"I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 11:19
This is my prayer. Apathy is a dangerous thing. It has sidelined me many times from sharing the Gospel, or helping the hurting, or caring for the broken. Jesus did not have an apathetic bone in His body. He reached out always with love and in goodness to the broken. He came here to save the hurting and the sick. He was somehow beautifully counter cultural and yet exactly what the culture needed.
My study note on the above verse says; " Inner spiritual and moral transformation that results in single-minded commitment to the Lord and to his will...Giving a new heart responsive to God's will." I love this! I want single-mindedness in His eternal purpose for me. I want a heart responsive to His will and having this leaves no room for apathy, only action.
I am not a fan of statistics because they can "take away their names and their stories, homogenizes their personalities and cheapens the value of each individual child, created in the very image of God"( Hole in Gospel by Richard Sterns). That being said listen to these with your heart:
1. 26,575 children die each day of preventable causes
2. 2.6 billion people in the world live on less than 2.00 a day
3. 1 billion people live on less than 1 dollar a day
4. the average American lives on 105 dollars per day
5. roughly 9 million people per year die of hunger or hunger related causes
" its not our fault people are poor, but it is our responsibility to do something about it" Hole in the Gospel
All theses stats and the above quote are from this book Hole in Gospel. This is a focused book on exactly how I am to respond to God's commands in Scripture to care for the poor, the hurting, the widow, and the orphan. It has opened my eyes to the challenge of the Gospel and made me fall in love with Jesus all over again. He knew my heart was stony and prone to apathy, so He through His powerful work on the cross, gave me His heart. My heart breaks over the people, created in God's image, in these numbers. They have faces and stories just like me. They are chosen and loved by God just like me. In 2 Corinthians 9:11 Paul writes that we have been made rich so that we may become generous, and that generosity will result in thanksgiving or praise to God. This is beautiful to my heart. I am blessed with more than I need- to give what I have to the glory of God.
This will look different for everyone. Some will adopt, some will sponsor kids, some will work at soup kitchens, some will tutor kids in the inner cities some will go to dark places in the world with the light of Christ, some will encourage the body, some will spend their life on their knees praying for the same Spirit wind of Ezekiel 37, some will go into ministry, some will sit in the living room floor and share the Gospel with their kiddos, some will be the voice for the homeless, some will spend themselves for the addicts, some will die for cause of Christ, but no one will be apathetic.
If my faith is authentic my faith will act, if my faith is real it will bear fruit, and if my faith flows from a heart after God's these numbers will no longer be numbers....they will be brothers and sisters in need and I will urgently spend myself to help and pray and help and pray!
Praying to have a broken heart over what breaks His.....
