There are four things I pray for every day, multiple times a day.
That God will bring repentance to our nation and that He will bring healing to our land.
That we the church (if my people) will humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, repent and be the light we were called to be.
That the Lord will bring the unsaved in my family to a place of repentance and that they will have a life changing encounter with Him, and that the saved in my family will walk in the fullness of His calling and blessing.
That God will keep me ever on my face before Him, that any sin I have transgressed, any what that I have or am not walking in His will for me, that he would forgive me. That he will keep me in a place of repentance, a place of worship and a place of communion with Him.
Why do I pray for this? Because He is the call from sin.
I want to start by sharing three different verses from Ezekiel.
Therefore say to the house of Isra'el that Adonai Elohim says, "Repent! Turn yourselves away from your idols, turn your face away from all your disgusting practices!" Ezekiel 14:6
30 Therefore, house of Isra'el, I will judge each of you according to his ways," says Adonai Elohim. "Repent, and turn yourselves away from all your transgressions, so that they will not be a stumbling block that brings guilt upon you." 31 Throw far away from yourselves all your crimes that you committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit; for why should you die, house of Isra'el?" Ezekiel 18:30-31
Say to them, 'As I live,' swears Adonai Elohim, I take no pleasure in having the wicked person die, but in having the wicked person turn from his way and live. So repent! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, house of Isra'el?' Ezekiel 33:11
There is one word that ties all of these verses together; Repent. Repentance is our action, or should be our action, to His call from sin. Romans 6:23 tells us that The wages of sin is death. A consequence that He says will happen should they not repent. It is the same for us. We are all going to die a physical death, but as it is written in two of the above verses, "why should you die, house of Israel?" We do not have to suffer a spiritual death, because He has called us.
A call is what follows the seeing. You call out what you see. When you look at the synonyms of call, they are: cries, invites, summons. When we put this into the phrase "the call from sin", we see that He has seen the sin, and is calling us to come out of it. He is crying for us, inviting us, summoning us to come to Him. On the other hand, when we look at the word sin, we can compare it to darkness. Darkness is a place that crushes us, it presses in around us, and there is no light or hope in darkness. It is a place that no one should ever desire to be in. Because of His call, we don't have to stay there.
Something miraculous happened to me in preparation for this post. I'm going to share something that I was driven to write. While studying about the word darkness, this came to me, so I grabbed a pen and paper and just began writing.
A little girl lies in her bed at night. The wind blows outside and she feels the darkness of night begin to press in around her. The longer she lies there, the more she begins to feel fear of the dark and what could be in it. She cries out for her parents and they come running to see what is wrong. She begins to tell them of her fear, that she is scared of the dark and the monsters that are trying to get her. Her father, who loves her beyond price, goes to the hall closet and retrieves a night light, placing it where she can see its warm glow. Her fear begins to subside and she is able to finally rest, knowing her father has brought her out of darkness into light.
I wrote this in the morning, and then left to go run errands. While I was gone, I had a package delivered that contained the DVD The Chosen. The very first scene of episode one tells what I just wrote in the context of the time of Jesus. It shows a young Mary Magdalene, with her father and she is scared. He shows her the light of a star and recites a scripture from Isaiah. Fast forward to when Mary is an adult. She is plagued by demons, lives in a constant state of fear and sin and feels hopeless. When she meets Jesus, He speaks her name and recites the exact scripture her father taught her when she was a girl, but this time was different. Jesus, the Living Word, called her out of the life that she was living and into a new one.
But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by name; THOU ART MINE. Isaiah 43:1
He has called us, chosen us and told us in 1 Peter 2:9-10: 9 But you are a chosen people, the King's cohanim (priest), a holy nation, a people for God to possess! Why? In order for you to declare the praises of the One who called you out of darkness into His Wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; before you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Later in the season, when trying to explain what had happened to her, she says, "I was one way... and now I am completely different. And the thing that happened in between...was Him." This is what happens when He calls us from sin, and we answer. We too can say be like Mary and say this exact thing. People notice a change in you when you give your life to the Lord, and that is your chance to say, "the thing that happened in between, was Him."
I know I wrote the visual about the little girl and her father in preparation for what I was going to see in that first episode. I know that the Lord was preparing my heart for it. I shared what I wrote with my mother via text and she let me know that it wasn't by accident as she had watched the series earlier in the week. God is preparing the hearts of His people, and calling us not just from sin, but deeper into Him. How can we not answer?
There has been one song on my heart and lips for the last week. O Come to the Altar by Elevation Worship. This song is a call from sin, it invites you to come and drink of the waters of life, of Jesus. He is ready to meet you right where you are. He has been calling you.
Are you hurting and broken within
Overwhelmed by the weight of your sin, Jesus is calling.
Have you come to the end of yourself
Do you thirst for a drink from the well, Jesus is calling.
Chorus
O come to the altar, the Father’s arms are open wide
Forgiveness was bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ
Leave behind your regrets and mistakes
Come today there’s no reason to wait, Jesus is calling
Bring your sorrows and trade them for joy
From the ashes a new life is born,
Jesus is calling.
[Chorus]
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