Month: July 2012

Rejection

 

Everyone wants to know that they are wanted. There is not a human being who does not share the desire to be loved.

Many people are victims to rejection. Some have the worst experiences with rejection and even till today struggle with a need for acceptance.

Maybe you can relate to a man in the Gospels named Matthew.

Matthew was an outcast. Like many tax collectors, they were the scum of society. They were labelled as traitors, and hated by countrymen.

Matthew understood rejection.

Like Matthew, many rejects glare through the crowds and see themselves as lost among the sea of faces. They feel unwanted and even fear if they were to suddenly die, no one would care.

Matthew receives a visitor. I want to imagine Matthew looking down at his counter, just briefly burying himself  from watching the burning eyes twitch of the people whom came to pay their dues to Caesar.

But he finally gazes up at his visitor and sees Jesus.

Jesus was climbing in popularity. Once a common carpenter from Nazareth, was the great teacher and healer. He has supernaturally raptured a multitude of followers, but today He is standing at Matthew’s tax office. At that moment, I imagine he whirl himself around and has his back against Jesus for sheer embarrassment.

“Jesus?” “What does He want with me?” “Oh please not Him, God! I don’t want to get rejected from Him!”

Rejection for many of us is so common, that the natural thing to do when you counter someone is to just push them away in order to save yourself from a potential painful rejection.

But this visitor doesn’t leave. While His followers whip questions at Him: “Jesus, why are we doing here?” “You can’t possibly want to talk to this guy?”

My mind’s eye imagines Jesus never lost His gaze on him. Matthew even knew Jesus was looking at him. Then Jesus says two words – two words that would change this man’s life forever.

“Follow me.”

I share this story, because it’s message to the people like me who have suffered rejection This is a story of acceptance.

Here is Matthew whom we can call public enemy number one. No one wants him. Yet Someone wants him Jesus.

Jesus accepted Matthew before Matthew ever met Jesus. Jesus doesn’t even give Matthew time to prove himself and win his favor. He looks at the tax collector through his eyes, into his soul and says, “I want you.”

(He brings Matthew into His special 12. Talk about acceptance!)

At the corner of the darkest chasm of your heart where you harbor all the scarred memories that has made you feel so numb to life around you. To the place where only hate gives you affection and loneliness accompanies you. Three words can steal the night of your hollowness and birth the light of hope:

Jesus wants you.

He doesn’t want something from you; He simply wants you. He loved you before you were born (Psa 139:13-17). He loved you while you wandered away from him (Isa 53:13; Rom 5:8).

I and every victim of rejection wants to know that they are loved. And there is One whom loves you “with an everlasting love” (Jer 31:3 NKJV)

He found me at the back of church. I was too young to understand  that you can be a perfect person – throw away your very identity and people will still reject you. He came to me at a time where I felt I had to pretend to keep a friend and never accept myself.  There in the words of an orator, I heard the sweet words that Jesus wanted to be my friend.

No matter where you are, “there is no pit that He is not deepest in”. He will find you and show you true love.*

I really wished that Mark, the writer to this story, would have detailed everything that followed after Jesus’ invitation; but all we have is:

“…So he arose and followed him” (Mark 2:14).

Matthew left his tax office and never looked back. He found acceptance and he embraced it.

We can leave our fear behind and find acceptance in Jesus.

We don’t have to feel unwanted anymore. Jesus loves us. He wants us! He accepts us for who we are.

Jesus said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Revelation 3:20 NKJV).

Give Him a chance: Let Him take you where you are and have Him cradle you in His extravagant love.

*Quote by Corrie Ten Boom, Holocaust survivor and motivational speaker.

50 Christians BURNED ALIVE

“[they] were killed in the church building where they had fled to take refuge. They were killed alongside of the wife of the pastor and [his] children” -Rev. Dachollom Datiri
NIGERIA

Persecution in Nigeria has gone for the worse.

The Christian Post reported yesterday that 50 people were burned alive in their pastor’s home while they were seeking refuge from terrorist attacks by the radical Muslim group, Boko Haram.

Since last week, Boko Haram has unleashed a series of attacks that has swept across 16 villages, killing 100 people. These terrorists have issued a demand for the Christians of Nigeria to convert to Islam or “they will never know peace again.”

More than 5,500 people have fled their homes as the outcome of these attacks.

On the start of the New Year, Boko Haram threaten the Nigerian Church to leave the nation in three days or face open oppression. Since this threat, Nigerian Christians have suffered widespread anti-Christian attacks that has claimed nearly 600 people dead (according to the Associated Press).

WHAT WE CAN DO:

>Pray for a permanent end to this rampant cruelty and injustice.

>Promote public awareness of these social injustices. We have a voice: make it heard.

A Fire Breathing Concert

Just returned from a phenomenal concert which featured some of the newest Christian music artists here in Antigua. All I have to say is:

What a fire.

Such a blazing passion that exhales itself through music and song. I’m so glad that I ignored the headache and dragged myself out of the house to experience tonight.

Acts 13:36 says, ““For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep…”(Acts 13:36 NKJV)

David died, completing the purpose God planned for David. God also says to us: “I know the plans I have for you”(Jer 29:11 NKJV) . God has a plan for every single one of us.

I want to see the world turned upside down in my generation! While I’m still breathing! I want to be a history maker for Jesus!!!

Maybe if I follow my purpose and you follow yours, we will make it happen!

I hope tonight was a flame to birth a wildfire of revival for this nation. “Greater things are yet to come!” (Bluetree, “God of this City”) Days like these you’re happy to be alive!

Placing Security

As much as we want it, life does not guarantee security. Like Israel’s king, David, our lives change for the worse in a moment.

David was on the run for his life. Previously, he was a national hero, slaying the giant Goliath and winning wars; now he was an enemy of the state, a fugitive in his own homeland by the invidious King Saul.

While he “twiddled” under the king’s thumb, David , David professes full confidence in God. He says in one of his escapes, “In You, O LORD, I put my trust” (Psalm 31:1 NKJV)

Where is your trust? I can be the first to pipe “Jesus”, but history exposes me to all the past instances that I turned to resolve my problems on my own.

One time at the TV studio where I intern, I deleted a show sequence we just recorded!- and I remember how I distressed I was. Sadly, talking to God was last on my agenda. It’s the one thing to acknowledge Jesus with our lips and then deny Him in our life.

In the same psalm, the author cries, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.” Some of you will recall that Jesus said some of these same words on the cross. There are words of surrender. At the heat of his trial, David surrender himself to God and called on Him to save him.

David also in passage calls God to be his house of refuge.

Life will hurl its storms, but we have a shelter under whom we can resort. Be secure in God.

Spoil Yourself.

Laura, author of thefulltimegirl blog, has message for both guys and girls that needs to be heard.

thefulltimegirl

Since when did girls have to compete for a man’s attention?? Since when were WE the pursuers instead of the pursued?? Since when did we have to try to look better than the girl next to us and reveal our bodies to catch a man’s eye?? Since when is this ok?

Ok, call me old-fashioned, but back in the good ol’ days, a man pursued a woman. He saw a girl He liked, took the chance and got to know what was inside of her, and spent his time, energy, and money winning her heart. The girl did NOT hand out her heart to any man that walked by. A girl’s heart was an expensive gift.

Girls, I just do not understand why we think that we place any value on our hearts when we shove our selves at these boys. Not to mention shoving our bodies in their faces…

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I Need You = Jesus

20120710-222157.jpgToday, my twin brother and I will be hosting my father’s TV program that broadcasts over Antigua every Thursday. Too be honest with you: last week was very successful. We had a great response. So the temptation I’m having is going there tomorrow and hit out of the ballpark again. Only without God’s strength.

In making myself vulnerable for you, it’s easy for me to rely on myself than consult the Lord for help. I mean you only call Him when things go bad right?

Samson was Public Enemy No.#1 among the Philistines. Whenever he went against them, it resulted with massive casualties (he killed 1,000 men with a donkey’s jawbone!). But there came Delilah.

After three failing tries, Delilah finally enticed Samson to reveal his secret which gave him his strength (which was not his hair, but it was the promise not to cut it). The Philistines showed up again to take out Samson, and Samson said to himself, “I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!” But he did not know that the Lord had departed from him. (Judges 16:20 NKJV)

You may feel you can do it on your own, but the truth is you are only fooling yourself. What may seem like the most simplest of tasks can spiral into an overwhelming mess.

Truth is we need Jesus – every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year. Jesus said,“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15:5 NKJV)

We need Him. I can go to the broadcast, and I choke, or we could be driving there and my tire blows out! Life is so blinded from us! But Jesus is El Roi: The God Who Sees!!!

We need Him more than we can imagine.