Matthew 18:12
“What do you think? If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go and search for the one that is straying?”
The photo on top is Bethany Baptist Church in Snellville, Georgia. While I don’t know what their current attendance is now, but during my years there it’s what most people considered a small church.
It was inside two little buildings and narrow stairways of honesty and confession that I gained my spiritual growth during my middle and high school years. It is where I was developed in the faith.
The summer season of my little girl life is gone and I am now a fully grown woman who is in the fall of her life.
Despite everything, I look back with so much joy and gratitude as I recall fond and everlasting memories of Bethany Baptist-ones that I hold so dear and will cherish forever. They will forever be etched on the tablet of my heart.
I am no longer that lost and wounded teenager, although I don’t always feel it. There are times I wrestle with the thought that I should have spoken up and therefore am to blame for the abuse was my fault. It will be a lifetime journey of healing from it.
I know can’t go back to where I’ve been and remain the same.
So what about now?
The Lord has faithfully lead us to a new church home. Every week I go, it is not lost on me that I need it just as desperately now as I did back then. I am experiencing something extraordinary and different. But it is also challenging me by stretching me beyond my level of what I foolishly believe to be unnecessary interruptions and inconveniences.
But the good news is that He makes all things new!
I am rediscovering a sense of renewal and hope, through our new church (which we’ve been going to for two years). Inside the four walls, though made of brick and mortar, there is an agent of healing, restoration, family, and fellowship that I’d been lacking for a number of years.
As was the case many moons ago, God continues to mold me and ever-so-gently takes me from the teenage girl in these buildings into a woman who is in passionate pursuit of her first love, which means prayer, the Word and fellowship with other believers. It also means that I go outside the four walls to be a beacon of light for His glory and the salt of the earth.
That means:
•Feeding the hungry
•Giving them a drink
•Inviting them into my home.
•Clothing the naked
•Caring for the sick
•Visiting prisoners
He knew what it would take to redirect my steps so that they lead to the most beautiful body of Christ. He planted and rooted me there where I grow in grace, mercy, compassion, and love.
I constantly strive to lay down the past (and present) thought patterns, behavior, and beliefs that are contrary to His word- lies that contradict His promises, faithfulness, and truth.
He’s always done and always will do whatever it takes to experience intimacy and sole dependence on Him.
I’ve previously bought into the lie that if I just tithe, spend enough time praying, not say imperfect words, and other fleshly works, that I will never be sick, and will have unmerited favor with man, and I will never be broke. The truth is that sometimes the bills won’t get paid, sicknesses will happen, and you will fail miserably trying to say all the right things 24/7. You won’t always have favor with man because some people will never like you no matter what you do or say. Sometimes it’s simply your smile.
In order to grow in Christ, we must have valleys, betrayals, and laying down idols that we don’t want to let go of. The pathway to authentic relationship and communion with the Father is rarely what we thought it would look like.
I submit to you that our growth and intimacy in the Lord is the result of hardships and garden moments when we cry out to God and beg him to let the cup of suffering pass us by. We ultimately have a choice of surrendering, and praying, “Not my will, but yours be done.” I don’t know about anybody else, but that’s a scary prayer for me because I am ultimately inviting Him come and turn my life upside down. No more flesh, and what I consider to be a comfortable Christian. It means coming to the end of myself and trusting that He is who says He is and will do in me that which only is beneficial to Him and brings Him glory.
The Apostle Paul said,
“I count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.”
He is jealous for us. We can have no other gods before Him. as His beloved children, to return home as the prodigalto of deep relationship that is born of relationship and communion.
His Holy Spirit ever so gently whispers that I can fully, and without reservation, trust my Shepherd-the One who leads me beside still waters, guides and refreshes and restores my soul. I am guided by His hand in paths of righteousness. He is with me in the valleys and the mountain tops. I proclaim that His mercy and goodness will follow me all the days of my life.
These promises and so many others stir within me a much deeper faith and creates a desire not only to follow My Jesus but to do so passionately as I pursue Him with my whole heart, whole soul, whole mind, and whole strength no matter the cost. It is so worth it no matter how expensive.
How many times has He has left the 99 to come after me? There is no number that exists in the universe.
Nothing separates us from God’s love:
•Not the mistakes made unintentionally and intentionally.
•Deliberate sin
•Rebellion
•Comparisons
•Disobedience
•Jealously
•Stubbornness
•Unforgiveness
•Envy
•Lacking intimate time with Him through the word and prayer
•MY PAST
Romans 8:38-39 assures us that we are forever bound to the heart of our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Time after time, in my feeble attempts to think I know what’s best for me You continually remind me that Your ways are higher than mine and Your thoughts are higher.
Thank You for leaving the 99 to still come after one.....me…..and you.
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