I am so thankful for friends … for those who enrich my life. I am thankful for the greatest friend of all … my Savior Jesus. He laid His life down so that I can live mine fully equipped to do the things He so lovingly planned for me - before I was ever formed in my mother’s womb. What a concept … what a love! Now it is my turn to love like Him … to live my life in such a way that it frees others to be the individuals and community of peoples who will possess the “lands” that have been prepared and promised to them. On Sunday I returned home from Nashville, TN where I gathered with 70,000 plus of my brothers and sisters in Christ for “The Call” on 7-7-07. We cried out corporately for this very cause. We repented in humility, denied ourselves through fasting and prayed that we might be a force that would bring life and freedom to individuals, communities and our land. I have no doubt that God heard from heaven.

On Sunday before we left town we prayed over various areas of the city, one being the State Capitol. There was a monument dedicated in 1909 to a man hailed as a hero for “laying his life down” for the cause of the confederate army… slavery. Almost in its shadow I found a smaller monument in remembrance and honor of another group of people. These people had been ripped away from their families and homes in Africa. We were so wretched and blind! To top that atrocity we shoved them into the bowels of ships, vulnerable to such deplorable conditions that the sign on this monument stated 33% - 50% of them died before ever reaching our shores! I stood arrested and speechless as the weight of this covered me. A short time later as I tried to approach this monument again I just stopped in my tracks and cried and asked for the forgiveness of God and the people of Africa who were so violated. It was a holy moment.  I was entrusted with a portion of what God feels when His treasures … His people … are not recognized for the value He has ascribed to them.

Has history and HIS story taught us anything? Down the road will we feel this same sense of shame and sorrow for the monuments erected to the supposed “heroes” of today? Again, some are so blind that they believe it their duty and right to rip a human life from his or her family and land (the womb) to die and be cast into the bowels of a trash can, before they ever have the chance to enter into their purpose … their land.

I stated earlier that we fasted … we denied ourselves … that we might become a force that would bring life and freedom to individuals, communities and our land. There was a man named William Wilberforce who labored tirelessly to see slavery end in England. Dear Jesus … make me a force … a Wilberforce who will labor tirelessly for the lives of these babies who are brutally being stolen from their families and their homes, the wombs. Dear Jesus allow me to continue to experience your heart of love for all of your undiscovered treasures surrounding me … in the USA, Mozambique, Africa and the other nations of this earth.

2 Corinthians 4:1-4 explains this well. “Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather we have renounced the secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled , it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

It goes on to talk about God who said “Let light shine out of darkness and He made His light to shine in our hearts”. We as believers need to be praying His prayer … “that light would shine in the darkness” … but we are also the answer to that prayer.

What direction is God wanting to point you to shine His light and carry His love into the darkness? In John 15:13 Jesus says “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” Whose friend will you be? Who needs to be set free?