Day 6

What does it look like when a Night Watcher has insomnia? It means that it is 7 am and I am wired! How am I ever going to get to sleep. Ahh... some nice blogging should to the trick, don't you think?

So tonight's verse is inspired by the teaching I attended at the Boiler Room today. At the Boiler Room we are doing something called The God Story. Essentially what that means is that each week they go through a different part of the story of God's dealings with His people Israel. Starting with creation, we are walking through a narrative account of God's story. So this week we were discussing the Northern Kingdom and the ministries of the prophets Amos and Hosea. These two prophets were preaching just decades before God used the Assyrian Empire to judge the Northern Kingdom. In the book of Amos we are given insight into the reasons for their judgment; social injustice. Amos 2:6,

"For three transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn away its punishment because they sell their righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals."

Apparently the Lord really cares about the oppression of the poor. But why? Doesn't it seem a little harsh to judge a nation because of some people have a little less money than others? Well, actually the Lord has already set a precedent for this action in Exodus 3:9,

"Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. "

The Lord heard the cry of the Israelites in their oppression and he delivered them from the hands of Egypt by bringing crippling judgments upon the oppressors. However, now the tables have turned and it is those who have been delivered, those who have known the salvation of the Lord, who have become the oppressors. This grieves the heart of God. Those who have received the mercy of the Lord should be the first ones to extend it to others. The whole 'freely you have received, freely give' comes into play again. This is really important to God! And if we then take that principle and apply it to our lives in America, it becomes a chilling reality. How many times have I contributed to the oppression of the poor? How many times have I ignored it or completely forgotten about it? As an intercessor, I should be on the front lines of this, crying out to God to help restore the poor of this nation. I should be crying out for the cycle of poverty to be broken in Kansas City and for the church to begin to rise up in compassion for those in distress. Tonight they were calling for people to 'get their hands dirty' and actively minister to the homeless downtown. Honestly, I am not ready for that. But I want to want to have a heart for it (which is the step before actually having a heart for it). But I know that if it is on the heart of God, then He will make it a priority to me as I align my heart with His.

So this is getting long and the sun is coming up, I am going to try to get some sleep. May the Lord who made heaven and earth, bless you from Zion!