Tag: love

Mercy and the Heartbeat of Living

“’Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?’ The expert in the law replied, ‘The one who had mercy on him.’ Jesus told him, ‘Go and do likewise.’” – Luke 10:36-37

This past year, I have spent a considerable amount of time reflecting on the elements of Christianity. This post serves as a place for me to share one of the simple yet beautiful truths of the faith I hold. It’s simple yet confounding — wise, yet folly to hearts of men. And while there are one hundred other vital aspects of Christianity I could write about (and probably will at some point), today I chose to focus on this one thing.

Mercy.

Simply put, mercy can be defined as “not receiving what we deserve.” The cross of Christ becomes even more powerful when we remember that God is not only a God of mercy, but of justice and of love. When we chose – and often still do choose – to disobey Him, God showed us mercy by taking away the punishment we deserve. And why do we deserve such punishment? Because God is the only perfect being in existence. He is holy. And to not be holy (the basic condition of humanity which we brought upon ourselves at The Fall) is to be unworthy of even being able to stand in His sight. Yet God did not just take our punishment away. Because of His righteous justice, He knew someone had to pay the price of our sin, and because of love, He sent His Son.

Some great human minds, such as Karl Marx, have described religion as more or less the “opium of the people” (or some form of the idea). In doing so, they assert that religion exists to simply give a type of false, complacent hope to those lacking material and strategical happiness on earth.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In the exact opposite nature of opium, Christianity reminds us of our depravity (Psalms 53:3, Romans 3:23). We disobeyed God’s perfect plan for the world, and brought death to creation. We bought into a lie and with it, eternally separated ourselves from God. In that moment, darkness was allowed to reign in the world.

The Bible teaches a story of a fallen world and perfect redemption through a Savior who took death upon Himself. Our precious veritas — the very God whom we chose to disobey and mar the name of chose to reconcile us back to Him by dying a brutal death and rising again (2 Corinthians 5:19).

Mercy is one of the reasons Christians choose to live a life of separation from the ways of the world and to surrender to Christ. How could we not? Our Christ chose to bear our sins and redeem us – not so that we could choose to thank Him and continue living a life of sin and darkness, but so that we could grasp the depths of God’s love, to live in relationship with Him, and be “children of light” (1 Thessalonians 5:5-10).

Sharing the mercy of Christ is not telling the oppressed that they can have hope in an illusory ideology. Rather, it is reminding each person that there is a plan which transcends the world – a plan that we can only fulfill with Christ. To be a Christian is to recognize the gift we have in being partakers of His righteous kingdom, and the joy of sharing this beauty with others (Hebrews 9:12-15). To be a Christian is to show mercy to others, just as Christ has shown mercy to us (James 2:13). No person, no government, no power, and no economy will ever bring about a utopia on earth. None of these could compare to the Love of Christ.

“Now here inside of our skin and bones

Heaven above is making its home

The Kingdom of God living upon the world.

To love like He loves and give like He gives

To tell the story that makes dead men live…

That’s what it takes if we’re gonna change the world.

[His] love is a song and it sings over me…

Mercy.”

This is mercy. The heartbeat of living.

 

Song credits: Phil Wickham, “Mercy”

“The God of Miracles”: Reflections on My Time in Costa Rica

This May, I was able to spend 10 days in Costa Rica with a nursing student team from my college to partner with CFCI and run health clinics around the communities of San Jose. Check out my reflections below:

Our God is the God of life-renewing miracles. Recently, I have struggled with this idea, and over the past few months I have stood in the face of some of the toughest questions about my faith. In Costa Rica, these doubts were shattered as I was reminded of the power of our ever faithful God.

I saw Him in our answered prayers. During our orientation night, one of the CFCI leaders (Christ for the City International, the ministry we partnered with) told

Screen Shot 2019-05-30 at 8.41.37 PM.png us about the miracles of God he had witnessed, and asked us to pray for them as a team. “How interesting,” I thought. “To speak the first night about miracles – something is different about this place.”

And so, I prayed. And the next day I talked to a man who was helping at our first clinic. He told me about his testimony – that his family had fallen apart because of his past decisions. He lived as a criminal, addicted to drugs, and had almost died on more than one occasion. He always knew about God. But when he decided to enter into the presence of Jesus, his life was completely changed. I prayed for him, and he prayed for me, and he humbly declared that it was purely God’s “milagros” that have saved him. He translated this phrase for me on my phone.

God’s miracle — a changed life.

I saw God in the hearts of the people that we served. Some live in inexplicable circumstances. Yet, they had hope. Some cried as we offered them the simple care of a listening ear and prayer, and many left our clinics with radiating joy.

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My Wonderful Host Family

God is moving in the communities we visited.

 

I saw God in my own team members, leaders, and host family. Each day, we worked together, and we served together cohesively. I saw the joy in their hearts. I saw their passion for each person they intentionally took the time to love on. And I was ignited by their burning hearts for Christ.

Perhaps most profoundly, I saw God in His restoration and peace. I witnessed how He is completely restoring lives and communities in Costa Rica. But I also witnessed His restoration in me. While filled with many incredible experiences, my previous trip out of the country was wrought with internal disaster. For the past year, I have struggled to reconcile what happened on that trip. I’ve had to learn how to accept the fact that God loves me, and I’ve had to learn how to love myself.

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On this trip, every single day was filled with supernatural peace. I felt God life this burden of shame off me. He renews. He restores. He is always faithful. We won’t experience His glory fully until this broken world is made new. But for now, I rest in His life-changing power.

And so, here I am. There is a lot I don’t know about what my future holds. But one thing I am sure of is that it is hard being content living in one place while my heart lives in the lives of people and countries far beyond my own’s border. What can I say except that I feel unbelievably grateful?

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I am grateful to have gotten the opportunity to know the hearts of so many different people from all over the world. I love them. And I know I will return to them some day. For this, I cannot wait. But there are so many I love in the home in which I grew up. There are many to love here whom I have yet to meet. God is moving here. And we need Him.

God, let us love well, wherever we are at.

“Yo soy la luz del mundo. El que me sigue no andará en tinieblas, sino que tendrá la luz de la vida.” – Juan 8:12