To Be Set Free!

They’re talking snow here tonight, my how times change fast around here where the northern plains meet the north woods! Not a blizzard or anything like that, just a little snow fall. Good thing the tomatoes where all canned this week and the rest can go to the hogs. I personally am looking forward to an Indian Summer after all of this weather the last week. There’s one herd of cattle left to bring home and I hope to get that job accomplished next week sometime. At least that way there’s more control with the critters in case the weather heads south!

The times they are a changing, that’s for sure. Some folks in Christian circles are what would be considered a watchman. I guess I’m not one of those. Oh, I watch all right, but for me its more the pull of harvesting. The work must continue, in fact the work must pick up the pace in these days and times. Even if it means one person at a time. I guess in our culture things are measured in quantity. And if a person isn’t some big named evangelist or something a person gets overlooked by man. That’s fine and dandy with me cause I really don’t care what man says anyhow. One person at a time if need be is right in any person’s call.

A couple of years ago I heard a word or a testimony and it was about how folks are watching us who are the Blood bought children of God. These same folk would probably be turned off if they had the Bible preached to them. But they watch a person.I know this for a fact although much of the time we never really notice. Lately I’ve had a couple cases where it became apparent that folks were watching me and it put me in place I tell you! Now its been mentioned many times here that witnessing means living the life, or walking the walk. Our everyday life tells folks more than our words ever could, especially in a local rural area. Folks would just laugh if a person said they were a Christian and still cussed and swore, still moaned and groaned about everything. And to tell the truth there’s much to much of that in Christian circles.

If a person wants Jesus Christ to be real to folks a person had better start acting like Him! Oh Lord, here I go again! Jesus, anyway the way I see it when I read the Gospels did not really go around having mass crusades. Sure He had huge crowds at times, but mainly He went from place to place and there was allot of one on one. There was that compassion to stop everything for one suffering person, to heal them and let them know that there was hope beyond a strict, ridged, religious society that they were trapped in. There were plenty of folks that knew religion, that knew the rules, but there was very little hope. Jesus changed that! You know the saying,hope for the hopeless, well that’s exactly what this is all about!

Hopeless.I know the feeling, very much. So very much. But the Lord changed that and since that day I’ve never looked back, and don’t intend to either. I know it happened at a much older age than many but that don’t mean much to God. He restores the lost years and uses them for His Glory! Amen! And I know that I know that I know that God can take any life, no exceptions and turn it around to His Glory! The Gospel of Outcasts, I just love that! And I was an outcast if there ever was one! And that’s where my heart leans towards, the outcasts. I don’t get to worried about all the folks that seem to have it all together, I lean towards those that don’t. And there’s more of them than a person thinks. Take a look at those “perfect” families and a person can almost rest assured that they are not. We have a way of putting on a show for the world, a pretty good job of acting if I must say so, and I don’t think there’s all to many that have it all together.

The simple Gospel does more for people, for outcasts than all the social programs this world can come up with, I know. This simple Gospel can take a totally hopeless situation and turn it into a blessing beyond measure. To be touched by Jesus is unforgettable, to have a life changing experience. To know that we are important, that we are loved and that we are somebody in His eyes is the key to unlocking the whole meaning of this life and beyond! Oh Glory to God, this simple hope has more in it than everything else in the world combined! And the hardest part for me years ago was coming to grips with the reality that it had nothing to do with me being good enough to make it to heaven and escape eternal damnation in hell. Nothing at all to do with me, it is a gift, nothing more, nothing less!

Hard, very hard to understand after a life time of religion and even to this day I feel the claws of religion trying to get ahold of me from time to time. But I know it now, I understand it now, the lies of religion that say you have to do this and you have to do that. No sir, I ain’t living under that bondage no more. I don’t want to live under the bondage that folks did in the time when Jesus walked this earth. Following this rule, following that rule, no love in it, and very little if any hope. Jesus Christ suffered and died for us, He rose from the dead and if we believe that and accept it, accept this fact that we are totally helpless in trying to be “good enough”, to cry out to Him, we shall be saved. Its the promise that the whole universe rides on!

I pray, I really do pray that this touches someone. I don’t normally write in this vein but for some reason I did tonight. To escape the bondage of the world, to escape the shackles of religion, to be set free by the one who set people free two thousand years ago is the greatest news this planet has ever had!