Dear India

Dear India,

I'll never forget you. Our relationship was an extreme roller-coaster ride, but the lows were always my fault, not yours. You showed me what it was to be a servant. Through you, God worked in me a servant heart. He wanted me to learn to serve Kolkata, and that I did. So much of my old self died with you, learning how to sacrifice my needs, comforts, rights, and selfish ways. Through learning how to put you first, I've realized I can now probably put anything and everything first. You were a great challenge to me, forcing me step out in faith alone, causing me to put my faith into action. Through serving you, I had to cling tight to my faith in Jesus as protector and lover of my soul, and sure enough, here I am on the other side not only unharmed but a better person. I shed a lot of my old self and old ways while there with you and now you have my heart also.

I think you are beautiful and I hold so much hope for you! I see Jesus working hard in your midst Kolkata, shoving His way through any door that will even crack open to Him! Please turn to Him so you will be fully restored, shining in the brilliance of the India that you were always meant to be, reflecting a very distinct flavor of God that only you can show! I long to see you with God's kingdom reign, with Jesus as the King of your nation, and oh, how beautiful you will be! How exotic and wild, gorgeous and rich! Not even the British who held you in splendor could have even fathomed your full potential. I see deep jewel toned colors, gold and silk, clean streets that sparkle and shine! No poverty, no illness, no caste system, no false gods, no idols! Just a beautiful, exotic Indian nation praising and worshiping Jesus! You are meant to shine India! You are meant to be breathtaking!! I pray the work of the cross over you... May you become what you were always meant to be!!

Love always,
Kellie

PS I gave you my all, and I can only pray that that made some sort of lasting impact within you. My hope is that my work glorified Jesus, making Him better known to you.

Howrah Station, Kolkata India

Getting to work with Life Connection ministries and the Howrah children was such an amazing experience! God did some major work in me during that time and I'll never forget it. There are over 200 children orphaned at Howrah train station currently. Most of the kids have no idea how they even got there. They have no choice but to live cruel lives of survival, much like the survival of the fittest, so it is a very violent, tragic, and animalistic style of living for these children. There are about 50 girls, but mostly boys, and all the children seem to be highly addicted to glue huffing. Huffing glue suppresses their appetites, which is the initial reason for partaking in it, but it doesn't take long for these children to become horribly addicted.

Death is no stranger to these children. Some die from rolling off of rooftops in their sleep to 100+ feet below. Many fall on train tracks getting cut literally into pieces, while others are murdered by other boys in fits of rage. Just the night before we arrived at the station, two boys died from huffing too much glue on a train causing them to become disoriented and they fell from the train onto the tracks of the express train coming from the opposite direction. They were hit and both boys died instantly.

They collect bottles around the train station to make money. 3 bottles = 1 rupee. With this money they buy mostly glue, but some food as well. The girls at the train station seem to have it the worst. The seek out the older boys who have more money and offer themselves for glue or for basic survival needs. They will also marry very young, around 12, to find some feeling of safety in being protected. One girl that I spent some time with, Najne, was only 15 and had already had 4 or 5 miscarriages. She would get pregnant by her husband and then huff so much glue during each pregnancy she would lose the baby every time. Even while we were there spending time with them, they were pouring glue onto clothes right in front of us. I don't even know if they know how to hide it.

While all this is happening in the Howrah train station where literally millions pass through every day, these children remain unseen. They are considered the "untouchables" of the Indian cast, and most wouldn't even take the time to look down on their existence because surely it was karma that put these children in that place to begin with. The tragic stories of the kids don't even make the local paper. They are unseen, unheard, and unloved - they are voiceless. Even though they went so long without being seen or loved by people, God saw them and loved them, and created a plan!

Life Connection ministries was started by a Indian Christian missions family who felt called to Kolkata and didn't even know why. Through obedience in following, Jesus led them straight to Howrah Station and to the children there. God is so good! Life Connection is only now getting up off the ground, having started only two years ago, and has only 9 full time staff members of whom are all family. They are fueled by volunteers, but there the field is plentiful and the workers are far too few. They go to the station 3 days a week to spend time with the kids, loving on them and doing whatever they can to win their trust and respect. 2 days a week the ministry invites the children into their ministry house to bathe them, give them new clothing, shave their heads (most have a bad case of lice), feed them, play with them, and to teach them about Jesus. When I was there, there were 10 kids who decided to stay with the ministry full time. These boys told the staff that they didn't want to go back to their lives at the train station, so they have taken these boys in full time, and there was one more boy added in the week that I was there. We helped to teach these boys not only more about Jesus and the love of God, but also English, math, and writing.

It was such a privilege and honor to get to work with this ministry, and during my time spent with them God worked so much in my heart. As I learned to lay down my rights, comforts, and needs for these beautiful kids, they won my heart over completely. Now if you knew me, you would know what a HUGE deal that is! Let's just say I'm not a kid lover. :) But these kids seriously were some of the most beautiful, giving, and loving children that I had ever met in my entire life. It blew my mind really. They wound up being the highlight of my day and the joy they brought me was like no other. There were a few in particular that I so badly wanted to take home with me! I wanted to save them from their lives, but I don't believe that's what God has planned for them. Their ministry will be most likely right there in India. What powerful testimonies they will one day have! World changers they will be! You don't grow up in that kind of a life, find Jesus, and then become mediocre about Jesus and what He has done for your life! They will have passion and zeal!! I know it with all my heart! God bless those precious children!

I long to raise awareness for this ministry. The stories I could tell about the staff members and their financial struggle breaks my heart. The church in India is very small and poor, so support is minimal at best, and these workers give their whole lives and hearts to this cause. They work seven days a week to care for these boys with no breaks or holidays. They need help! Nabin, our contact and leader of Life Connection, even asked if I would come back and work with them full time. I promised that I would at least raise awareness for their cause and do what I could, and I don't want to break that promise. These missionaries work so hard, you wouldn't believe it! The contacts that we were with would sleep whenever they could get a chance. On the trains, buses, taxis, whenever they weren't moving. All in all, they know and I know that God is good and that He will provide because this all was His will and plan in the first place.

Again, 50% of my art sales will go directly the Life Connection family to sow into their ministry and what God has called them to do! I also have their direct contact info if you are interested in supporting them directly, just let me know. There are some photos attached!!

Love to all!!

Kellie

Are you thirsty??

Are you thirsty??

Through my studies recently, God has been speaking to me so much about water! He has been emphasizing that Jesus is the fountain of living water, so here are some scriptures that go with my thought process right now.

“My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” (Jeremiah 2:13)

“Jesus answered, ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” (John 4:13-14)

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” (John 7:37-38)

Many times I have prayed the prayer, “Jesus, I want to be thirstier for you (yes, thirstier is a word) Please make me thirsty!” Even though I believe that this prayer is legit, I feel like God had shifted my focus on that prayer, that it wasn’t quite right. I used to think that if I wasn’t thirsty for him, then I just wasn’t thirsty. See, I think the truth is that I am thirsty; I believe that I’m very thirsty, but I go to other sources for water expecting that it will satisfy.
There seems to be something unique about the water that Jesus has to offer. Jesus’ water offers life, and promises that you won’t be thirsty again. Not only will you not be thirsty again, but you will be so satisfied that it starts bubbling up and overflows like a river from within you. Dang! Seriously, give me this water! That was the plead of the women at the well, and is now mine as well! So maybe if we feel incomplete, inadequate, unfulfilled, unhappy, broken, lacking, insecure, unloved, etc., could we possibly be drinking the wrong source of water? Could we be going to other sources for water outside of Jesus, and we are still left feeling thirsty?

This is the vision I have. I believe it goes all the way back to Eden
“And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Gen. 2:9)
I think that fruit and water is pretty interchangeable, so also is being hungry and thirsty in the bible. I find it beyond interesting that there were two trees in the middle of the garden, the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So could we possibly say that Jesus with the fruit of the spirit was in the middle of the garden, and so was our enemy, Satan, with his fruit? Take that into consideration, metaphorically speaking. So this second tree, it looked good for food, it looked pleasing to the eye, but God told Adam, “Don’t eat of it, or you will surely die!” That sounds like a pretty intense reality check to me. “Don’t eat its fruit Adam! You will die if you eat it!!” To me, that sounds more like, “Kellie! Don’t jump off the cliff Kellie! You will surely die!!” So here is my response, “Geez! God is so controlling!! Who is he to tell me what I can or can’t do!? Jerk! I’m gonna jump!”

So we all know the story, the fruit is eaten. Satan tempted Eve with this fruit that looked real good to the eye. What were they tempted with? Their temptation was to have their eyes opened, to be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil. It seemed good for nourishment, so they went for it. After they ate, their eyes were in fact opened, and they realized that they were naked, so they tried to hide their nakedness and hid themselves from God because they were full of shame.

Could we surmise that the fruit that Satan tempted them with, the fruit that they ate of was poisonous? They ate a poisonous apple that brought sickness and death to their bodies. Something in them died that day. What was God’s response to this? “Who told you that you were naked!?” He immediately recognized that they were lied to. God didn’t tell them that they were naked; they told Him that they were. It seems they then had a very distorted view of good and evil. God said it was good that they were naked, but after eating the fruit offered, they felt as though it was evil. I don’t believe that they even recognized their nakedness until the shame crept in. Could it be that their nakedness represented their unashamed relationship with God? Could being naked in front of God mean being fully open, fully real, fully free in love, and fully vulnerable to him? Like a little child that has no sense of self awareness, they just do everything so unchecked, so sure of themselves; could God desire this kind of confidence with him? It’s not until we are older that the world makes its way into our minds, polluting us, or when Satan starts to lie to us and we believe him, and that is if you were lucky enough to grow up in a healthy home. Back to the point, David danced naked and completely unashamed in worship to God, and he was called a man after God’s own heart. It seems so much more natural to hide from God, to cover ourselves with leaves, the leaves of good works, false humility, you know, putting on the show, or cleaning the outside of the cup? Could we call that legalism? Do you catch what I’m saying? God doesn’t want us to hide. He longs for us to be open and honest with him, because he can’t change us if we aren’t honest with him and with ourselves. So yes, they were naked, but God intended it to be that way, but Satan tempted them into disobedience and filled them with shame of sin, so they became aware of their nakedness and hid.
So after they became aware of their nakedness he said, “Cursed are you!” Again, sounds like a pretty big reality check. “Adam, Eve, you are cursed!” That is not the same as “I CURSE YOU wicked little wretches!” by the way. God was simply stating to them the reality of the consequences of their actions. When you eat a poisonous apple, or when you drink polluted water, the reality of what happens to you are the consequences of sickness and possible death.

So what is the point that I am trying to make? First off, I don’t believe that God ever intended us to know the difference between good and evil. We are so preoccupied with what’s right and what’s wrong, or what’s good and what’s evil, that we can’t even love one another anymore. I believe that eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil gave us permission to come into agreeance with Satan and his lies, choosing for ourselves what is good for us and what is not, and that was never God’s intention for us. Now we have no choice but to discern between good and evil in order to make good decisions for our lives, to come back into agreeance with God. That is what repentance is; it is acknowledging that we have turned from God in our lives and it is coming back into agreeance with him, saying that we agree with him and believe that his way is the best way for us. Repentance leads to obedience, which leads to a restored, free, naked and unashamed relationship with God.

See, when Satan tempts us, he is offering us fruit that looks good to the eye, but when we believe him, when we buy into his lie, when we eat of his fruit, a piece of us dies, and we are filled with shame, so as a result, we hide from God. We separate ourselves from God, from relationship with him. When we are disobedient to God, we are turning away from the reality and truth of this world that God speaks over us, so then we are coming into agreeance with Satan and what he says is good, eating the poison that he feeds us. Disobedience is believing Satan and what he says is good for us over believing God and what he says is good for us. See, I believe that we can choose to eat the fruit of Jesus, from the tree of life, and gain life, or we can eat the poisonous fruit Satan offers and die inside. Disobedience leads to sin, and sin is settling for something less than what God has to offer us.

Faith was what God desired from his people for restored relationship in the Old Testament. Abraham had faith, and it was credited to him as righteousness, but by the time that Moses led the Israelites out of the desert, they had such a distorted view of reality, God had to give the law to them so that they could know again the difference between good and evil. God’s own people didn’t even know anymore, so the law was written to mirror sin. It was meant to bring life, but since we were never meant to discern good from evil in the first place, it only brought death. It is impossible to earn our way back to God, so mankind desperately needed a savior!
Jesus came to restore our relationship back to God! He came in the very image of God, showing us His true character and nature. He came and was filled with grace and truth, that is, unconditional love for mankind and the truth of this world! He came to set us free from the bondage of sin and to lead us back into fully restored relationship with God through grace and truth! Through His finished work on the cross of Calvary, he opened a door for us to walk through, into the Kingdom of the Living God, covered in His blood, and established in righteousness! Believing in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior allows us to boldly approach the throne of God, back in right and perfect standing with Him, as sons and daughters! This is the truth of who we are in Jesus, and Paul has called us to live out what we have already obtained in Christ Jesus, our Lord!!

Jesus has come so that we may have life, and have it to the full! (John 10:10) He has come to break us from the bondage of the reality of this world, and has called us as believers into the reality of heaven and His kingdom! He tells us to put our focus into what is unseen, and that is having faith in Him and what He says to be true! The Kingdom of Heaven is here, and it is our call as the body of Christ, as His hands and feet, to walk out His call on our lives! We have to follow Him! And we can’t do any of this without faith. Ask God to build your faith today! He longs to give you the extreme faith it takes to follow His will for your life. If you’re not seeing miracles in your life, you are not exercising faith. He’s there, waiting, longing for you to come to Him today, right now even.

Two more scriptures:

“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.” John 12:47

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17

See, Jesus didn’t come to bring judgment on mankind, for He loves us with an inconceivable love! In other words, He has not come to judge the person but to bring justice to the sin! He came to save us from our enemy, from the bondage of sin in this world. I’ll say it again, He has come to bring justice to sin, not to humans. The wages of sin is only death, so believing in Jesus and Jesus alone establishes us in righteousness and into doing the very works of Christ, and even greater things! With Him as our Lord, He leads us out of the death grip of sin and into freedom, and then calls us to do the same! What a privilege! What an honor!! He’s come to deliver us out of the false belief system of this world, into His love, into His truth, so we in turn can turn around and become world changers doing the same for others as He has done for us. When we believe this, when we believe in Him, we are declared as righteous, and sin and death no longer has any reign over us. We are free in Christ! He brings justice to the sin in our lives, casting it out in us and setting us free into eternal life! Hallelujah!!

So my final question is, are you thirsty? If you are looking to any other source to fulfill you outside of Jesus Himself, you will be left empty, wanting more, but never getting enough. If you go after the tempting fruit of Satan, death will enter your body and you’ll be trapped in the bondage of sin in which repentance will be your only way out. Only the work and leading of Jesus in our lives can set us free. Only He gives us living water, the source of life, that will satisfy, fill us, and we will be so overwhelmed by it, it will in turn pour out of us onto others! Thank you Jesus!!

Baptism

I just had the most amazing walk at the beach! Man, God is so good!! Normally I go down to the beach to talk to God about my pain, my hurts, my wounds, etc., but this walk I felt an overwhelming since of peace and lightness, and my prayer reflected it. I was able to focus on practical things, such as money and provision, and well, I’ll just say comparatively very small current things.

I felt God asking me to look at the ocean, and there was a real since of excitement I felt in his voice, like a little kid. In looking at it a felt a reminder coming up, “Look Kellie, see!? Do you remember what happened here just 3 days ago? You were baptized!” It really warmed my heart feeling that it apparently meant a lot to him that I was baptized, because I really never knew how I felt about getting baptized a second time. So I was like, “Yeah God, that was an awesome experience.. such a good day.” And I really did feel warmed at his sweet presence, and I was thankful for that. He wasn’t finished though. He kept going. I felt him pointing at my lightness wanting me to focus on it. Sure enough, revelation hit me in that moment. I haven’t felt heavy inside in three days, and by that I mean I haven’t been struggling with the overwhelming weight of my past.

Okay, so now I’m going to paraphrase what I felt he was telling me:

“Kellie, look out at the ocean. Do you realize what happened out there? Yes, it is symbolic, but it is powerful. You just took part in John’s baptism, that is, the baptism of repentance. I’ve told you this before, ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!’ See how big the ocean is Kellie? That ocean is symbolic of my grace, and your old self has been washed away by my grace. That old you that you struggled with, it is gone. Your past, all the sin of your past, my grace has washed you clean. You don’t feel the weight of your old self anymore because that person is gone and you are a new creation!”

I can’t tell you how powerful that was to me. See, before this, I really did feel the weight of my past. I hate digging it up over, and over, and over again. I hate dwelling in it. I hate feeling like I need years of work, years of inner healing, years of Jesus washing away my sins before I can feel complete and whole again. The work seemed too overwhelming and too tiring. I hate going through every memory feeling like I need to go through it again with the truth of Jesus in order to find healing. I swear that there is a supernatural inner work that takes place in water baptism. It’s like all my sin is totally gone, and that I am a totally new person that doesn’t have to dwell in the past anymore. God has way too much for my future to take all the time to dwell in the past, trying to go back and fix everything that I went through with truth. I’m not saying that he will never take me back from time to time as a reminder of where I‘ve been, but he definitely doesn’t want me to dwell there. I feel light, I feel free! I feel like I’m lacking in nothing! So does that mean that I have been made whole and complete?

Then he asked me to go to the sand where it was still wet from the tide and to start writing in the sand every sin that came to mind. I thought it was odd, especially after everything that he just spoke to me, but I did it anyway. I started writing every sin that came up in my heart that I had formally felt like I still had to deal with and conquer from my past. As I was trying to write all these words in the sand, I noticed that the water underneath the sand made it hard for the words to stick as I was writing them, but finally I stood back and watched a wave completely wash away the rimenence of what was left of the words that I had written. I felt him telling me at that time, “Any time that you have sin in your life from now on, come to me, bring me that sin, and watch it get washed away by my grace, by my unconditional love for you.” I looked up at the ocean with new eyes and saw the ocean as his love and grace for me. The best part is that the waves of his grace never stop coming; they will never stop washing my heart clean. When we are in relationship with him, we get to experience his grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace. All we have to do is bring him all the crap that rises out of our hearts, no more digging required. He is so awesome, and his love is huge beyond measure!

I strongly encourage anyone who feels a heaviness from their past, who is carrying around the weight of it on their soldiers, to go get baptized, even if that means that you get baptized again. I believe with all my heart that God wants us to know his heart in baptism, that it isn’t about something we do in order to get into heaven, but it is a symbolic act of understanding his love for us and in understanding the work of the cross. Getting baptized is repentance, and by that I mean a rededication and turning back to Jesus, wanting him to be Lord of your life, and coming back into agreeance with God in knowing that his will in our lives is the only way to abundant life! If you struggle with the guilt of sin or a heavy past of hurt and oppression, let that water of baptism wash it away. I promise you won’t regret it!!

Rejection

Rejection, how do I even begin? It seems the theme of my life has been that of rejection, and growing up in an environment of conditional love never helped to say the least. I was raised in the most legalistic of churches just to begin. I was utterly rejected in junior-high because I was awkward as an early teen with stories to tell that still break my heart to this day. At age 16 I left the only life I had ever known that was completely entangled in a church community, and my whole family was severely rejected by that whole community. It was then that I was rejected by my extended family and those who helped raise me and loved me until the time we left the church. I was rejected by every friend that I grew up with from the time I was a baby. I went into rebellion and was even rejected by some of my immediate family members. I barely made it through my high school years and then went to college, got in with the wrong crowd, and was rejected by my whole group of friends at the end of four years that led me to an emotional breakdown. I suffer with the worse self-esteem and get mad at myself because I feel so weak. I haven’t understood why I couldn’t just have a good self image, why I couldn’t just love myself; why couldn’t I trust others? Why couldn’t I just toughen up, be strong, and get through life loving myself?

God brought a memory to surface tonight that I stuffed down so deeply, I erased it from my memory because I couldn’t deal with the pain of it, but it was still there, lingering and festering, causing me to interpret my whole world around me from a place of severe wounding. I have been through very dark places in my life, but God never stopped perusing me through it all. The truth is that he always had my heart, but I just couldn’t trust him.

As every memory started coming to mind, one after the other, of times that I my heart was broken from the rejection that I experienced, God started speaking to me, “Kellie, you look at yourself as weak. You don’t like yourself because you don’t understand why you can’t be stronger, or why you can’t have a high self-esteem like others around you. The question that you should ask yourself is this, “How am I so strong?” From the level of rejection and conditional love that you have received, how have you held up under all this weight? Do you know the answer to that question? I’ve carried you. I’ve continually pursued you. I have loved you and held you so close to my heart through all your pain and suffering, that it has been my love that has kept you going, that has kept you from completely buckling under the pressure. My dear, I have seen the suffering that you have endured, and I have seen your heart shattered time and time again. My heart has been broken for you, I have wept with you in your suffering! All your life all I’ve longed for you to turn to me so that I could fill you with my love and restore you back to myself. I want to put the pieces of your shattered heart back together again, to make you whole, complete, and a light to this world. You have been so rejected Kellie because you have always been a carrier of my light, and the dark places you have gone and been to, you were rejected there because darkness hates the light. I came to you and told you to turn from that path, to turn from darkness; I opened your eyes to the reality that you were living in because I love you and wanted you to come back to me. Kellie, you are strong, you have carried so much pain, and look at how beautiful you are still weary one. You have a heart of love and to love others, despite the rejection you’ve been through, and I find that beautiful beyond any measure. You are amazing, and I am so proud of you!

He told me that the story I recently put together from the bible, “My Beloved”, was actually about me, and that I was to take it personally. I went back and read through the whole thing, and could hardly even get through it. I saw the whole story through new eyes. It was my life.. it was me. I couldn’t even believe it.
This is the God that I now know I serve. He is soooooooooooooooooooooooo good! He is beautiful and loving beyond measure! I always thought that he barely tolerated my sin, and that he was sick of having to redeem my life time and time again. I always felt that if I pushed him just a little farther, he would surely finally wash his hands to me. I just saw him as constantly frustrated with me. Now I have found the opposite of that to be true. He has a heart that is desperately in love with us, and his heart breaks when ours gets broken. He isn’t mad at our brokenness, but instead is broken-hearted because of our brokenness, and longs to restore us and make us whole again, if only we would turn to him. Every time that I even slightly turned back to him in my life he would shower me with his love, mercy, and grace. How about this: even when I was not seeking him and purposefully turned my back to him, he opened my eyes to see the reality that he saw, desperately trying to pull me back to him. His love is so beautiful that our human minds can’t even comprehend it! I’m madly in love with him, and I KNOW that all of us would be if we only truly knew his heart!

“My Beloved”

I am currently working with a Christian organization who longs to bring freedom to those caught in the web of sex slavery. There are currently approximately 27,000,000 people who are victims of human trafficking, in a 31 billion dollar industry, and over 75% of them are used as sex slaves. For the past two months I've been working with others to put a traveling art show together, and for my part of the presentation I painted a piece and I will be sharing this story that I assembled straight out of the books of Lamentations and Isaiah in the Bible. The last paragraph is an expression of my heart! I know in writing this I connected to it so deeply on a soul level, as I think everyone can. These are words straight up out of the bible, so everyone should connect to them in their own life and heart! I love you guys!!


She who was queen among provinces has now become a slave. Bitterly she weeps at night. Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her, all her friends have betrayed her, and have become her enemies. They looked at her and laughed at her destruction.

All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and looks away. Her filthiness clings to her skirt; she does not consider her future.

“Look, O Lord, on my affliction, for the enemy has triumphed!”

The enemy has laid hands on all her treasures; pagan nations enter her sanctuary, those who had been forbidden to enter. She barters her treasures for food to keep herself alive.

“Look, O Lord, and consider, for I am despised!”

For this is why her tears flow like a river day and night. No one is near to comfort her, no one to restore her spirit. Her groans are many and her heart is faint.

All who passes her way clap their hands at her; they scoff and shake their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem. Wasn’t she the one that was called perfection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?

Her enemy has walled her in so she cannot escape; he has weighed her down with chains. He has made her path crooked. Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding, he dragged her from her path, mangled her, and left her without help.
He drew his bow and made her the target for his arrows. He has broken her teeth with gravel and has trampled her in the dust. Her heart is now filled with bitter herbs.

So she says, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord!”
She was brighter than snow and whiter than milk, her body more flush than rubies, her appearance like sapphires. But now she is blacker than soot; she is not recognized in the streets. Her skin has shriveled on her bones.

She can no longer hear the music. Joy is gone from her heart. Her dancing has turned to mourning, and because of these things her eyes grow dim. Her wound is as deep as the sea, who can heal her?

Her heart cries out to the Lord:

“You, O Lord, risen forever, your throne endures from generation to generation. Why did you forget me? Why do you forsake me so long? Restore me, O Lord, unless you have utterly rejected me!”

The Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all who call on him! How gracious he is when he hears a cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer.

This is his heart’s cry:

“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed!”

The Lord longs to be gracious to those who cry for help; he rises to show them compassion.

Hear the cry of the Lord’s heart for his beloved!

“I am your redeemer, who formed you in the womb! Turn to me and be saved; for I alone am God, there is no other! I will shield and deliver you, I will pass over and rescue you. Be strong, do not fear; I will come with vengeance; with divine retribution I will come to save you. For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear, I will help you. I will lead you by ways you have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide you; I will turn the darkness into light before you and make the rough places smooth.

Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine, and are precious in my sight. Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. I will restore you! I will rebuild you!

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. I will make your deserts like Eden, your wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in you, thanksgiving and the sound of singing!

For your sake I will not keep silent, for your sake I will not remain quit, till your righteousness shines out like the dawn and your salvation like a blazing torch. I will not forsake you!

This is our Lord’s heart for the world:

“I, the Lord, love justice! My justice will become a light to the nations. My righteousness draws near speedily, and my salvation is on the way! The cowering prisoners will soon be set free; they will not die in their dungeon!

You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, for I, the Lord, have created it!”

There is hope!! There is hope for the prisoners and the oppressed! The hope is in the Lord, the savior and redeemer of this world!! He longs to bring justice to the world, to those who are entangled in the web of slavery, and even to those who have thrown themselves into rebellion against God, but Jesus says the workers are few. He is the head, and we are the body - his hands and feet. He longs for those who are willing to go and do his work. He is waiting for us to say, “Not my will God, but yours be done!” God knows how to get the work done, and he longs to bring justice to the nations, but he needs us. He has given us that authority. Are you willing to do your share? Are you saying yes to God and his plans for you, to bring justice to the nations?

Righteousness

Wow! I’ve come back to feeding on milk in this season that is essential to coming into maturity in Christ. The milk is so good, and it has never looked like this before. Here it is, essential Christianity

Through our faith in Jesus Christ we have been made righteous in the eyes of God. Christian religion makes us believe that we have to climb the latter of good works in order to obtain God, but in fact that is a lie that the enemy has implanted in our heads because it is devastating to the truth! Legalism in Christianity is no better than any other false religion out there!!

Through Christ’s sacrifice for us, we have been justified back to God through faith in him. We have been made righteous in the eyes of God, through Jesus' blood, and our sins no longer hold us back from intimate relationship with our living God. Whenever we feel like we are lacking in our lives, or that our sins and brokenness keeps God frustrated and angry with us, that is when we are buying into the lie of our enemy. By looking at our dead man, we can’t see who we are in the eyes of God. We are righteous, and even if we have made our bed in hell, God is with us and sees us as righteous. He said he would never forsake us, and he absolutely will not. How many know that even in an extreme season of sin in your life, God was still there chasing you down? God is not mad at us, but instead is madly in love with us. When we are focused on ourselves and who we were before Christ, and when we are focused on our sins and areas where we lack, we are being tossed about by waves and are unstable, because we are consumed with all the areas where we are broken and don't measure up to perfection. When we focus on who we are in Christ, that we look like Jesus in the eyes of God, we are stable, mature, and cannot be swayed. We need to be focused and consumed with the truth of the reality of who we are in our new creation, because only then does our old nature completely fall away.

Here are some basic facts that I got from listening to John Sheasby:
Statements on the word of righteousness = being justified through faith, being reestablished back to the Father in right position with him, we have peace with God through Jesus, we are righteous in His sight, standing in the right place with God, trusting in the blood of Jesus only, we no longer have to get there… This is the GOOD NEWS of the gospel!!

"People with character flaws are still righteous, thank God, or we would all be in serious trouble, so have mercy on one another, because God has been so merciful to us."

"Jesus perfectly obeyed the law on our behalf, so we are no longer held to the law but are instead established in the righteousness of Christ. He did all the work for us!"

"The glory of God shows up best in the worst of circumstances; the light shines best in the dark."

So here we are, co-heirs with Christ, he was the first born of many brothers, and we are in the same standing with God as Jesus so that we can boldly approach His throne. The Lord is our helper, so in every circumstance our needs are provided for. The enemy loves to come and make circumstance in our lives that makes us doubt the presence of God in our lives, and makes us doubt the truth that He will always fulfill our needs. That was the original sin in the garden that resulted in the fall of mankind; the enemy spoke words of doubt to Eve about the character and nature of God, that He fills us and takes care of our every need and that he knows what is best for us. He attacked the very identity and truth of who they were in God, and instead made them believe that they were lacking. Doubt led to disbelief in who God said he was, and who we are in him, and we are still believing that lie to this day. We are righteous in the eyes of God and he will fill our every need and bless us beyond measure, but we have to rebuke the work of Satan in our lives and we have every right and ability to do so, because Jesus did so, and he is living in us. So let’s rebuke the work of the enemy in every area of our lives! Let’s break his power over our minds by proclaiming the truth that we are righteous in the eyes of God and God is our provider and the Lord is our helper and that he no longer has any power over us! He is under our feet and God is in control of our lives, so let’s rebuke him in every area that he has ever cast doubt in the character and nature of God. He has no dominion over us by the Spirit of Christ living in us, and we are fully reconciled to God, and God will meet our every need! Don’t we know that with Christ dwelling within us that we will never go hungry? That we never have to worry about provision because He will always take care of us as sons just as he took care of Jesus? When we have doubt in our hearts, it crowds out any room for faith, and if we had the full faith to know who we are in Christ, then we would never have doubt again.
So let’s stop looking at the areas where we lack, where we don’t measure up, where we feel incomplete, and let the truth sink in that our Father see’s us as his son Jesus Christ. He has come to meet us right where we are at, and we have that special anointing to be just like our favorite rabbi Jesus, and through that faith we have the ability to stomp on our enemy and do the work of Christ, and have the same exact relationship with God that Jesus had.