Excerpt From Jesus Wants to Save Christians

Here is an excerpt that I wanted to share with you from the book Jesus Wants to Save Christians.

The Hebrew Scriptures have a very simple and direct message:

God always hears the cry of the oppressed;

God cares about human suffering and the conditions that cuase it.

God is searching for a body, a community of people to care for the things God cares about.

God gives power and blessing so that justice and righteousness will be upheld for those who are denied them.

This is what God is like. This is what God is about. This is who God is.

To forget this, to fail to hear the cry, to preserve prosperity at the expense of the powerless, is to miss what God had in mind.

At the height of their power, Israel misconstrued God’s blessings as favoritism and entitlement. They became indifferent to God and to the their priestly calling to bring liberation to others.

There’s a word for this. A word for what happens when you still have the power and the wealth and the influence, and yet in some profund way you’ve blown it because you’ve forgotten why you were given it int he first place.

The word is exile.

Exile is when you forget your story.

Exile isn’t just about location; exile is about the state of your soul.

Exile is when you fail to convert your blessings into blessings for others.

Exile is when you find yourself a stranger to the purposes of God.

And it’s at this time that we meet the prophets, powerful voices who warned of the inevitable consequences of Israel’s infidelity.

This idea of God is one of the many reasons NeighborLink exists and must continue to practice practical acts of redemption. To hear the cry of the oppressed and participate in ending the suffering.

This is a great book to read whether or not you believe in God. Just the first chapter expains the pressures of any society all through the world. The repeating pattern of power and excess only to be broken by the desire God has to free the oppressed through His people. At some point we have to break the cycle although I don’t know how that can happen yet.