So I wanted to post this a while ago, but I haven’t slowed my life down enough to do so. So here we go.
I was at a service at Christ Fellowship when the Lord spoke to me about this. I have recently been listening to a podcast on intercession from a teaching of Neville Johnson. I remember him talking about the story of Jim Elliot, the man who went into the depths of the jungle of Ecuador to preach the gospel to the natives. Anyway, I was in the service praying when the Lord began to download this into my heart. Jim Elliot felt called upon by the Lord to take the gospel into the darkest part of Ecuador. These natives had never seen white men and had certainly never heard of the man named Jesus. So Elliot spent ten years preparing himself and his family to move to a place where they could have access to the jungle. He and another family were finally able to go. They packed up everything they had and left behind everything they knew to follow the destiny that God had for them. With their families safe at home, Jim and his friend flew into the thick jungle. What met them there was incomprehensible. Jim Elliot, the man whom God had given the call to preach to these natives, died with spears in his back. The natives killed the men.
When you first hear this, a sense of shock sets in. Why would God call him and then just let him die? Well fortunately this is not the end of the story. The wives of the missionaries did the unthinkable. Although their husbands had been killed by this violent tribe, they decided to finish what they started. The took their children and entered the tribe. By the grace of God the tribe accepted them as their own, and the women ended up leading the entire tribe to Christ.
As I was walking around the sanctuary praying, the Lord gave me a revelation about this story. Think about it. These men, who prepared much of their lives for the ministry God called them into, were killed by the darkness, but that’s not the end of it. Their wives finished what they had started. What a powerful picture of the Bride of Christ!! Jesus prepared his ministry, followed the leading of his Father, and was killed for the sin of the world. So we ask, what’s next? Jesus isn’t here anymore, so what now? Jesus may be with his father in heaven, but his light lives in his Bride! He left the Bride here on earth to pierce the darkness and expand the kingdom of light. They pierced his side, but he didn’t stay dead. He rose from the grave and lives in us so we may carry the light of Jesus to the darkest places we know. There is no darkness too thick, and there is not calling too large. If he calls us for it he will equip us for it. How do I know this? It’s a promise in His Word. Isaiah 60:1-3 says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”
Maybe Jesus isn’t here on earth physically, but he has given his Bride the authority to go into the darkness and carry His light. Sometimes I feel like the darkness is just too thick, and I don’t know how I am to do what God has called me to do. But that’s the thing I’ve been learning lately. It’s not me. The Bible says that in our weakness his power is made perfect. I know that I have got to stop trying to do things on my own and just start trusting that he is continually equipping me for what he wants me to do. I’m starting to learn that in a place of brokenness is the only time he can use me, and trust me, lately I’ve been feeling pretty broken. We must let our prayer be, Lord let me decrease so that you may increase in me. Thank you Jesus that you use broken people to accomplish your will.
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