Set on a Hill.

Is it possible that God would release His Spirit over you that you would feel as another feels? Perhaps the moments in your life that you don’t know why you are troubled and depressed are the moments of another that are given to you so that you would feel what they feel and truly weep when they weep? So often we say that we sympathize and feel another’s burden and pain. If this were true I think that Christians would be known for their weeping and their love and compassion. Feeling pain leads you to contend for a resolution to pain. Some people choose to numb it with prescription drugs or illegal drugs. Some choose to busy themselves until it isn’t in the forefront of their minds. Some use their pain as a crutch in life and a reason why they are bitter and angry. If we understood the implications of really knowing another’s pain our response would be completely different. My beloved, the Christ bore the weight of sin and sin in the prerequisite to pain. The Christ die from the weight of sin, He died so that we might be free from sin. However, just because we are free from sin does not in any way free us from pain. We live in a sinful world, so although we as Christians may live without sin, we cannot escape from its consequences, pain. Yet we hide from it. We hid in the church building and congregate there, never becoming all that God has called His bride to be. We never call for Him from the streets; you do not find many Christians in strip clubs, bars, porn and sex shops, in the “bad” parts of town, or in corporate America. You do not find them befriending the homeless or the drug addicts, the porn stars or the twisted politicians.

My friends know that as I write this my own heart is convicted and troubled, and I find myself hiding behind the safe walls of Teen Mania.

And know that I am not saying that we are partaking in any of these things, beloved I pray that you would keep yourself pure as He is pure.

But, my fellow brothers and sisters, Christ Himself dwelled among these very people. He did not hide Himself in the Temple walls as the Scribes and Pharisees did, He went out in the streets. You cannot sympathize with people that are suffocating with pain, if you refuse to be recognized with them. Are we not called to be a city set on a hill, and a light to the world? Beloved in the past Christian age we have put a cover over our light and we call it the church (I am referring to the building here not the Bride). 

Isaiah 61 says this, 

“He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners. 

To proclaim the year of our Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion; 

to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair.”

 This is talking about the Christ, whose image we were made in and whose ways we were destined to walk in.

Beloved we cannot keep praying for the heart of God if we don’t want to associate with the people He calling to his heart. We cannot keep saying these empty hearted and empty spirited prayers expecting God to move across this world. It is not enough to want a bigger church building or a bigger youth program. We must forget the buildings and the programs; it is time for a life of selfless, sacrificial love to pour out from us. If God’s love for His sons and daughters would lead Jesus to the cross, we must understand we are headed to our own cross as well, but this life is only worth living if we understand what and who we are dying for. We die to self so that God’s name and personhood would be known, setting all those that are bound by sin free. We die so that the Spirit can live in us and work through us. We die so that others may live.

My beloved if we want the spiritual strongholds that cause people to live in pornography, sex addiction, drugs, alcohol, pride, self-harm, depression, suicide, and all sin, to be demolished, we must live a life of sacrificial and intentional love. Love that will cause us to dwell among pain and sin and not in it. Love that will stir not just a thought and a quick prayer, but a lifestyle of intercession and contending. Love that will not care what people think of us associating with a certain group of people. Love that no man can understand or control. We must love until it causes us pain, and then proceed to love even harder, until it causes us to die.

Beloved, arise and wake up to your destiny.