Love Your Neighbor

Greetings in the Lord!

Today I had a God dream that took place in a Westernized city, my best guess is a larger town in the UK.  We were running around the mostly minority neighborhood in a frantic, as we heard a certain building was being besieged.  I was not for sure who the attackers were, but the threat seemed to be instigated by radical Islamists.  As a group of us ran to take refuge in an apartment building, men in black military-type clothes were there tearing off the pretty silk hijabs from the group of younger, stylish Pakistani Muslim girls and were yelling at them.  I thought they were doing this because they were Muslim, but when a group of girls came who were fully covered (faces as well), the men let them in without a hassle!  As I assessed the situation, their hatred seemed as much racial as religiously motivated, and I realized that really no one was safe.  I left the building quickly and ran down the street and saw a twenty-something year old black girl sitting against the building looking at two old purses, deciding which one to keep. 

"Where did you get those?" I asked.  "The church gave them to me," she answered.  

She wasn't the slightest bit interested in seeking shelter from the danger that was only a block away, but was more concerned with meeting her daily needs, survival.  With her comment I discerned that this neighborhood was a battlefield and a tinderbox for clashes to occur: evil was trying to stir up racial and ethnic hatred, religious discord and violence, and desperate poverty.  The Church was meeting some of the basic needs of the community, but the overall mentality of the poor was complacent with "handouts" and felt trapped by their poverty.  

The neighborhood is vulnerable to fires of fury to rip through as many people's mindset are bound by some form of hatred or another...and that is their sin. 

"Announce in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem and say: 'Sound the trumpet throughout the land!  Cry aloud and say: 'Gather together!  Let us flee to the fortified cities...For I AM bringing disaster from the north, even terrible destruction."  A lion has come out of his lair; a destroyer of nations has set out.  He has left his place to lay waste your land." 

Jeremiah 4:5-7.

"O Jerusalem, wash the evil from your heart and be saved.  How long will you harbor wicked thoughts?...Your own conduct and actions have brought this upon you.  This is your punishment.  How bitter it is!  How is pierces to the heart!"  Jeremiah 4:14,18.

So today my prayer is for all those neighborhoods that are ripe for strife and trouble because there is an overwhelming stronghold of "acceptable" hatred in their hearts: Lord, protect Your people that call upon Your name, that they may be safe and be able to help generously to all those in need; that they be filled with Your love and power and be Christ to a generation that does not know Him.  In Jesus name I pray, Amen. 

~Be blessed and be a blessing.