Young Communicator Sunday
Monday Morning Commentary
To conclude our My Life Verse series, we had young communicators Sunday where two members of our community, Henri Sarti and Toni Parsons, got to share their life verse.
Henry Sarti shared Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
When Henry first came to DP, he told his wife Adriana that he was not going to go to church to sit on the pew. If they were going to do this, they were going to do it for real. One night Henry opened up his bible, and it opened to this passage. Something burned within him as he read it and he prayed, “God do that in me.”
Months later he went on the DP mission trip to LA. God opened his heart and gave him a love for people as he served the people there. Though God had put this new love in his heart, he began to notice he still had pride, jealousy, and anger in his heart. He was grieved to discover that there was still more sin in his heart. Henry cried out to the Lord again, “God deal with this sin within me.”
The Lord was faithful to continue to break down pride, anger, and jealousy in Henry’s heart. As sin continued to be dealt with in his heart, he sought the Lord to direct him to the will of God. Ever since he was a little boy, he knew that he and his family were placed on earth for a purpose. As he sought the Lord to direct him, God laid on his heart to go into Ansley Park a local neighborhood in Woodstock, GA to share the gospel.
Toni Parsons shared Psalm 139. September 2013 God miraculously revealed himself to Toni after five years of living in substance abuse and depression. Toni shared that we are all born into this world with a self-given to us by the perfect creator God. As we grow up, we receive messages from the world that we are not good enough. Our true self is then covered in shame. To cover the shame, we then develop our circle C, our “personality,” or the mask we portray to the outside world.
When Toni read Psalm 139, she realized that God is omniscient or all-knowing. The reality that God knew the deepest depths of her soul overwhelmed her and led her to a place of freedom. The way she put it is that God broke through her circle C, her shame, and reached the true self she had previously deemed not good enough.
She was also in awe that God is omnipresent or always with us. When God revealed to her that he had been there all along, she realized it was not God who had moved from her but that she had moved from God and that he was still longing to embrace her.
Toni shared that the same hope she experienced is available to all of us. Just as she did not have to be perfect, we do not have to be perfect. God longs for us to be awakened to his presence. We can be honest before the Lord because he already knows the depths of our soul.
We thank God for the testimonies of Henry and Toni. God is faithful to do what his word promises. Let us move from a "me focus" that is concerned with acquiring the things of this world, to living in the breath of God. Let's live daily in the reality that we are appointed for a kingdom purpose.