​We had the privilege of taking a young lady from England on a walking tour through our village. I love it when I have the chance to walk among the people of Lusaka. Amid the beauty, one encounters the most unusual things. A random taxi driver proposed marriage. (We politely declined!) A woman sitting in her yard doing laundry shouted to someone in her shack that they must come out and see the lekgoa (“white people”). We walked among illegal electricity wire connections lining the dirt paths up the mountain. These are actually not surprising things in a township, but this is no typical tame stroll for a foreigner.

As we neared the top of the mountain filled with shacks, we met a young man all alone. My heart leapt. I knew God sent us to him. God wanted him to know how much He loves him and that He sees him and cares deeply for him. He was shocked and obviously moved by this unexpected encounter.

​May your normal and expected day be repurposed by the wildness of God’s love for another!

We believe the Cross completely satisfied the debt for every sin. We believe that "Jesus Paid It All." Or, do we?

I've often spoken with beautiful people who don't realize that they are allowing the transgressions of others to define them. That one painful, unjust event has become a frame of reference through which almost everything else in their lives is viewed and appraised. And they still see the one who damaged them as an offender or an enemy: not as a fellow child of God.

The truth is, the one who hurt us can never make things right. He or she can't pay enough money or endure enough personal torture to settle what is owed. Nor can he or she repair the damage that has been caused. Never, in this life or the next.

That's where the Cross comes in. See the monstrosity on the Cross--the brutally disfigured human form, all that blood. Is it enough? Do we really believe that the Cross has paid not only for our own sins, but for the sins that were committed against us?

Beyond that, do we believe that Jesus can not only pay that other person's debt, but heal us from the damage that was caused? Do we believe it, or not?

I want to see people free from the sins of others! I want to see people dancing in the healing that Jesus paid for them to have!

Beyond even that: is the Cross enough for a nation? We get to live in a nation in which racial tensions explode at the drop of a pin, due to very real evils that were committed in the past. Democracy can't fix that. Taking land and jobs from one group of people and giving them to another can't fix that.

But the Cross can.

Pray with us for real reconciliation to sweep through beautiful South Africa as believers turn to the Cross and take hold of the reality of what Jesus really accomplished there. What a Saviour!

Jesus paid it all
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow