Deadlines are important. Having been in ministry for nearly thirty years, working with volunteers and overseeing staff, and being a dad now for 25 years, I’ve learned that some people need deadlines to get things done. If I say, “Please have it done by 3p on Friday,” they have something to shoot for and they get it done. But with the same people, if I say, “Please get this done right away,” without a specific time or day, it often gets put off indefinitely. Deadlines can serve as a target and some people describe them as freeing, because they know they have to do something by a certain time, and when that time is over, there is a sense of finality. It feels good to meet a deadline and once you meet it, it’s done.
But not all deadlines can be planned precisely. I used to tell my kids to make sure the kitchen was clean “before mom gets home.” Sometimes, she’d get home and they would be busily in the middle of filling the dishwasher, wiping the counters, and emptying the garbage. She arrived sooner than they thought and when the garage door began to open, they dashed into the kitchen to meet their deadline. They didn’t.
There is one really big deadline for all of us that is like that. People put off preparing for it because it seems like it is way off in the distance. They figure they will have plenty of warning. After telling a story, Jesus said in Matthew 24:44, “This is why you also must be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”
That sounds a bit like the deadline I used to give my kids. I didn’t tell them when Linda was going to be home (sometimes I didn’t know). I just told them to make sure the kitchen was clean before that. The deadline was her arrival. Not knowing when would make it a good idea to do it right away.
And that was Jesus’ point. We do not know when we will meet him, whether in death or in his second coming. But that day is coming. It is rare that anyone expects death when it arrives. No matter how long we live, or even how ill a person has been, death always appears before we thought it would and our lives are over in a flash. James said that life was like a vapor, that it may appear to be in full force yet with a simple gust of wind, it vanishes suddenly.
Our lives are like that. You may feel as though you will live forever, but you won’t. Your life will end sooner than you think and more suddenly than you will have time to prepare for. So stop vegging in front of the TV and get into the kitchen and get it clean! Look at Hebrews 9:27, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” The day you stand before God is quickly coming. Thousands before you, in just the last year, have read warnings just like this, just like you are doing now, and have since stepped into eternity.
So...are you ready? Is there anything else more important for you to be prepared for? Anything? You will spend eternity somewhere, and that somewhere is determined in this lifetime. So get it settled! Settle it before he comes back, or before you go to meet him! Settle it before the deadline!
Being ready for that ultimate deadline is as simple as understanding why Jesus came, why he was crucified and believing that he rose again from the dead. By repenting of your sin (sincerely being sorry and desiring to change) and believing in Jesus as Lord and Master, that he died on the cross to provide you with forgiveness, and believing that he rose again, if you simply ask him to save you, he will. He said he would. So if this hasn’t truly happened in your heart and life, then take care of that today. Call on him as your God, Master and Savior, and ask him to forgive you, to save you. He will.
“If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved... For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” – Romans 10:9-13 HCSB
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Human Trafficking...Here?
It’s hard for me to believe this is still going on.
I’m writing this during a break while attending a conference in Chicago on human trafficking and forced labor/sex slavery in Cook County. I knew it was happening in other parts of the world, and I’d heard that it is here in the states, but I’m shocked as to the degree of the problem right here in our backyard. It’s quite an eye-opening experience to hear an African American speak passionately about the problem of slavery world-wide declaring that there are more people enslaved against their will today, internationally, than at any time during the mass slave trade of the 16th-19th centuries. That’s quite a statement.
I assumed this was largely an international issue...a problem in places like Thailand and eastern Europe and the third world. And it is a problem around the world.
But human trafficking is huge right here in Cook County….a lot of it to service people who live in the suburbs. And most of it is domestic, involving American kids held captive for prostitution and the like. This is happening under our noses.
There are those girls promised lucrative employment in the US and given passage into the country, only to find themselves held captive in a dark cellar for months, before permitted to “go to work” in a strip club or on a street corner. Some are stashed away in a sweat shop, forced to work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, for no pay. They don’t speak the language and come from such a dramatically different culture that they are reticent to escape even when afforded the opportunity. But many others are young American teenage and even preteen girls from broken homes and very difficult family situations who are wooed, raped, drugged and beaten, until they are put out on the street to make money for their pimp.
We’ve all heard things on the news here and there. With the movie, “Taken,” a couple of years ago, human sex trafficking became a topic of conversation in a lot of circles. But is this something we should be talking about in church? Isn’t this something that should be left to politicians and law enforcement officials?
I’m glad William Wilberforce and William Lloyd Garrison didn’t think so. If it were not for the efforts of these Christian leaders and the church then, the legal African slave trade of 200 years ago may still be going on. God’s people have always taken seriously our call to defend the defenseless and protect the vulnerable and the innocent. There are children in extreme jeopardy who desperately need our attention.
On the weekend of September 15-16, The Bridge will be focusing on the problem of Human Trafficking in our weekend services as an example for our series on Spiritual Warfare (“Armor”). We will have the special agent overseeing human trafficking for Homeland Security in Cook County, with us that day, as well as the National Directory of “Promise,” a ministry of The Salvation Army that assists victims of sex trafficking after they are rescued. I really hope you are with us that weekend and I really hope you get the word out into the community to come and join us to learn what we can do about this major problem in our day.
After all, Paul said that we are in a spiritual war. Ultimately, I believe these battles are fought in the spiritual arena. The rest of the world may apply bandages and splints, but the only permanent solution to the horrendous social issues of our day are produced when victories are won against “the spiritual forces” of “this present darkness” (Ephesians 6:12). People are being destroyed because the schemes of the evil one are accomplished almost uncontested.
But we are The Church. And Jesus said, “...the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” September 15-16 at The Bridge is about planning our attack on those gates.
I’m writing this during a break while attending a conference in Chicago on human trafficking and forced labor/sex slavery in Cook County. I knew it was happening in other parts of the world, and I’d heard that it is here in the states, but I’m shocked as to the degree of the problem right here in our backyard. It’s quite an eye-opening experience to hear an African American speak passionately about the problem of slavery world-wide declaring that there are more people enslaved against their will today, internationally, than at any time during the mass slave trade of the 16th-19th centuries. That’s quite a statement.
I assumed this was largely an international issue...a problem in places like Thailand and eastern Europe and the third world. And it is a problem around the world.
But human trafficking is huge right here in Cook County….a lot of it to service people who live in the suburbs. And most of it is domestic, involving American kids held captive for prostitution and the like. This is happening under our noses.
There are those girls promised lucrative employment in the US and given passage into the country, only to find themselves held captive in a dark cellar for months, before permitted to “go to work” in a strip club or on a street corner. Some are stashed away in a sweat shop, forced to work 14 hour days, 7 days a week, for no pay. They don’t speak the language and come from such a dramatically different culture that they are reticent to escape even when afforded the opportunity. But many others are young American teenage and even preteen girls from broken homes and very difficult family situations who are wooed, raped, drugged and beaten, until they are put out on the street to make money for their pimp.
We’ve all heard things on the news here and there. With the movie, “Taken,” a couple of years ago, human sex trafficking became a topic of conversation in a lot of circles. But is this something we should be talking about in church? Isn’t this something that should be left to politicians and law enforcement officials?
I’m glad William Wilberforce and William Lloyd Garrison didn’t think so. If it were not for the efforts of these Christian leaders and the church then, the legal African slave trade of 200 years ago may still be going on. God’s people have always taken seriously our call to defend the defenseless and protect the vulnerable and the innocent. There are children in extreme jeopardy who desperately need our attention.
On the weekend of September 15-16, The Bridge will be focusing on the problem of Human Trafficking in our weekend services as an example for our series on Spiritual Warfare (“Armor”). We will have the special agent overseeing human trafficking for Homeland Security in Cook County, with us that day, as well as the National Directory of “Promise,” a ministry of The Salvation Army that assists victims of sex trafficking after they are rescued. I really hope you are with us that weekend and I really hope you get the word out into the community to come and join us to learn what we can do about this major problem in our day.
After all, Paul said that we are in a spiritual war. Ultimately, I believe these battles are fought in the spiritual arena. The rest of the world may apply bandages and splints, but the only permanent solution to the horrendous social issues of our day are produced when victories are won against “the spiritual forces” of “this present darkness” (Ephesians 6:12). People are being destroyed because the schemes of the evil one are accomplished almost uncontested.
But we are The Church. And Jesus said, “...the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” September 15-16 at The Bridge is about planning our attack on those gates.
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