What’s your comfort level?
Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), the last couple of weeks have been “A LOT...” Politics, the LA fires, the Flight 5342 collision, and everything related to them. It has been challenging and exhausting trying to keep up with all of it. And I know I am not alone.
As a follower of Jesus, I have been praying and thinking a lot about the season we are in and how to navigate it in a way that allows God’s Kingdom to be more “on earth as it is in heaven.” As I did, I was reminded of a newsletter article I wrote toward the beginning of the Covid Pandemic. I laughed and was “gut-punched” as I read it because the message was just what I needed to hear for “such a time as this.”
The words I wrote will be a timely message for you as well. They will remind you that you aren’t alone, and that following Jesus was never meant to be easy, especially when God’s Kingdom values collide with the worlds.
Below is what I wrote:
Recently, I have been looking into the lives and messages of those tasked with declaring the things of God to God’s people. We know them as prophets. Many times, in our modern era, we equate the prophets with future tellers or seers. We connect them with fantastical futures and ideas that twist and stretch our imaginations. In reality, while some of what the prophets spoke of did refer to far off things to come, most of what they spoke of explained current reality and what the outcome would be if current reality didn’t change.
In addition, the majority of the words the prophets shared weren’t pretty. They were filled with accusations of injustice, neglect, arrogance, greed, and betrayal, among other things. For example, at a key point in Israel’s history, when the Northern Kingdom was being overtaken by the Assyrians and the Southern Kingdom was being reduced to a vassal state, the Prophet Isaiah declared the following message to God’s people as they expressed their frustration and confusion with what they were experiencing:
“Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths, and convocations— I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you; even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening.
Your hands are full of blood!
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight; stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”
As you read these words, try and put yourself in Israel’s place. How would you feel if you were told your worship was detestable, your prayers fell on deaf ears, and the life you were living was evil?!
How would you respond?
The truth is no one wants to be called out. No one wants their junk aired publicly.
I love the way the Gospel of John captures this idea: “Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”
Now, imagine if you were Isaiah, the one God called to bring light into the darkness at that moment!
I can’t imagine it would have been easy!
Needless to say, most of the prophets (if not all of them) were not liked by the masses. Life was not easy for them. In fact, at one point, the prophet Jeremiah actually cursed the day he was born: “Cursed be the day I was born! May the day my mother bore me not be blessed!”
Here is the bottom line: It is not easy when our sins are exposed, nor is it easy when we are called to be the one who exposes them.
But there is hope! Throughout the scriptures, whenever sin is exposed and its consequences are felt, God always has a plan and a way back! Redemption and restoration have been part of God’s equation from the very beginning!
For example, look back at the message we read from Isaiah. God said, “Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.”
This was the way out of darkness and into the light!
God (through Isaiah) went on to say:
“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord.
“Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land, but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.”
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.
In essence, what God said to the Israelites was and is the same thing God says to us today. The way out of the darkness, chaos, bondage, and injustice this world offers is to pledge your allegiance to (place your faith in) the one who overcame the world and follow Him!
Here is how the Apostle Paul said it:
“If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.”
Here is why I share all of this today: We are in unprecedented times. In the midst of the pandemic (feel free to substitute the beginning of 2025 for the pandemic here), political unrest, and the mass exposure of broken systems, injustice, and racism, we are all in different spaces and places.
Some of us are asking why.
Some of us are asking what’s next.
Some of us are saying Finally!
Some of us are sad and/or angry!
Some of us are lost.
Some of us are barely hanging on.
Regardless of where we are, as followers of Jesus, we should expect to be uncomfortable! We should expect to be called out and be willing to move out of darkness. We should also expect to feel anxious and uneasy, like the prophets of old, as God calls us to expose the darkness around us. Above all, we should be ambassadors of King Jesus, living Kingdom values as God makes His appeal through us!
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Justin Porter