Contributed by Brett Ahern
Help!
So near, the pain too intense. I can’t take it anymore! Drowning in tears. Someone, anyone, please HELP ME!
The cry of dying hearts sobbing; familiar, yet so all alone.
It’s happening all around us. Hearts shrivel and die; their cries barely recognized.
What to do?
God told Moses at the burning bush, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So, I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3) I’m sending you in to release them from their slavery. Here’s the play…
Moses balks. “Wait! You’ve got the wrong man, coach. I’m not an athlete anymore. I bailed when I failed 40 years ago in Egypt. I don’t even know the lingo now.”
Too often we feel like failures, with broken hope, no longer believing anything can really change; hunkering down in maintenance mode.
We respond, “But I have good reason to feel this way.” Yeah, Moses did too. Rescued from death for a noble purpose, he grew up in the reigning family in Egypt, a prince with great potential. All this died the day he rashly killed someone in defending a slave, one of his own people, while he was exploring his own role in their future. Then exiled and a mere shepherd in a desert wilderness. Forty years later, at 80 years old, God is calling him in to the purpose of his life.
God knew something Moses didn’t. God designed us with a high capacity for new beginnings, so we can exit slavery and come into unity with Him, to full living.
Moses needed a burning bush experience to reveal to him that, like the bush, you too can respond to the call and not be consumed. Maybe that’s why the closing testimony of Moses’ life includes: “He died 120 years old and his sight and hearing did not fade one bit.”
We too can be planted in service to God’s heart for peoples’ cries. We too can have an on-fire heart, dancing in delight with God’s creative possibilities. God’s heart wants us to cry out for the restoration of the destroyed ones. Proverbs 8, Isaiah 58:6-12
It’s time to put to death every reason, reluctance and resistance to God’s call. It’s time to love people with your life. It’s time to spring forward into the truth of who God can be for us, so we can testify to others the enormity of His capacity to bring this real life to them too.
Self-crucified (Luke 9:23), the seed dies (John 12:20-28), so God can resurrect harvest laborers (Matthew 9:35-38), who love in the same manner as He has loved you (John 13:34).
Nobody is called to be a decoration on the wall. Jesus’ mission is still the same and applies to all of His Body.
Luke 4:14, Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through the whole countryside. 15, He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. 16, He went to Nazareth, where He had been brought up, and on the Sabbath Day, He went into the synagogue, as was His custom. He stood up to read, 17, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. Unrolling it, He found the place where it is written: 18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20, Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on Him. 21, He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
It’s Passover time! Exit slavery, begin your 7-week journey to Pentecost and receive a fresh anointing of the Spirit-filled life. It takes the Spirit-filled life to do the works of the Spirit. It’s time to miraculously heal dying hearts!
May God bless your quest!
You can read a poem, “The Victim”, in the Make a Scene section of this paper, for the poetic version of this article.
To discuss this and other aspects of personalizing Passover, you can reach me at brettact2@earthlink.net.
