Did You Know?

Did you know even though our country abolished slavery in 1865 there are more slaves in the world, our nation included, than in any other time in history? There are an estimated 27 million people in the world being bought and sold in the human trafficking industry. It is estimated there are 300,000 children a year at risk of becoming victims of human sex trafficking in our nation….our nation. It is almost too staggering to believe, but it’s true. More people unite to fight for the fair treatment of animal rights than for the rights of these children seen as a commodity instead of a human being.
These victims are on the heart of Jesus. He said He came to set the captives free [Psalm 146:7, Isaiah 61:2]. Jesus chooses to work through His church so we must rise up and take a stand [Isaiah 61:1-3, John 14:12]. What can we do? What can you do?
We can all become a voice for the voiceless and take a stand against the commercial sexual exploitation of minors. There are countless organizations desperate for help in this arena. I would like to tell you about three of them today.
Wellspring Living is an organization that treats victims who have been rescued from the trade. They have three stores throughout Atlanta where you can purchase gently used clothing, furniture and household items. All proceeds go to fund the treatment center. You can volunteer your time at one of their stores, you can donate items to them, or you can give financially to the organization to help restore girls who’ve lost not just their innocence but their lives to this heinous crime. Through Wellspring Living, these young girls are able to take back what the enemy stole from them and become healthy and whole again. www.wellspringliving.org
The Not For Sale Campaign is an awareness campaign that is worldwide. They educate people on the atrocities that take place around the world through human trafficking and equip their volunteers to become modern day abolitionist. www.notforsalecampaign.org
A Future Not A Past is an organization that fights on the front lines by lobbying for new laws to protect the victims and bring the criminals to justice in the state of Georgia. They seek to give hope to the victims and assist them in finding the resources they need for healing. www.afuturenotapast.org
I am not telling you what to do, but we all need to do something. Jesus is counting on us. These young girls are helpless without us. I leave you with a poem a friend of mine, Al Selman, wrote about the girls victimized.

Caught In Traffic
Our prayer has been for your kingdom to come
Your glory in heaven and on earth to be done

We ask for your fire and pray for your rain
Plead for healing, an end from the pain

Some barely notice the children in harm
But you, oh Lord, are there with open arms

Two million a year are caught in the web
Behind locked doors they are drugged and led

They are bought and sold as slaves in trade
To provide the pleasures for minds depraved

In dark rooms of horror their bodies are broken
Night after night their childhoods are stolen

As predators all gather to perform sexual abuse
Their judgment foretold with their necks in a noose

While the leaders all know but turn a blind eye
Just to make some profit, they hear not their cries

A sin so dark it’s hard to believe
The lives of children that men would disease

LORD we cry out to bring an ending
The oppression of children and sex trafficking

So tonight when you tuck in your loved ones with care
Say a prayer of thanks that your child has been spared

Remember the ones still confined to dark rooms
Who live each day with sadness and gloom

We cry out for the ones still caught in the snare
Please give us sweet Lord, hearts that care

He Knew!

Is prayer an active part of your life? This morning when I sat down to write, I felt the Lord wasn’t finished with our conversation about prayer. He wants us to understand how desperately He desires intimacy with us. One of the ways to develop intimacy with Him is through prayer.
Maybe a little confession time will help illustrate my point. It was finals week of my last semester of college. My godfather was in the hospital on a ventilator fighting for his life, I was preparing for finals and my daddy was about to have surgery that was very delicate. Needless to say, I had a lot on my mind. I was a bit overwhelmed and needed to talk through things with someone. I was on my way to visit my grandmother, because she always helped me keep my head on straight. I was almost there. As I came down a hill I saw a police officer sitting on the side of the road. He pulled me over for speeding. I wasn’t doing anything intentional. I simply picked up speed coming down hill and was too distracted to think to correct it. When I got to my grandmother’s house, I was a mess. She and I talked about it and decided it was best not to tell Daddy right before his surgery. I convinced myself that I didn’t want to stress him out and keeping it to myself was for his benefit.
I went to the University hospital with Daddy at the end of the week. We were sitting in the waiting room waiting for him to be called back. Something was said about driving then he turned to me, smiled and said, “What do you think, Little Richard?” The color drained out of my face. He knew. I don’t know how he knew or who told him, but he knew. It all came spilling out like water out of a hose. I told him everything. I didn’t leave a detail out. He put his arm around me and told me not to worry about it, we’d take care of it.
Because he knew, I didn’t have a bit of trouble sharing the whole story with him, details and all. He still loved me, even though he might have to pay a higher insurance premium and a ticket fine. Don’t you see, God knows anything and everything about you. Do not allow the enemy a moment’s victory in keeping you from seeking to build an intimate relationship with God by encouraging you to keep things from Him.
My Daddy already knew about my speeding ticket. He allowed me to tell him because he knew I needed to tell him. He knew I needed to get it off my chest and by telling him about it, I was trusting him with it. I knew he would help me get through it and he would carry the heavy part of the load. He wanted what was best for me and he wouldn’t begin to allow something like a speeding ticket to interfere with our relationship.
God’s desire is for you to passionately pursue your relationship with Him and share with Him all of the intimate details about yourself. Even though He already knows them, He wants you to share them with Him so He can share the experience with you. He also wants you to know the intimate details about Him.
There are many secrets or mysteries, things hidden if you will, about God. His desire is for you to learn them. But you have to be willing to roll up your sleeves and work for those things. You have to invest in the relationship to learn those things.
Jesus is calling you to come chase Him and then He’ll tell all [Jeremiah 33:3]. He tells us in Jeremiah 29:13 “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jesus isn’t a halfway kind of guy. He’s a jealous God by His own admission [Exodus 20:5]. He is looking for the real deal, the person who is passionate about a relationship with Him.
Are you willing to seek Him? Will you tell all and then “be still” so He can reveal Himself to you [Psalm 46:10]? What will you share with Him today?

Got Prayer?

Why do you pray? What are you seeking when you take time to pray? Many people go to God in prayer like they go to Santa Claus at Christmas time. They bring their list of things they want and they ask Him to provide. They don’t stick around to listen to Him or just hang out with Him. George Bernard Shaw said, “Most people do not pray; they only beg.”
Many people create a prayer list like a grocery list. They pull it out and run down the list and mark things off after they’ve prayed for them and then they put their list away and forget about it. A lot of people only pray for special occasions….meals, bedtime and maybe when they’re at church, but that’s it. Graham Dienert said “Many people pray as if God were a big aspirin pill; they come only when they hurt.”
With all of these different ways people approach prayer, I can’t help but wonder why God wants us to pray. So, I asked Him. “Lord, why do you want us to pray?” As usual, He sent me to His Word. Many times we ask God things and get mad because we feel like He hasn’t answered us, when in fact, He answered us in His Word before we asked and is waiting for us to find it.
John 1:1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” One of the main ways God speaks to us is through His Word. The more you know His Word, the more you know what He has to say. You can also use your knowledge of the Word to make certain it is God you’re hearing from.
Jesus told the parable about the Shepherd and the sheep who know His voice [John 10:27]. The way we know the voice of God is by knowing His Word. R. Sibbes said “When we go to God by prayer, the devil knows we go to fetch strength against him so he opposes us all he can.” One way he opposes us is by trying to mislead us. If we aren’t familiar with the voice of God, then we might follow the wrong shepherd by mistake.
When I dove into the Word to see why God wants us to pray, the answer wasn’t hard to find. God is a relational God. He created us for relationship with Him and with others. God created us in His image [Genesis 1:26]. And He created us to be in relationship with Him just as He is in relationship with the Father [John 17:21].
When asked, what did He say the greatest commandment was? Look in Matthew 22 starting at verse 36 and read through verse 38. Then He follows this with verse 39…the golden rule….love your neighbor as yourself. RELATIONSHIP!
Prayer is our opportunity to build, grow and strengthen our relationship with our Lord and Savior. He doesn’t want to be a super hero who rushes in and saves the day and rushes out again; someone we wear around on a t-shirt and dress up as for Halloween. Jesus wants us to have intimacy with Him. He knows every intricate detail about us. Nothing takes Him by surprise. There is nothing about you He doesn’t already know. Hebrews 4:13 says “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” The enemy would love to use that knowledge to bring us under shame so we wouldn’t dare go to God. We need to realize what he means for evil, God will work together for good [Romans 8:28]. If God already knows everything about you, then nothing should keep you from Him. John Bunyan said “Pray often; for prayer is a shield to the soul, a sacrifice to God, and a scourage for Satan.”
Find a quiet place, get comfortable, and strike up a conversation with your Father. He’s been dying to talk with you. There’s so much He has to say to you; but more than that, He simply wants to spend time with you. Will you meet with Him?

Gone Fishing!

Do you like to fish? I’m not particularly fond of it for many reasons. First, you have to bait your hook by taking a slimy, wiggling worm and ram a hook through it causing blood and guts to ooze out. Second, it’s boring. All you do is sit still and wait. I don’t wait particularly well when I’m forced to, so I certainly don’t choose to put myself in situations where I have to wait. Finally, and probably most important of all, you have to be quiet. If you’re not quiet, you scare the fish away. No one has ever used that adjective to describe me and there’s a reason why. I’m not quiet. I’ve been anointed with the spiritual gift of blab. I’m also not still, thus fishing is not for me.
In Matthew 4:19 Jesus says, “Come, follow me…and I will make you fishers of men." Fishing for people sounds like a whole lot more fun than fishing for fish. You still have to invest time in order to be successful, but you don’t necessarily have to be still or quiet. While fishing for fish is something some of us are called to or choose to do, fishing for men is something we’re all called to do [Matthew 28:18-20].
Matthew 13:47 compares the Kingdom of heaven like a net that was let down into a lake to catch fish. The great thing about the story is, the one catching the fish simply has to go fishing and bring in the haul. It isn’t the fisherman’s job to sort out the good fish from the bad fish. God assigns the job of sorting to the angels [vs. 48]. It’s His job to clean them [Psalm 51:7, 10]. All we are responsible for is the catching.
In Luke 10:2 Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” He needs us to get busy doing our job. It’s time to hang the sign on your door that reads “Gone Fishing” and start investing in lives of others and reeling them into the Kingdom. What are you waiting for? The fish are biting!

Being Good Soil

Do you like to be “in the know” about things? Don’t you just hate it when someone is teaching you something and you feel like you don’t have enough understanding to follow what they’re teaching?
Some of the people who sat at the feet of Jesus as He taught felt that way. They would hear Him teach and know in their hearts He was full of wisdom, yet they couldn’t grasp what He was saying. Jesus was well aware of the fact many did not understand Him. He often taught in parables when He spoke to groups of people. In Matthew 13:1-23 we find Jesus teaching the parable of the sower and the seed. His teaching style perplexed the disciples. They asked Him in verse 10 “Why do you use stories as illustrations when you speak to people?”
Jesus clearly indicated not everyone was given the knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom. So, who gains that knowledge? Who gains that understanding? The answer is rather simple, those who seek it out.
Proverbs 8:17 says, "I love those who love Me; And those who diligently seek Me will find Me.” Proverbs 28:5 says, “Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully.” The Lord is more than willing to provide wisdom and understanding, but He will only provide it to those who seek it through seeking Him [Jeremiah 33:3].
When the disciples didn’t understand the full meaning of the parable of the sower and the seeds, they came to Jesus for understanding. We can do the same. How many times have you read something in the Word and found yourself scratching your head thinking, “What on earth does this mean?” God isn’t surface level. He’s depth. He wants to provide wisdom and understand to those willing seek it out. When confusion arises, do what the disciples did. Seek Jesus out and ask Him to explain it to you. He will. He is faithful and just [1 John 1:9]. James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.” If you want to go deeper with God, you can rest easy. You want the same thing for yourself God wants for you and He will do His part. He’s simply waiting for you to do yours.
Matthew 6:33 remind us to seek the King, His Kingdom and righteousness and He will take care of the rest. How will you find out the answers to your question? How will you gain understanding today?

God changes things!

Have you ever read the entire Bible? If you’d like to, there are all kinds of "Read the Bible in a Year" calendars available online and there are even One Year Bibles you can purchase that have broken your reading up by the day for you. I’ve used one of the calendars for the past couple of years. To keep me looking at the Word with fresh eyes, I try and change the translation of the Bible I read each year. I’ve read the NIV, the Message, and this year I’m reading the God’s Word translation.
Yesterday I was reading Matthew 11 and came across a verse that stopped me dead in my tracks. I don’t know if I’ve read it before and just glossed over it or if this particular translation jolted me to pay attention, but verse twenty caused me to pause and ponder.
"Then Jesus denounced the cities where He had worked most of His miracles because they had not changed the way they thought and acted.” Glancing back at other translations, “changed the way they thought and acted” is typically translated repent. Repentance is more than just feeling sorry for what you did. It is turning from it and going a different direction. Seeing the definition of repent spelled out in the God's Word translation really jolted me.
How does it impact you when you see a move of God? Does it cause you to change the way you act and think? The very Word of God is a miracle of God in and of itself, yet many of us read it then we set it down and go on about our day. It doesn’t change who we are or how we think. When we attend church and hear the Word of God preached, do we walk out the door different than we came in or was it just something to do? Something to check off our list for the week?
When God is present and moving, it should impact us, causing us to change. When Moses was in the presence of God, it changed him [Exodus 33:17-34:33]. After Jacob wrestled with God, he was never the same [Genesis :20-32]. Saul, who had been murdering the followers of Christ, was completely transformed after one encounter with the Lord [Acts 9:1-20].
How has the presence of God in your life transformed you? Matthew 7:16-27 warns us some will claim to know Him but He will reply “Depart from Me. I never knew you.” Chapter two of the book of James is all about living out our faith not just claiming to have it. An encounter with God changes things. How has He changed you today?

Remember King David, aka. "KD"

Have you ever had an off day? You know, when no matter how hard you try or give you all, things just don’t go in your favor.
Last night my son played his second of three lacrosse games this week. Monday night he was on fire. Very little got into the goal and he wasn’t just playing defensively, but he made several bold moves that paid off in his team’s favor. Last night he had an off night. He just couldn’t seem to get things going in the right direction. I could tell from his stance, he was mentally beating himself over every goal that went in well after the play of the game moved to the other side of the field. It’s hard not to get defeated and mentally surrender when that happens; however, nothing is gained by mentally joining your opponent’s team in beating yourself. You simply have to let it go. As my daddy used to say, “You can’t saw sawdust.”
King David understood this. In 2 Samuel 12:16 King David fought and pleaded with God for his son’s life. He did everything he knew to do. He refused to eat. He refused to be consoled by the older men who served him. He remained prostrate crying out for his son’s life. On the seventh day, his son died [vs.18]. His officials were afraid to tell him of his son’s death for fear of what he would do; however, his response more than surprised them. It downright shocked them.
2 Samuel 12:20-24 says, “Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate. His servants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!" He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, 'Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.' But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon.”
King David understood he had done all he could to fight for his child’s life. Once it was done, it was done. He could wallow in the past and become ineffective as a king and a husband, or he could move forward and learn from his past mistakes and apply that knowledge to the future.
What about you? Do you learn from your mistakes and move forward or do you continue to beat yourself up with them, giving strength to the enemy’s position in your life? God tells us He removes our sins as far as the east is from the west [Psalm 103:12]. Love does not keep a record of wrongs and God is love [1 Corinthians 13:5, 1 John 4:8]. He doesn’t beat us up when we make mistakes; rather He loves us back to wholeness. So why do we do we beat ourselves up? Why do we place a club in the enemy’s hand and tell him to swing batter, batter, swing?
When things go bad, and every now and then they just do, remember King David and brush yourself off and move forward walking in the grace and mercy Jesus freely gives. Tomorrow is a new day!