A Higher Standard
In Revelation 12:11 it says we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. This week we’ve been challenged with what can seem like a great task to accomplish if we are not looking at it correctly. On Earth as it is in Heaven seems like a stretch if we make it about the whole world all at once. We overcome by the testimony of others as well as our own. Pastor Tim shared Sunday the story of one of our favorite people in all of history. George Washington Carver. I encourage you to read his full story, but I will give you the short story here. He was a black male born into slavery. His mother, sister and he were stolen from the family they belonged to. He was only three months old at the time. The thieves left him in the wilderness to die because he was so little. The family found him and due to sickness, he wasn’t raised outside in the field. This opened up to him education. He endured a lot of mistreatments from the world around him due to the color of his skin, but he did not let that stop him. At a young age he was introduced to Jesus, and he fell in love with Him. As he grew up, he would take long early morning walks in the woods to talk to Jesus. He cultivated an ear to hear the voice of Jesus. Fast forward after college he received a teaching job in Alabama. As he entered the state the Lord asked him what did he see? He said, I see a land and a people who are starving. As he walked with Jesus each day for over twenty years, he single-handily changed the economy of Alabama and some of Mississippi with his over three hundred fifty uses of the peanut.
He did not allow all of the tribulations and troubles of religion and politics to affect his heart. He was about one thing. The voice and heart of Jesus for a land and its people. His story gives us hope. When you set your heart on Jesus you too can change the world around you. Mr. Carver saw Heaven on Earth as he listened to the voice of Jesus tell him all the things that could be done with the peanut and then he taught others what he learned.
Abba is calling us to a different standard than what you see today as the body of Christ. He has put a passion on the inside of you for a purpose just like He did for Mr. Carver. We have to stop settling for low standards so we can raise the standards in Gulfport and your city to where Abba says they should be.
These Walks are not a devotion to read every day then walk away and forget what you’ve read. It is an invitation to transformation. Let hope arise in you to passionately see things the way Abba does. We want His heart!
