It’s been on my heart for a while to add a blog to GivenLife.com. I’ve delayed it because the whole website sort of works as one big blog, but there have been times when I’ve wanted to communicate with you the reader in a way that wasn’t a sermon-type message, and certainly not a prayer.
Tonight, as I was laying in bed in a hotel room, God gave me a picture as I was talking to him. I was asking him about what my heart was like for his Bride, my brothers and sisters in the world; especially the ones who don’t yet know Jesus. I was just exploring my feelings and crying out to God because I want to share my passion with them, but don’t want to ever feel like I’m better than them in any way, and I certainly don’t want to give them the impression that that’s how I feel.
That’s when God gave me the picture of a person waking up in a strange room. They hear a voice calling to them from the next room. “Psst. Hey you! Wake up! You’ve been injected with a poison and you’re going to die in 20 minutes if you don’t inject yourself with the antidote. There’s a box on the table in your room with a vaccination gun containing the antidote. Hurry!”
Jet injector gun photo by Geni
The person rushes to the table, completely unsure of what’s going on, but she knows that she doesn’t feel well. She doesn’t know whose voice she heard, but chooses to trust it and uses the vaccination gun. She immediately starts to feel better and more clear-headed.
The voice speaks again, “Good! Now, your children and husband are in some rooms down the hall. They’ve been injected with the same poison. Take the vaccination gun and find them quickly!”
The woman’s heart pounds even harder in her chest now than before when she woke up and heard the voice. Her family’s lives are at stake. She has to find them quickly. She doesn’t know where the vaccine came from or why it was left in her room and not her husband’s, and she still doesn’t know where she is or why she’s in this strange place, but she knows that she has what her family members need.
She rushes out of her room and down the hall, flinging up doors in search of her beloved family members so that she can help them.
Some questions:
- Is this woman going to have any hidden agenda in administering the vaccine to her family?
- Is she going to feel superior in any way to her family members when she finds them?
- Are her family members going to feel threatened by her when she finds them and saves their lives?
- Knowing that her family members are in desperate need of her help, does the woman stay hidden in her room or focus on simply escaping this strange building?
We are all children of God, and we all have an equal need of Jesus’ amazing gift of salvation. For us to feel superior just because we’ve been saved before someone else is ridiculous, and we should have a desperate sense of urgency to share the antidote to sin with the people around us.
Note that when the woman in the story might find one of her family members, she’s not going to spend a lot of time describing the poison and why they were infected. She doesn’t fully understand the nature of the poison, and at that point, the nature of the poison doesn’t matter. All that matters is that everyone in the family receives the antidote as soon as possible.
The antidote to sin’s disastrous eternal consequences is the love of Jesus. We need to pray for desperate hearts that are filled with a passion for sharing the love of Jesus with our family members; not just our immediate family, but our spiritually extended family (everyone we encounter).
Anyway, that got a little preachy, but that’s what God put on my heart tonight. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. God bless you and good night!
Jonathan
