was listening I could tell that the boy was getting weaker. His cry had turned into a slow, intermittent moan, as he was short of breath, fighting for the next. I am here lying in my comfy bed. I am healthy, and breakfast is just an hour away. But that little boy who lives on the other side of the planet will die today because he has no clean drinking water. He has no food. He most likely has Cholera, lice, scabies, infected goopy eyes and a myriad of other things. How many times was he raped? How old was he when his parents died? Does he have anyone to hold him and tell him that it’s going to be all right? That sounds like a weird question though, but wouldn’t you want someone to hold you when you were sick and dying and love you and tell you that?

I have to be honest I would not have known that a boy like this really existed until I read the book “Always Enough”, by Heidi and Rolland Baker. They have not only heard a child but millions. Not only do they hear them but see the destitute and do something. I have seen on the news a couple times kids in Africa that have big tummies and have flies all over them. There is part of me that has fought to change the channel that even fights to look away. What does that mean? Am I really that heartless? I think mainly I am just plain old ignorant. I don’t want to even imagine a kid up like this because that is too much for any human to bear let alone a small child. I am blind. I am starting to hear a little so maybe I am hard of hearing and not full blown deaf. This isn’t even an isolated incident. Children of all ages are just like this boy all over the world, even in my back yard. I think maybe the reason that I don’t want to see is because with my physical eyes I don’t see an answer. No one person can help so many? Have I forgotten all together that the Savior of the world is the Great Physician? That He lives inside of me. I can do something! He is the answer. He can feed them and heal them and love them and save them from their misery.

Is it that poverty, brutality and sickness are a new thing? No its not. We as humans though don’t want to know or even care because we live for our own gain. “It’s my right” “It’s about my comfort”. I live in a world where humanism is the religion that is most practiced by western cultures. If I am so concerned with me how can I possibly see or even hear you in your pain?

I can only imagine what the Father must be hearing in heaven, as He knows where everyone of His children is at all times. The moaning must be so intense that it must sound like bees buzzing times a billion at all times. He sees them all. He hears them all. He loves them all.

I am fully convinced that there is no way physically possible that we can fully see or hear like Jesus does unless He himself opens our eyes and ears. And that is what He did in the lives of Heidi and Rolland Baker. He grabbed hold of their hearts and minds and turned all the switches in the on position. Heidi was incapacitated for a week as the Lord gave her His heart. And from that moment she was in overdrive. By loving these dear little ones she has been near death more times to count on both hands. As she has loved the children and held them, she in turn got their lice and their scabies. She got their fevers. But by her actions the child was healed. And usually within six weeks time the child was fully restored from everything. When asked how she kept at it she simply said, “We have nothing to gain by slowing down and trying to hold on to our lives. We give ourselves as a fragrant offering to the love of Jesus, and in return He gives us his supernatural life. We have to stand up and preach to the poorest people on earth, who suffer, starve and die, as most of us cannot imagine. Yet we can confidently preach…

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39””

This scripture makes so much sense to me now that I have read about the Baker’s and how they have given up everything to go and live in Mozambique. They gave up all rights to self. God loved them to death so they could love the least of these to life. They fell in love with the people and this country in South Africa. They took in every child. The broken, the destitute, the unloved, the abandoned and they simply loved them. These children were going to die physically. They were emotionally and spiritually dead. Most if not all have nobody, no family. They live lives of prostitution just trying to get by. These children know neglect and poverty. They know sickness, disease and death. They are very familiar with witchcraft and the occult. They are tormented daily. Mostly they are hungry. They are hungry for love, and desire to know the love of a father. So with their hunger and desperation it makes it easy to preach the gospel. These children I believe are so radically transformed because their hunger and desperation are so huge. These children encounter Jesus. They are healed from their diseases, set free from their addictions, delivered from demonic spirits. They are immediately filled with hope. Some have been caught up to Heaven, encountered Jesus and sat on His lap. They are so filled with a passion to know and love God and now enter into a lifestyle of repentance. These children are the preachers and evangelists that go out then and share the gospel of Jesus to the dying villages all up and down the country. They know what its like to be raped. They know what its like to be beaten, burned, and to be cold and hungry. So they are quick to run ahead to find the broken and the destitute. They walk in great authority because they know what it is like. They can step into the shoes of the dying. And God moves mightily. They walk in boldness. They walk in faith. They walk in victory.

So the key is in the dying. There must be a reckoning. There must be a death. If I want to see the least, the last and the lost know the love of the Father, I must die, and the quicker the better. I must say yes to the death of my wants and desires, only then can I be useful to Him. It’s not an option to die it’s a mandate. In the words of the Apostle Paul as he shares with us the secret to contentment… I can do all things through Him who gives me strength. Lord, help me. Love me to death so I can love others to life.