Save Us The Unclean

God Morning Family,

Three Easters ago a young woman, tattooed and pierced with children and a boyfriend in tow, came to our church. She didn't want to be there but was brought by boyfriend's mother.

I noticed her resistance and after service went to speak to her about salvation. I prayed for her trying to discern the Lord's leading. God simply asked me to simply stay connected with her. So I began to visit and pray for her.

Since that time she has not come any closer to the Lord but has suffered much with the sin and pain of this world, much through her own doing. I must admit, having seen no fruit, I had given up on her.

This past two weeks God had laid her strongly on my heart to pray and visit. Yesterday I grabbed some snacks for her children and went to her house. It was filthier than ever. As I walked up the steps to the porch the smell of urine was overwhelming.

I knocked on the door and another woman came to the door. A small, black dog came to the door barking angrily and a large, toothless man loudly shoved him away. When they opened the door the stench almost made me sick.

The couple came out onto the porch to speak with me. Both of them unwashed, greasy haired, and wreaking of cigarettes, alcohol, and urine began to explain they knew this young woman and a social worker had told her the house was unfit and she had to move or lose her children.

The house was unfit for the living.

I left the snacks and politely invited them to church. Not really wanting them to come.

When I got back in my van my daughter Shannon held her nose. I had not gone into the house yet the smell clung to my clothes. I could almost taste it in my mouth. As my daughter looked at me questioningly I explained angrily that this is what the devil does to those made in the image of God. He leaves those who ought to walk in the dignity of being a child of God in filth. They ignorantly accept their station in life.

Immediately I silently began to converse with God.

Normally I go out of my way to invite people to my home for Bible Study. This couple, however, was filthy...disgustingly so. I thought of my couches stained with the dirt and smell of their presence long after they had gone. I thought of them in my church, sitting next to people, wreaking to high heaven.

I asked God to help me. My heart went out to them. If I didn't reach out who would? Who would stand before the gates of hell and plead with them to let God give them life.

But the smell....

This was the first time it occurred to me that the lepers in Jesus day were not only sick but filthy. Cast out from their towns they lived as best they could, but unless they had loved ones who would help them with fresh clothes, bandages, and washing, they most likely were

UNCLEAN

Yet our Lord went to them, touched them, loved them, and brought healing...He brought His life.

This is where my Christianity is now in question. Am I really Christs? Do I bring His power to heal to the broken, lame, and blind? Or do I just have a form of godliness?

This people are on my mind and yes I must pray, but that is not enough. I pity them but compassion demands I do something about their problem. Can I be the hands of Him who touched the unwashed despite the fact that the filth would cling to His flesh?

As I prayed (I recommend it for every Christian) I realized I do not put myself in the same category as these people. Most of us don't, but without Jesus we are just as filthy. When Jesus came to me I was spiritually living in filth and shame, but didn't really know it. I was bound by ignorance and sin. Yet He loved me, touched me, and made me clean.

Let me go another step further. Even with Jesus, if we say we are righteous but ignore the unclean, the lost, then our righteousness is no better than an old, used, menstrual pad before God. We are Pharisees too holy to be touched lest we be made unclean as well.

So many of us long for the romance of the mission field. We long to go to foreign lands and bring Christ to heathen nations lost in poverty...yet when God brings us someone to love, right here, right now, we turn away as we politely remind them...

"...be warm, be filled. Jesus loves you!"

“Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Matthew 25:41-46

Stay in prayer and in the Word!

Love in our Lord,

Lauren