Christianity… it’s like reverse rabies.
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Selah
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January 1st 2010 the founding director of Charlotte 24-7 held my hands in the middle of the prayer room and imparted the full weight of the ministry into and on to me. For the first few days afterwards I teetered under the weight not knowing what I had gotten myself into. It was physically, emotionally, and spiritually strange.
Twelve days later I had one of the most profound prayer experiences I’d ever had. Not sure how to categorize it Biblically, I was praying in my room when I entered a vision and met with Jesus. His face is remarkably beautiful. One of the things that I remember most about His face is that His jaws were strong and well defined. In this vision he led me from a city street into what I can only imagine was the temple and in past what seemed to be the veil. In that place He showed me images and information in what seemed like a movie screen, but was it was much more effective.
As He led me in He said “Come in after me I will be found, Come to the deep places let me show you the depths… I have been heavy scared by the well intentioned people. They have placed limits on what’s possible with God. Most always leave room for what’s possible with God… I have never wanted to keep anything from you.”
As He took me into this deep place He showed me a pastor who I know of and gave me words for Him concerning His influence in the city, then He told me to have him pray for me. He also showed me another pastor and gave me words for him. That was pretty much the end of it. Short and powerful.
Okay so fast forward to February 23rd 2010, I finally got to meet with the first pastor and humbly deliver the word for Him. He is an amazing man who made it easy to share with. Our meeting was special to say the least. I don’t know how how the words I had impacted him but in obedience to the Lord and this most profound message, I asked Him to pray for me. I humbled myself in front of him and let him lay hands on me and speak whatever was on his heart.
Amazingly, this brother turned out to be one of the most passionate and raw people of prayer I’ve known. He let it loose on me sharing with me things that will prepare, things that encourage, and practical cover fire that will protect. But towards the end of this unleashing prayer he paused and in reverence and sincerity towards me and the situation (that tells of his humility) he asked God “Would you give Jason the burden of intercession for the city?” He asked again and we humbled ourselves with quietness in the asking.
At that point not sure what the answer to the question was because in part of his asking he said “would you wake him up in the middle of the night burdened for the city” and I was honestly was not really excited about losing sleep (shamefully). Our time ended with much love and kinship that will stand the test the time.
This morning I woke up with The Burden. My heart’s cry is now the city need’s Him. The meetings with the city’s pastors that I had been shying away from now has an agenda. The prayer meetings for the city will now have a substance that was not there before.
Not sure why I shared this story, I know its profound nature to me deserves to be sealed away as personal and intimate with my Lord. But It baffles me that in obedience to share with my new pastor friend what God showed me, God had plans to take him and pray life altering words into and over me.
We serve and awesome and powerful God, my friends, whose way are not our ways and thoughts are not our thoughts.
Sometimes the only accomplishment you can point to is your own blood and guts spilled everywhere. Sometimes the death that you die for Christ feels just like that, death. All the joys and pleasures are passed up for the promise of the greater reward. Sometimes amongst the fleeting and numbered victories lies the knowing that one day the sky will split and our work here will be done. For this we bleed and cry and die. For this our portion, Christ himself, we die daily. Bring it on. Put me on the cross. I gladly lay down my life. Come with me…
“Towns and cities were developing and offered a new challenge to the church. Traditional expressions of faith were failing to cope with worldliness and the growth of population. Many clergymen recognized the need to bring a new form of spirituality to the people…” Robert G. Clouse
Where do we go from here? It would be easy to point the finger at past generations and current models of church and place blame. But where does that get us? Nowhere, in my opinion. The Lord has been challenging me to draw closer to Him. He has shared with me that in some ways my life will begin to look different (I’m sure how much different it can get… trust me, I’m pretty peculiar).
He has led to the monks to study how these transitions plays out. What I’ve noticed most is that monks were willing to sacrifice worldly pleasures to strengthen their relationship with the Lord.
At one point I thought that monks and contemplatives were just blindly doing works trying to earn God’s favor. That may be true in some cases, but God is calling me to build my relationship with Him so that unneeded worldly pleasures will become unattractive and will need to be cut from my life.
My gifting in the body of Christ is to be a voice of reason to it. If the first quote in this blog entry is true, then we are in serious need of some reforming. Communication devices have saturated the earth, social connectivity is at it’s highest, religion is most prevalent, while communion with God has been pushed even further from the world’s agenda.
I’m not sure what’s going to happen at this point. I will tell you this, I’m doing experiments now to try and see where God wants us to go. Keep posted as this topic will be a consistent theme of this blog.
Click here for entire Article.
Here’s an excerpt to wet your appetite:
“Zabelka: I am old now. Soon I will go to meet my God. When the invitation came to join this peace pilgrimage, I felt that God had offered me “a great grace,” as we used to say. So, I accepted.
Q: What do you mean, God has offered you “a great grace” by an invitation to join a peace walk?
Zabelka: I do not mean to quibble about words but I did not experience the invitation as a request to join a peace walk. The invitation entered into my soul as “pilgrimage” not “walk.” A pilgrimage is a journey one undertakes to holy places for holy reasons.
Q: But what holy places are you going to visit in Japan? My understanding was that you were going to Hiroshima and
Nagasaki.
Zabelka: Calvary, the place where Christ suffered and died at the hands of the civil and religious politicians of His day, is the holiest shrine in Christianity. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are Calvaries. For here, Christ in the bodies of the “least” was again tortured and put to death hundreds of thousands of times over by exactly the same dark and deceitful spirit of organized lovelessness that roamed Jerusalem two thousand years ago.
Q: But Calvary is where Christ suffered. He did not suffer in Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
Zabelka: God, Christ, lives in every human being. Our Lord tells us that what is done to the “least” is in fact now done to Him (Mt 25). I believe that! That is the only kind of God that I could adore and love, a God who lives in human history and suffers with people. I could only fear a god that sat as a depersonalized king above the anguish of humanity. This is part of what the Incarnation is all about. Christ suffers and dies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Therefore to condone or support war is to condone or support the call to “Crucify Him.” To kill in war is, in fact, to be a “Christ-killer.” I’m sorry I can say nothing else – if Calvary is a holy place, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are holy places.”
“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
