Magnify

Old people connected by family ties

to a young virgin girl,

not only a virgin in body,

but surely innocent of the ways of the world.

Old Zacharias did what he knew to be right

and served his Lord but that

shred of doubt made him

deaf and dumb, unable to tell even

Elizabeth the wonderful news

or hear her joy and delight.

Like Zacharias, Mary could not believe

the marvelous truth at first,

but God did not need to shut

her mouth or ears; she and

Elizabeth both pondered

these things in their hearts.

The Holy Spirit so sweetly and

powerfully at work in this

time and place to birth

the only way back

to the God of the world.

Old Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth,

the young peasant girl Mary,

and the babies who would

herald and fulfill the dawn of

salvation; every soul ever born now

able if willing to magnify the Lord

through His Son Jesus Christ.

Amen and amen.

(From Luke 1:5-80, NKJV)

The View

Blindness comes in many forms–physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational. For some, healing happens in stages over expanses of time.

A dear friend of mine has a form of blindness that typically begins early in life. This beautiful young woman cannot see how fearfully and wonderfully and perfectly God has created her, inside and out. Somewhere along the way, the enemy enticed her to look a little too long at the uber-thin, air-brushed, models in magazines and the tiny, botoxed actresses who’ve had teams of make-up artists and lighting directors spending hours making them look “better” than reality. My friend bought in to the enemy’s lie that if she did not fit into a certain size of clothing or look like these models and actresses, she should be ashamed of her looks.

God understands how easily so many of us fall into this trap. We don’t realize that it is a trap when we start comparing ourselves to others whose looks conform to our society’s current standard. The enemy also uses another related ploy to keep us down in the pit of body-shame: he tricks us with false feelings of humility. My friend is kind and considerate, easily puts other people first and has a genuinely humble heart that never boasts or puts herself above others. The enemy can slip in the back door unnoticed and twist our God-given and God-honoring humility into a self-loathing that no longer honors God because it puts the world’s image of what we’re “supposed” to look like above the uniquely wonderful body God actually gave us.

Of course, we need balance too. God expects us to care for these amazing bodies and minds He gave us, and He certainly doesn’t want us to hate someone else because she’s beautiful in the ways our society values most. But He’s given us a roadmap for keeping that balance:

I beseech you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12:1-2 NKJV

I pray that my friend learns to see, over and over again every day, how amazingly beautiful and valuable and perfect she is, just as she is today. I pray that her perception shifts from seeing herself through the lens of the world’s totally unrealistic expectations to seeing herself from heaven’s view–fearfully and wonderfully made in God’s image, beloved, strong, and uniquely perfect. I pray the same for me because I still struggle with that perspective problem too. I pray for anyone who has only seen how they don’t measure up to the world’s standards, that we may each be transformed as God renews our minds to see ourselves through the love of Jesus.

Amen and amen.

Hope Over Heroin (hope over any addiction)

At New Life Church of God in Benton, IL, we are partnering with Hope Over Heroin. The big event will happen in August 2019. Look for much more information to come.

As in Ezekiel’s vision, recorded in chapter 37, we can no longer walk anywhere in this land without stumbling over the dry bones of the lives thrown away in search of more and more poison to fuel the disease of addiction. Our land is scattered with the shells of people whose lives are sucked dry of all hope of any existence outside their prison of addiction. People who used to live and laugh, who used to go to school and work, who used to love others and enjoy life now lay scattered across our land, able only to ceaselessly crawl toward the black hole of death that is addiction.

But, just as Ezekiel saw the valley of dry bones come to life, we too will see the broken, fragmented, buried lives lost to addiction come up out of the graves. God knows how to cause His breath, the very substance of His Holy Spirit, to enter into these dry bones: “Hear the word of the Lord” and live! “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live!” Ezekiel 37:4-5.

God also knows the step-by-step process it will take to restore the fractured, fragmented, useless shells of addicts back into living, breathing, loving, growing people. God is bringing His Holy Spirit from the four winds to “breathe on these slain, that they may live.” Ezekiel 37:9. Once people are delivered from addiction, the toughest work begins. Long after they arise from their graves, they will continue to say, “Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off.” Ezekiel 37:11. So, through the power and might of the Holy Spirit, those set free will have to be convinced, over and over, that they can live and love and be happy, valuable members of our communities again.

We who partner with Hope Over Heroin to battle against addiction must be willing to walk alongside the restored for as long as it takes for God to convince them that He truly loves them and has a plan for them, until they know that the Lord opened their graves and brought them up out of the darkness simply because He loves them. Therefore, we commit to praying and seeing them through so that they will know that God has put His Spirit in them and placed them in their own land to live and breathe again. Ezekiel 37:13-14.

Amen and amen.