I've always loved to watch people. I'm perfectly content to sit in the middle of a mall and just watch the people that walk by. It annoys my husband because I think he feels like I'm "judging" them. I'm not at all! I love to see how differently we are each made. I like to see what people wear, how they try to present themselves, and how they interact with others. Often times I find myself feeling overwhelmed with compassion towards people. This feeling of overwhelming love, sadness, or compassion has at times left me in tears. I think many times the Lord has allowed me to feel a small amount of the love He has for people (I say small amount because our human bodies simply could not handle feeling all of His love at once.), but I've also been allowed to feel their pain and grief. Sometimes there are burdens that are simply too much for one person to handle. In these moments of our lives the Lord will place some of that burden on others. It's a gift from Him. How awesome to know that the Lord entrusts us with carrying the weight of someone else's burden. In a sense, we get to help them through their difficult time without even saying a word.
The past two Sundays I've spent much of praise and worship looking around at people. Now I love praise and worship time. I look so forward to praise and worship at my church! Our worship leaders usher in God's presence and man, it's amazing! So, to have two Sundays in a row where I'm a bit distracted is unusual. I think the Lord was leading me in these particular "people watching" ventures to show me His love, joy and power. I have found myself so overwhelmed with the joy of the Lord that I sometimes have to snap myself out of it, so to speak. You see, I look around this huge church filled with people who are not ashamed to worship the Lord freely and openly. And then I realized what I was really seeing. Sprinkled in each section were people that I know from Celebrate Recovery. I began to notice people whose lives have been drastically transformed. They are no longer held in bondage to the slavery of sin. They have been delivered and they know without a shadow of a doubt just who set them free. They are worshiping and praising and thanking the Lord for the fact that He brought them out of the depths of despair into His marvelous light. They know God's power. That can't be taken away from them. No one can tell them He's not real, because they know what He brought them out of. Some of these people were addicted to every drug you can imagine, some were alcoholics, some nearly lost their marriages due to broken vows, some had been severely abused both physically and mentally, but ALL are now free! God does not simply want the people who have served Him from childhood and never forsaken Him, He wants us all. He wants to take every single pain, heartache, addiction, struggle, and mess-up and bring healing, restoration, and wholeness back into our lives. This is why He sent His son Jesus to earth.
So many times I think we take the message of the cross for granted. I think that since it's something that we typically learn from a very early age we tend to not really think about the enormity of what it really means. Because of Jesus' perfect, finished work on the cross we do have freedom from our past, present, and future mistakes and heartaches. Jesus died so that we can be free. When we doubt that He really wants to free us or that He has the power to do so, we discount the fact that He shed his blood for us. We take away from the pain and suffering that He endured and in a sense say that He is powerless to help us. All power and all authority is placed in His hands. If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God then the very same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives within you. (Eph 1:18-23) Grab a hold to that power and walk in the freedom of the cross. Walk in your victory. Dance, sing, praise, and worship because Jesus already overcame death, hell, and the grave for you.
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