Falling In Love With Your City

"You will be the restorers of the streets..." - Isaiah 58

You can't phone in love. Love requires presence. Love is a verb. To truly love someone you have to know them, and to know them you have spend time with them.

Intentional proximity breeds transformational intimacy.

The Scriptures lay out a very simple idea for transformation. Experience Christ, fall before Him in worship, give your life away in total abandon. Repeat steps 1 through 3. I went there.

Life flows from God. And God desires for that life to flood into His cities and His nations. They are all His. The King of New York City is Jesus Christ. The King of Dallas, Texas is Jesus Christ. He owns it, it's His. And He is calling us to fall in love with it, and to give our lives for it. For the people in our city. The need is immense. The brokenness is overwhelming. But God.

But God has called His bride, the church to be the repairers of the breach and the restorers of the breach, to be people seeking the peace of our city. We should be loving our city to life. The gospel is life, and people are dying. Act.

Don't stand idly by and pray only. If prayer was enough the world would be a whole lot better by now. Love your city to life. Toil, sweat, strive, work for the peace of your city through your vocation, your free time, your relationships, your church, your whole life. Spend time with the people in your life and spend time getting to know where you live.

How do you fall in love with someone? Over time.

Fall in love with your city. So love your city to life in the name of Jesus. Be a restorer. Not a bystander. Be a giver, not a taker.

True sacrifice is seen not in what you give up but in what you gain, and in loving the people God has put in your life you get Christ, and the abundant life that He has for us right now. And the abundant life that hundreds of thousands in our cities don't have a clue about.

Get your Bible. Read it. Experience Jesus in the Bible. Worship Jesus. And act. The book directly after the gospels is called ACTS. Not thoughts or ideas, but ACTS. Where is God calling you to act? Where is He calling you to move?

We have been called by God to go into our cities and point them to life. Use your time, money, and gifts for this end, the glory of God among the city and the nations. What could possibly be more satisfying?

If our God is for us...then who could ever stop us?

Spend time with people this week with the intention of telling them about Jesus Christ. Just do it. Our God is always for us.

for the city,
R.D.