Depraved  Indifference and The Father's Heart

Long, but so good 

I love this video.  My friends Matt and Rachel played it on Orphan Sunday, the day that marked the change of everything.  I feel this kind of crazy, climbing the walls desperation when I think of our babies in Ethiopia.  I think Eric Ludy does a great job of expressing the desperate, reckless-abandonment kind of love God has for us and wants us to have for the broken around us.  Although this video is a great wake up call for the church to stop looking at themselves and start looking at the hurting around us, please don't take it as being condemnation or a "you need to be doing more stuff" kind of message.  

Jesus said "My yoke (the things oxen wear around their necks when they're working for their owners) is easy, and the burden I give you is light."  -Matthew 11:30  

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10  "For we are God's masterpiece.  He has created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things He planned for us along ago."  The second part of Ephesians 2:10 is something a lot of Christians miss, or simply don't get.  The Lord has prepared the good works, and we are simply to walk into them when they present themselves!  No striving, no performing.  When we get stressed about "being good" and try to do things in our own strength we are working out of pride and not relying on Jesus.  We are to be sensitive to the prompting of the Holy Spirit so that when we encounter a good work God has prepared for us--from before the beginning of time--we simply walk into it.  

My mother is an amazing example of this, and she has been an excellent mentor to me.  Two examples that immediately come to mind:  about a year ago she was picking up one of her purses? watches? (can't remember) that was being repaired by a local jeweler.  While in the store she watched a young girl with  a baby trying to sell her thin, gold wedding band.  The jeweler told her it was only worth $20, and she ran out of the store weeping.  My mom ran after her, hugged her, and met her needs--both financial and emotional/spiritual.  The second occurred at a grocery store near my parents' house.  My mother doesn't usually shop there, but for some reason she chose to go there that day.  When it came time to check out an elderly man, impeccably dressed, was in front of my mother in line and was trying to pay for his groceries with food stamps, but he didn't have enough.  My mother could sense the humiliation and despair pouring out of this man, and she told the cashier to add this man's cart of groceries onto her bill.  You see? Effortless--no striving or stressing on her part--good works prepared for her to walk into before the beginning of time.  I can also recall a couple of times throughout my childhood when down-and-outs who had no place to go were brought into our home for a meal and a bed.

Once you really, truly, fully grasp just how sweet and ferociously (marked by unrelenting intensity) strong the love of God is, once you start to understand who He is, you can't help but love Him back.  Don't look to some broken Christians who twist the message of Christ to be your example of who He is.  Seek Him for yourself, and see what you find.  He loves you just as intensely--or maybe even more so--if you have told Him to eff off, that you want nothing to do with Him, that you don't believe in Him.