The time spent with our team giving Dionte clarity…clarity
about who Jesus is and what Jesus did for Dionte and you and for me, it just
gripped me. I was overwhelmed by emotion
when Dionte described a dream that his mother had about him. He said his mother had a dream that a black
car was rolling through the neighborhood and there was a shooting, everyone in
the car was shot and Dionte was going to save them, but he ended up getting
killed. Now some of you may think, why
would a mother tell her son about a dream like that? But for Dionte, he needed to hear that dream,
because it was pointing him to Jesus.
Not only that, but he went on to describe how it’s known (either in his
family or between him and his brother) that his brother has a ‘gift’, his
brother is able to flip open the Bible and just find life, a verse that
describes life. And what Dionte didn’t
say, but we all felt was his brother also found hope in that, that the word of
God was encouraging his brother through that ‘gift.’ But when Dionte attempted the same thing,
looking for that ‘gift’ or that hope – all the bible verses reflected was
death.
Scared to death.
Scared that he was going to end up dead, on the street in front of a black
car, trying to do what was right, being in the wrong place at the wrong
time. And the feeling of being ‘scared
to death’ was all over his face. It was
a weight, you could feel, a weight that I know some of my friends and family,
if they were really honest carry in the back of their minds, maybe in the
front, maybe it just pops in once in a while?
But it was felt.
So here’s a 20 year old looking at his mother, looking at
the Bible and finding death.
Surprising? Aren’t we supposed to
get hope from those things? Parents are
to uplift and raise up their children.
And then Dionte read the following verses one after another:
“For by grace you have been saved through
faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of
works, so that no one may boast.”
Ephesians 2:8-9
“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus
as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will
be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and
with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10: 9 -10)
And then we went a bit further and emphasized this:
“for ‘Whoever will call on the name of the
Lord will be saved.’” (Romans 10:13)
And then Dionte couldn’t stop smiling, his countenance
changed. He found hope. He found the words in the Bible he had longed
for, he had searched for, he had prayed he would just open to. He found clarity. As I sat there watching, I was overwhelmed
with joy, with love with just an immense amount of compassion. I remember feeling scared to death. I remember sitting in rooms by myself, crying
out to the Lord knowing that He was the only one that could fix the hurt, the
fear the sheer terror that I felt and not feeling hope, I remember searching,
trying to find it on my own.
And then I was flooded with the immense emotion, the weight
of glory you could say, maybe even the joy that I now have in knowing that I
don’t have that same fear, that Dionte doesn’t EVER have to have that fear
again…and tears flooded down my face.
So as I sit here thinking, scared to death, when was the
last time I was scared to death, it’s a funny term that we throw around like
nothing, but it holds a lot of weight.
And as I sit here, I can’t think of the last time I was really scared to
death. It’s a weight that I don’t have
to carry anymore though, and neither do you, because “it is the gift of God,” (Ephesians 2:8-9) that He “demonstrates His own love for us, in that
while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
My prayer for you today is that as you read this, you think
of your scared to death moment and instead of searching for hope in your
mother, father, spouse, your seatbelt, your helmet, your parachute, your
bottle, your drug, your escape… you look to the Lord and to the offer of
salvation, it’s a gift and it’s free and it SAVES!
Thank you Lord for saving me…
PS - Check out Dionte at the end of this video
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