4.2 Billion people. Can you even begin to fathom how many that is? Can you wrap your mind around the mass of that number? If you take each person, place them toe to heel with each other in a line, that line, around the widest part of the earth at the equator, would wrap around the globe 37 times. 37. There are 4.2 billion lost people in our world today. 4.2. billion people that desperately need to hear the Gospel message. 4.2 billion people, that if the world ended right now, would spend their eternities in hell, completely separated from God. Can you feel the urgency? Do you feel the despair behind the number of lost souls?
Do you want to hear the cries of the lost? Do something. Close your eyes. Go back to the darkest, worst point in your life, in the deepest pit you have ever found yourself in. Perhaps it was when your parents got divorced. When that man violated you in unspeakable ways. When you were sitting on the floor with a razor blade in hand, slashing your arms. When you were kneeling in front of a toilet with a toothbrush shoved down your throat, emptying your body for the 1000th time, out of your obsessive fear of gaining weight. When you were abandoned, rejection and left alone. When your received beatings as a child. When you wanted to end it all.
Now imagine, in that moment, not knowing that there is a Savior. Not knowing that there was an escape apart from death. Not knowing there was freedom. Not knowing there was somebody who loved you and wanted to see you restored. Not knowing there was a God who sacrificed His Son so that you could be free. If you did not know the hope of Jesus.
Can you hear it? Can you hear the cries of the lost? The broken? The captive? I can. They're calling out.
"Help me!" "Save me!" "Does anybody hear me?" "Does anybody care?" "Where are you, God?" "Will this ever end?" "All I want is to die!" "Will you help me?" "Will you tell me there is hope?"
Let it wreck you. Let it capture your heart.
4.6 BILLION PEOPLE. Not just a number. PEOPLE. Individuals. They all have a name, they all have a face, they all have a story.
Will you let their story interrupt yours? This life is not about us. Its not about our comfortable, cushy, American dream lives. No, its about much much more. Its about what God's heart beats for. If 4.6 Billion doesn't make you cringe, make your heart hurt, there needs to be a serious change.
Let me give you some heart-wrenching facts:
~There are an estimated 163,000,000 orphans in our world today.
~1.2 million children are trafficked every year; this is in addition to the millions already held captive by trafficking.
~Every 2 minutes a child is being prepared for sexual exploitation.
~The average victim of human trafficking is forced to have sex/is raped up to 40 times a day.
~Approximately 800,000 babies are aborted each year.
~ There are 27 million slaves in the world today.
~ Each year, 2 million women disappear from the planet, most of which become victims of human trafficking, and are never heard from again.
I believe that God weeps when He hears these numbers. God weeps when He sees His children suffering, living in captivity to things that His Son died to set them free from. He weeps when He sees injustice.
Will you pray a very dangerous prayer with me?
Break my heart for what breaks Yours. God, transplant Your heart into mine. Let me feel what You feel over the lost and injustice.
He will do it if you ask Him and mean it. Your heart will begin to weep when you see stories of girls being forced into human trafficking, orphans that are starving and dying from malnutrition, children that are being violated and beat by their relatives, babies being murdered and their destinies robbed from them, sick children and their mothers that have to walk through the suffering of their babies, the lost who think there is nothing more to life than drugs, sex and alcohol. Your heart will weep, and it will flow out in an abundance of tears from your eyes.
Ask Him to do it. I dare you.
Today in church I heard the voice of the Lord, commissioning me to something far greater than I can even begin to understand. Let me share with you what I feel He was saying.
"I'm calling you. Bringing you into a new season. Can you even begin to grasp the depth and the width of the number of lost and dying people there are? Think about it. You're called to rescue them. You're called to bring hope to them. You don't know what is inside of you. You don't know how fierce you are. There is something powerful, I placed a relentless spirit inside of you. You don't know the level of impact your life could have if you would only push every single one of your fears aside and begin to rely fully on me for your strength and ability. Remember? With me, ALL things are possible. I created you to reach the 4.6 Billion. I did not call just anybody. I'm not talking to the girl sitting next to you, I'm speaking to you. You are called, you are chosen, you were made to reach the multitudes. Your life mission is to bring as many people to heaven with you as you possibly can. I will release words and strategies from heaven that you will write and speak. "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim the captives be released, that the blind will see, the oppressed will go free, and the time of the Lord's favor has come." (Isaiah 61) You are anointed. You are called. You were born for such a time as this. No more fear, no more timidity. You are as bold as a lion. Its time to go into the darkness and recover what's been lost."
I want to challenge you with the same thing the Lord challenged me with today. Do you know how scary you are? There is something fierce inside of you. The righteous are as bold as lions. You are a threat to the kingdom of darkness. You are scary to the enemy and the darkness that wages for the souls of man. We are smack dab in the middle of a cosmic battle for eternity.
Are you ready to fight?
Please listen to this song, right now: http://youtu.be/tdiFvye6EQs
And watch this sermon, right now: http://www.churchofthehighlands.com/media/message/37-lines-around#
Commission my soul with a fire uncontrollable for this great cause, to save the lost. Open my eyes to the reason I'm alive, oh Lord, I'm ready now, I'll follow You.
God is calling. Who will answer the call?
Isaiah 6:8 "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
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