Imagine
this
Your walking down an alley, a man approaches
and you catch a glimpse of something in His hand. He pushes you against a brick
wall. You’re disoriented, screaming at your attacker to stop. You try to look
him in the eyes but his face is covered by a mask. He begins to beat you, you
can feel your body start to give with every impact of his fist to your face,
and knee to your side. You don’t know why this is happening, your scared as you
realize his intent.. to kill you. You feel your legs give and your body crashes
to the ground. You head hits the concrete and you black out.
You start to wonder in the
blackness if your dead, you start to visualize your attacker and try to focus
on what he had in his hand, a gun, knife, baseball bat? If He had one of those
he would've used it right? It suddenly becomes clear that it’s a piece of
paper, on it is your name written in bold black letters. Underneath it reads
the following “on this day, punishable by death these sins were committed. By the
authority of God I hereby sentence you to life in Hell where you will forever
be separated from me.” Underneath it is signed by God.
You regain consciousness and notice the
man who attacked you is arguing with another man. The attacker hits the man and
knocks him down next to you, a bright light shines and you start to think of a policeman’s
spotlight on his car, your saved. You look to the man next to you and realize
that the light is coming from him. You look to your left and notice your
attacker running away. The man that was the light now looks like a normal man
again, he brushes himself off and offers his hand to help you. He hands you the
piece of paper but instead of your name at the top it reads “Redeemed”, below
you read “permission from God, to save the lost, heal the sick and the broken,
and to make a way for freedom.” The man takes the paper back and signs it in
blood. You look at the signature and it reads Jesus Christ.
You look at this man and
ask Him what it means, He looks at you and smiles. He says “It once was my
fathers business to punish and judge, and to those who don’t accept my redemption
still face the punishment for their sins. I came down to this earth as man,
taking the punishment of sin and to bridge the gap so you could live free.” You
ask Jesus who the attacker was, “It was satan, with an old worn out paper that
he lives by, but is no longer valid. He wears a mask of my father lurking about
devouring my followers, convincing them that it is my Father punishing them. Convincing
strong believers that its my Fathers perfect will, as they die of sickness
before their time.” Jesus puts His hand on your chin, you see a tear fall from
His eyes as He tells you He loves you, as he askes one question. “Will you take
my love and share it unconditionally? So many of my people are dying because of
a lie being spread by parts of my bride the church, will you tell them the
truth, tell them that I love them and that I want them to live a fulfilled life
on this earth. That’s why I created you here on this earth, not to live and die
but to thrive!
Jesus sheds one final tear,
pulls you close and hold onto you not wanting to let you go. Jesus finally
turns and walks away as you stand in that alley, moments ago on the brink of
death but now with a calling on your life.
I like to visualize things when they come to me, and as I sat in my class one
day in school it was as if I entered a new world. I could feel the cold brick,
the crisp fall air. I heard the street noises and saw the lights. I could feel
the impacts from the hits on my body, I closed my eyes and saw the exact
movements of the attacker, everything that happened in the story above I
experienced as if I was there. As the visual was flowing through my mind, my
pencil was furiously writing on my notepad. Such a passion rose up in me as I
pictured strong Christians leave this earth, not fulfilling or even realizing
what they were put on this earth to do. The inspiration for this blog is a
visual picture of John 10:10 and a visual of Jesus coming and giving His life
so we could live free from sin John 10:11.
Hope
is Alive, Change the World, Impact futures!
John 3:16
