Zebra Ministries

Good morning Zebras,

God is not a beggar. We are beggars on His behalf.  

God is offering Salvation, but He does not beg people to take it.  Read the story of the rich young ruler if you don’t believe me. Matthew 19:6, Mark 10:17, Luke 18:18.  Three times it is recorded and not once does Jesus beg. 

Every time Jesus is recoded as saying this:

Mark 10:21 Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

To me that seems like the exact opposite of begging.  He lays down stringent requirements and then lets the man walk away. 

A train does not beg a person to get off the track nor does it alter its direction.  In the same way, God does not beg people to follow Him or alter His Word to make it easier.  But those of us who know God and know that He is not going to change His mind need to beg on His behalf.

2 Corinthians 5:20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

We are the bystanders in the train scenario. Or maybe the engineer.  We are the people who “understand” the train and know playing on the tracks is dangerous. So, on God’s behalf we beg, plead, and urge the person to please, please, please get off the track. We blow the whistle, we try our best, but in the end the choice is their’s.

If a person chooses to stay on the track after they have been warned there is nothing you can do.  But allowing someone to die because you were too afraid to sound the warning is something else.

Another one of my life changing passages:

Ezekiel 3:17–21 “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.  When I say to a wicked man, ‘You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.  But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself. “Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Since you did not warn him, he will die for his sin. The righteous things he did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the righteous man not to sin and he does not sin, he will surely live because he took warning, and you will have saved yourself.”

Love,

Jill