The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners . . . ~ Luke 4:18
READING: Isaiah 61
I’ll never forget the day Eric Helmbold, Jeffrey Jackson and I were given a tour of Elmina Castle, the infamous Slave Castle on the Atlantic Coast of Ghana. We walked through the cramped rooms that held hundreds of male and female slaves. The facilities for food and sleep were awful. In this castle, the slaves experienced disease, beatings, rape and death.
We saw the iron shackles that bound the slaves, and The Door of No Return through which slaves passed to board the ships that took them from their homes forever and made them slaves in the Americas.
The slave trade is a prime example of man’s inhumanity to man. This was truly a tragedy caused by greed. For centuries, white people enslaved black people. Jeffrey thought about his own African ancestors who passed through a place very much like this one on their way to slavery in North America. Eric and I grieved with Jeffrey for the sins against these precious people whom God had created.
Why were our DCPI trainers in Ghana? We were not there to enslave people. Exactly the opposite! We were there to bring true freedom . . . freedom in Christ. We were in Ghana to equip leaders to plant dynamic churches to bring freedom in Christ to people.
Are you in a season of perseverance or discouragement or crisis in church planting? Remember that you are called to a noble purpose. YOU ARE THERE TO BRING FREEDOM IN CHRIST to the precious people in your church, in your community and in your world. It is worth the fight. It is worth the sacrifice.
Dear Father, Help me to remember that to bring freedom in Christ is worth the investment of my life. Amen.
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