Dear Saints,
When I was with the Lord today, I saw a picture of slaves moving a cart vividly displayed before my eyes. They were moving it towards a place where they were building something. I was reminded of the children of Israel, when they were workers toiling for the Egyptian empire. These people were not only being used as slaves, but also to build monuments to their masters.
So many hands have been quick to build monuments to the same things that have enslaved because ambition and greed have become masters. The same root issues that enslave have so encapsulated that we reflect and revel in them.
Yet, many now want to be free of the ungodly structures that they themselves have helped to build.
You might be in a church setting and see systemic racism taking place, but your hands grow limp and you fail to act. You may have been complicit in the breakdown of another person’s business, looking on while it was destroyed. You may have partaken in injustice because you wanted to preserve your own place amidst the dysfunction. And forgetting, that through all this Almighty God is looking on from above. You may seem to be looking for freedom, and yet by your own hands, you’ve become complicit in a system that enslaves and destroys rather than breaking free and trusting God.
So now when you want to walk away from what you have helped built, those you have built with will try to pull you back. There are all sorts of threats that come with reaching for true liberty and true freedom. These include mental and emotional threats, doubts and second guessing yourself. You ask yourself ‘how would I look if I suddenly stood against what I once believed and helped create’.
The threats and doubts are without number. But Christ has given us liberty and freedom.
The conversations that are creating change, and the shakings taking place in society shouldn’t scare you. Rather, embrace them and be resolute about doing things differently, as from here on, the cords will be strengthened. Even in relationships that have become dysfunctional, REBUILD on the foundation of truth. REBUILD with honour. REBUILD with Christ. Nothing is lost. We can always use the charred bricks to REBUILD a wall that still keeps the enemy out, and really preserves the glory of God that is in our midst.
The things that have arisen are not going away. These dialogues and uncomfortable conversations are not going to stop. We cannot gloss them over just with symbolic shows of unity and solidarity.
We must rather step into the prophetic reality in which it is written that ‘they shall rebuild the old ruins, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations’ (Isaiah 61:4).
SELAH!
When the children of Israel eventually left the system of slavery in the way they did, it was a fulfillment of historic justice because Joseph, a son of Israel, had once been used to preserve the entire nation of Egypt through the presence and calling of God that was on him. It was only when the Israelites had stopped moving in their identity in God that a king arose to make them slaves of the things they had become accustomed to. Yet, change had to come and the Israelite identity had to be restored!
Rise up in your identity in Him! Now is the time to BREAK YOUR CHAINS!!!!!