Serving Rascals, Clumsy Disciples, and Physically and Mentally Ill Believers with the Unconditional Love of Jesus Christ
It’s time to attach faces to numbers. In less than 24 hours, 1577 will commit suicide. If you look closely, you can see faces.
As believers, these are our business. They are God’s business. Be aware of this. And pray.
For more valuable information see:
http://www.facebook.com/puttingafaceonsuicide AND http://nami.org/
“Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.”
Hebrews 7:25
This defies reason. No matter how diseased your spirit, or black and vile your sin, Jesus reaches you. He takes extreme cases, and loves each person who comes. Mercy is the real currency of the Kingdom of God.
“Our Saviour kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, ‘I can clean that if you want.’ And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes our sin.”
Max Lucado
The Kingdom is thriving. “Where sin abounds, grace abounds even more.” The behavior of our Lord is astonishing. He cleanses us daily from the sin and darkness we commit. He stands in a place of intense intervention for us. He is a gifted intercessor and prays consistently and efficiently.
Dialysis is a medical procedure that works to cleanse and purify a person’s blood. Those with sick kidneys can hook up to a device that filters out toxins and wastes out. It is an intervention that exists until a healthy kidney can be found. Often, in times of prayer and worship, I picture my own heart being cleansed from sin. People sometimes miss their dialysis– this can lead to confusion and mental impairment. You might say that Jesus is God’s mechanism for healing my soul.
Being touched by Him is the only reason we live. We have no reason and there is no relevance without being with Him. Our issues (which some call weaknesses) are His way of blessing us. “In our weaknesses, we become strong”.
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I’m personally convinced that living life is all about “trial and error.” We seem to be working out some holy experiment. More orthodox people call it discipleship, but that really isn’t the whole truth. It seems we are working it out in a spiritual lab keeping the good (like humility) and tossing the bad (like selfishness.)
We also experience blisters from “near-brushes” with God’s flames. About 30 years ago, I set myself on fire. I was in my little cabin in Alaska, and woke up on a January morning. It was cold, beyond cold. I set up the coffee pot and opened the oven door to get warm.
I turned my backside to get warm from the oven heat. It was then the fire set my sweater on fire. I went up like a candle. I couldn’t get the flames off my back. I tried to drop and roll, and all that happened was that I pressed the burning sweater into my back. (I also caught the carpet on fire.)
The pain was intense. I was panicking. We had an inside bathroom, and the shower was one of those massage kind with a long hose. By this time the flames were shooting up my back, over my shoulder and into my hair. I couldn’t pull of the tight sweater (which was acrylic and was melting on my skin.)
It took a little bit of time to get the water to flow through the hose– and I was burning to death! The water finally made its inexorable way to the shower head, and at last I found relief.
“He makes his angels winds,
and his ministers a flame of fire.”
Hebrews 1:7, ESV
The night before I read that particular verse, and spent some time thinking about it. I’m certain I read if before, but somehow it seemed I was reading it for the very first time. “A flame of fire, how very odd,” I thought.
This was of those strategic points for me as I was wondering about any kind of “full-time” ministry. The irony certainly wasn’t lost on me that next morning when I flared up like a torch.
I ended up in the hospital with a lot of 2nd and 3rd degree burns down most of my back. It took a long time to heal, and I have some serious scars. It took many years before I could expose these burned areas to the sun.
Most of what I learned, was that I was a “marked man.” That our Heavenly Father was not adverse to using anything in my life, as long as it didn’t kill me. (I’m thinking of the Book of Job here.) There was such a slow healing, and it hurt so bad, that I must believe it was quite significant. So its trial and error–and sometimes fire.
“The agony of man’s affliction is often necessary to put him into the right mood to face the fundamental things of life. The Psalmist says, ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I have kept Thy Word.'” Oswald Chambers
“The Lord afflicts us at times; but it is always a thousand times less than we deserve, and much less than many of our fellow-creatures are suffering around us. Let us therefore pray for grace to be humble, thankful, and patient.” John Newton
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“And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Mark 2:17, ESV
We get ‘schooled’ when we try to figure out Jesus. It is a radical adjustment to process His thoughts and motives. We watch and try to understand. Jesus dictates a certain level, and we as His disciples will need to adjust. Jesus declares that a select group will not need a doctors ministrations. But the doctor does have a role. There will be the ‘sick’, who need his attention.
The reality is that many are diseased and ill. It is something that links and connects us to each other. We are desperately sick, and we have no medicine. Jesus steps forward and intervenes. He takes us and ministers to us in our desperate condition. The diseased will be made healthy.
Jesus reaches ‘the sick’. That is who He wants. He makes the choice and that choice is us, full of infection and pain. His Kingdom consists of those who understand their illness. He bypasses the strong and the healthy. He spends little time with them. His heart is set on us who are broken and twisted. Our cancerous bodies have absolutely nothing to give Him.
His Kingdom is full of sick people. It, in a sense, is full with the ‘terminally ill’. It is we who have ‘attracted’ Him. Yet He has intensely sought us out. We gather like little chicks to his protective wings. We honestly do not have the ability even to protect ourselves.
Jesus declares that He has come for us. Sin is very near to us. We have the infection and we are completely vulnerable. We are not strong spiritually. There are many who excel before us. We can make no claim to anything of significance. But He has chosen us. Sovereignly and specifically. Strongly and decisively. He has collected us and brought us to His heart.
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Broken Believers 