Clean by the Love of God

I think this is going to be a short blog. We'll see.

I spent several hours under the railroad bridge today but the highlight of the day came at the very end after having been given a stack of magazine styled Bibles by Ed Lewis the national director of CE National the parent Ministry of Urban Hope.

I distributed the magazines to people who I knew would be interested and or expressed interest in the moment.  A couple of people said that they would not be interested in looking at it and I respected their openness and we had good conversations in spite of their lack of interest in what I had to share.

Two or three people received it joyfully and set it aside.

There was one young man in his mid-twenties who gladly accepted it and opened it and started to read it and continued to read it during the rest of my time under the railroad bridge with these 30 or 40 people who are gathered there on this rainy night.

What an incredible Joy it is to be part of a church like Urban Hope that believes in putting Jesus Christ first and is not at all afraid to provide reading materials to human beings who are too often considered forgotten and not worthy and smelly and distasteful and what other inappropriate description society has tossed at them.

This is God's intent for church. Let us never forget it. If you are reading this and your "church" has pushed to one side the image and message of the Victorious and Resurrected Christ you should reconsider your mission and put into place people who will guide you back into being a church as God intended.

I thank God for this young man who was actively reading so much so that he did not even hear me say goodbye when I said goodbye to him as I was leaving two hours ago. What an incredible Joy it is to be part of this community of struggling human beings who want nothing more than to be cleaned by the love of God.