“Be generous to the poor—you’ll never go hungry; shut your eyes to their needs, and run a gauntlet of curses.”
Proverbs 28:27 MSG
In June of 2010, this scripture became imprinted in my mind. The night it happened literally changed the entire trajectory of the Worship Center. Melissa and I were chaperoning the youth department to a conference. At one of the night services, a ministry was promoting their cause. I listened, even gave in the offering that was designated to support their cause. However, God had a much bigger idea in mind. I stepped out of my seat and headed to the main corridor of the building that we were in, and ran smack dab into one of the young ladies from that ministry who had just finished speaking. It was a surreal moment and to this day, is difficult to put into words. The ministry that night was shining a light on sex trafficking. I had not had much exposure to this horrifying issue until that night, and I certainly didn’t think that it was so close to home. I had a brief but enlightening conversation, and I headed back into the arena for the remainder of the service. God was working in me; I just didn’t know the extent.
We traveled back to the hotel that night, and I knelt to pray in our room. As I began to pray about the feelings I had, I felt the Lord ask me about this scripture. He asked me to quote it, so I stated the King James Version of it, “He that giveth to the poor shall not lack”. God said that’s not all, but that was all I knew from memory. So, I went to read this text, and as I read it, there was a simple, but profound explanation from God about how this applied to all that I had witnessed. The King James Version again stated that he that hides his eyes shall have many a curse.
“He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse.”
Proverbs 28:27 KJV
That’s when God said to me, “I have showed you what is going on in this nation and around the world, now what will you do about it.”
Up until this point, I believed as a Christian, I was fulfilling my duty by simply just praying about the crises that are in this world. In June of 2010, I was made well aware that I am not only to pray but I am also to be involved. On our drive home from Atlanta, I wrote and then launched a ministry called Freedom Fighters. From that day until now, every Wednesday night offering at the Worship Center has been donated to various ministries that fight for those that are less fortunate. We began launching mission trips, building daycares, working under bridges and most recently we launched our Loves Goes campaign to the city of Cairo.
Freedom Fighters began because once you have seen the issues, you cannot hide your eyes. We cannot simply just ignore the issues of our day. We must lead the charge to make a change. We are not to be conformed to this world but transform it. There is so much that is wrong that we, the church, cannot sit idle! We must be on the move! Since time is short, we must move quickly, and as Ephesians states, redeem the time because the days are evil.
You can look at the progress, growth and all that pertains to the blessings of the Lord upon the Worship Center, and it began when we no longer hid our eyes, and we began to lend to the poor.
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