I believe in Jesus… I am just not sure he believes in me…

(Click on Carolyn’s Flute to check out recent photos…)

At the rescue mission we prepared and served food. I worked washing dishes and handed off the camera… Sitting a table with a few of the folks, Jay heard the quote at the top of the blog. They were discussing life and the events that brought them here. Of course Jay has a powerful testimony, but at those words his heart was broken – as was mine when he repeated the story…

As middle class – maybe upper middle class – it is pretty easy to believe that Jesus loves us. That He values us. In part because society values us… but for the unloved and abandoned. Well, for them it hard to image anyone could care – even Christ.

We had a worship service for the men and women. And I delivered a message – a call that no matter where we find ourselves the river of Christ flows even there… and in these moments, more than any other, I hope the Spirit will rush down from heaven. I pray that a miracle may happen. Unfortunately, while the message connected, revival did not break out…

We lead  a song and dance in worship. Going through motions long passed down, that we hope to reinvent. Attempting to be clever… talented… moving… but in the end little is accomplished. So often the ones who were loved before believe that Christ could love them… while the addiction, the poor, the ugly, the foolish, the sinful… wonder if the words could be true.

And this should not be so… As the church, I ask you to pray. To pray that God’s love will come down. For while I write, that in the end little changes, this is not so when Christ appears. In the power of God, the unloved will no longer doubt there status. In Him they will know they are children of God. Not forgotten or abandoned… but worth dying for.

As church, we must take this message to heart. Too often we make Christ a God of the middle class. And we are content in our communities of sameness. But the message of Christ is not content behind walls. As in Ezekiel 47, the temple could not hold his love. Nor can the church today. It must pour forth. So that the world may know…

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, “Here is a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” ~ Luke 7:34