Did Carlos really just invite a gang member into his home?

Transcript:

What’s going on? My name is Carlos, and I’ll be sharing a story with you of how God reminded me of his faithfulness and his pursuit for his people. Even when we disregard him, he still pursues us and he’s still faithful. And it reminded me how I need to continue to pursue and be faithful to others. See, I’ve been inviting three guys to come over to my house for dinner and Bible study.

And in one day in particular, AP was the only one who was able to make it. Now he’s actually the most stubborn one, but yet the most transparent one of the whole group. It was me and my wife. And he started sharing things that was news to my wife. Gang banging, demonic dreams, drug dealing, fighting, all of that. More and more. 

The only thing that was new to me was when he started saying how he started dabbling with voodoo and witchcraft. I’ve shared with AP in the past that a lot of the things that he’s been doing has been allowing either the presence of evil and darkness to come into his life. And as he starts growing and maturing, he started seeing that for himself. So he’s trying to figure out where he could find peace.

And I’ve given him a resource. I’ve given him the understanding of where the true peace can be found, and yet he has not accepted that yet, and he has not found his encounter with God. I still believe God has something for him. I still believe God is going to use AP in his life whenever that happens.

And this allows me to know that God has not given up on him and I know I should not give up on AP. You see, it takes me back to when I was questioning my faith. I was trying to understand what does this look like? What is my relationship with Jesus? Am I even a Christian?

As I started giving up on myself as a follower of Jesus, I knew God was not giving up on me and he gave me the eyes to see that. I assume Christianity is all of what the Christianity of America is versus what the Christianity of Jesus Christ is. And so that gave me more hope to allow me to find my identity in Jesus Christ alone. I say all this to say this, if it wasn’t for what God has done for me in my life, I wouldn’t have been inviting AP into my home and I wouldn’t have been finding in the Bible how Jesus demonstrates true discipleship, therefore allowing me to invite AP into my home and into my life. And so as God continues to pursue me, I know God is continuing to invite me to pursue AP, even when things aren’t as ideal as I want them to be.