Redemption?

This is what I'm meant for.

This is abundant life.

Going to sick, dark people, places, and situations and bringing life to where there seems to be little of it.

I have no power over a person's eternal state. Whether they go to heaven or hell.
That is only is God's hands and I am naive and prideful to think that I determine where they go.

Plus, who knows when that time will arise for them. Today or 50 years from now?

But, not only can I, but I am MEANT TO BE Jesus' hands and feet in the current hells that people are living in. Right now.
Today.
This moment that you are reading this.
Literal hells.

Take everything you've learned about hell and try to wrap your head around the fact that people are living in that right now--some physically, some mentally, some emotionally, some spiritually.
And for many of these people, they have all of those kinds of hells at once.
Right now. Not only when they die.


And Jesus said to be his hands and feet and be apart of bringing them redemption and salvation.

Salvation: being apart of saving people from their current hells and trusting their eternal states with the Powerful One because you've done all you can by sharing your time, resources, comfort, and love with them. (I think that this is all Jesus said to do, really. He didn't say you have the power and judgment to send people to heaven or hell eternally, right?)

Redemption: Find the darkness. Open your eyes and look for the horrible people, places, and situations. And figure out what would be light to that darkness. Figure out what would be just a piece of making that messed up stuff a little more whole. What could bring a little beauty to that rubbish? (that is why I posted that picture above: there is a tiny beautiful flower amongst the rubbish we were about to burn in Uganda. I couldn't pass up that image. I pasted it to my journal because it is the image of my own life: a tiny piece of something beautiful amidst ashes.)

Maybe this is a little more easier (and biblical): figure out what you would want someone to do for you if you were_________. (Fill in the blank with any of these: being forced to have sex with people; being beaten every day; enslaved to an addiction that you hated and wanted out of; had no opportunity to an education; forced to sell drugs for your mom since the age of 9 and now "that life" is all you know; forced & brainwashed to kill people at the age of 10; had no idea what a mother or a father was; were just released from prison for a terrible crime you regret but now no one will accept you back into society; had a deadly disease that ate away your organs so you couldn't help anyone or take care of your family; had no water whatsoever, etc.)

Figure out what you would want people to do for you in those situations. (this shouldn't be too hard, its not a trick.)
Take some time to research what the Body of Christ around the world and right around your town is already doing.
Ask the Lord what he wants you to sacrifice (not just financially) to be apart of the Kingdom of Salvation and Redemption.

Simple. (ha)
No rules.
No boxes to fit yourself into.
No boxes to fit Jesus in.
No right answers.

Just ask Him.

Take some valuable time. Be open.
Sacrifice.
BE about salvation and redemption.
Those 2 words that have lost meaning because we throw them around so much.
(so redefine them for yourself if you need to. I had to.)

You want abundant/full/intoxicating life?
What if we stopped trying to figure out what seems natural and comfortable and figure out what Jesus talked most about and did the most?
It seems that will fill you.
And intoxicate you.

Do whatever you need to do to figure it out.

Go through the Bible.

Look at Jesus' life from different perspectives.

Pray pray pray.

Ask the Lord to show us in ways we've never known before.

Research what's going on already.

Pray.


I simply can not think about the undeserved, unconditional love that my Daddy has poured out on me;
I can't think about the people he's used in my life to show me that;
I can't think about the fact that I continually spit in his face and turn from him and yet he POURS out grace on me and blesses me and gives me immense joy anyways;
I can't think about the redemption/transformation of the way I think, the way I love people, the way i do life, the way I struggle through deep, dark things---I can not think about all of that stuff and not feel a beautiful, deep, joyful compulsion to share those same things with people who HAVE NO IDEA they can experience this too!

I'll close with this:

politics or love
can make you blind or make you see
make you a slave or make you free
but only one does it all

and it’s giving up your life
for the ones you hate the most
it’s giving them your gown
when they’ve taken your clothes

it’s learning to admit
when you’ve had a hand in setting them up
in knocking them down

love is not against the law
love is not against the law

are we defending life
when we just pick and choose
lives acceptable to lose
and which ones to defend

‘cause you cannot choose your friends
but you choose your enemies
and what if they were one
one and the same

could you find a way
to love them both the same
to give them your name?

-good ol D. Webb


(this post was originally written 3 years ago but I stumbled upon it 
and it stirred my heart again so I tweaked it and reposted it as encouragement
for myself. Writing things down is good for the soul to look back on.)