Ezekiel 34:16
I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
The kingdom of God is soooo backwards from the rest of the world. When we choose to live in dedication to God and choose virtue some have insulted the followers of Christ by calling them backwards. My friends, that is not an insult.
Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
While I generally don’t watch much news, the bits that I do catch often make me shake my head wondering what people are thinking. It often seems like our communities have totally lost their minds as they jump headfirst into sin. As they come up from the cesspool they have the arrogance to brag that life is better with a life covered in sickness, pain and destroyed families. Working with the homeless, I come in contact with those that demand that they serve their family member who is very high, very mentally ill or in some way dangerous. They will use the same phrase if they don’t get their way, “You call yourself a Christian?” When I ask about their own faith walk they fall silent. When I ask about why this loved one can’t stay at their house they always have an excuse but comes down to the fact that their loved one is dangerous and they don’t want to push them to get real help. They often leave my place with their loved one and then bad mouth me on social media.
But it is these very people that Jesus is looking for. Love your enemies. All of humanity has hurts, habits and hangups. We are all desperately in need of a savior. Jesus is looking for them in all of the dark places that we are afraid to go to. When He finds them He will bind up their wounds and begin the process of strengthening them. His goal is to reinstate them into His Kingdom and also allow them to be part of our community once again. You see the person coming out or living in the cesspool is generally not accepted into society. They are outcasts. The person that knows God, wants what God wants, and He wants them welcomed back into the family. For the followers of Christ let us go into the darkness and share the light. Now don’t be foolish, bring men and women of God with you. But we are commanded to go out into the world and love those despised souls and entice them back into society.
For those that claim they are followers but choose to live in the cesspool or choose not to go retrieve the lost. The rest of our opening verse is for you. Jesus loves these men and women. We must not forsake them. We must not write them off as hopeless and simply push them away. Our role is to go out and connect with them, to be Jesus with skin on to these hurting souls. We don’t go to them as superior. We go to them as fellow broken souls. Listen, understand them and woo them to the Kingdom.
