Photo via Creative Commons, Tambako the Jaguar

This declaration came from the mouth of a pagan king after Daniel emerged from the den of lions unscathed. Not only did Darius declare the truth about God but he also prophesied about the Kingdom. He even testified of God’s goodness and miraculous work.

It says a lot about what upright and true character is capable of; it can change nations and transform kings and kingdoms.

The amount of faith that Daniel had in the pit, for God to shut the mouths of the lions, would’ve been… A LOT. It says, “no wound was found on him, because he had trusted God” (Daniel 6:23).

I wonder if I would’ve had the same kind of faith? If I were Daniel, I would’ve thought that God would allow me to die so that I would become a martyr and be testified about.

Instead, God knew – and I think Daniel knew too – that the miraculous would transform the kingdom.

It makes me wonder if I’m really positioning and posturing myself in places where I’m giving pagan kings that chance to testify about the goodness of God.

“Lord, make me an instrument…”

But I digress; this is not why I write today.

If you’ve known me at all in the last 3-4 years, then you know that I have a passionate soul about the injustice of human trafficking, both on a local and global scale. I’ve dedicated months of time and large amounts of energy in the last few years at addressing the issue, one of those being the rough birth of an idea: 3N1 MEN.

What is 3N1 MEN?

I started 3N1 MEN in early 2012 as an effort to get men involved in fighting the issue of human trafficking in the state of Georgia. After a lot of conversations with leaders in the abolition movement, we decided that the best role for men would be to become actual men of character and integrity, so I proceeded to help men establish systems of accountability to do just that.

The problem? Men don’t like asking for help and most men think they already have it all together.

That’s when I decided to launch a three-pronged focus to 3N1 Men; we’d empower me to fight human trafficking through advocacy, education, and accountability.

Seemed to work well.

So Why Haven’t I Heard Much About This?

Well, I did get MARRIED (insert major life-change) and I got a big promotion at work just a few months after that (more on that this week). Life got ahead of me. And as a result, my efforts with 3N1 MEN got distracted. Thankfully, an email from a dear friend was the kick-in-the-pants I needed to get the ball rolling again.

In 20 days 16 days I launch the new and improved 3N1 MEN! I cannot begin to describe how excited I am to do this. Improvements have been a long-time coming.

As a result, I’m in need of A LOT of help, which is why I’m writing this blog post today.

How Can I Help You with 3N1 MEN?

The easiest way to understand a lot of these improvements without giving them all away is this: imagine 3N1 MEN begin the online epicenter for news, resources, articles, and opportunities for men seeking ways to fight human trafficking.

Can you imagine that? Good. That’s what I’m going for.

So with that vision in mind, here are some roles I need filled for a strictly VOLUNTEER team of people:

- Writers. One of the biggest needs is that we need a team of [talented] individuals to crank out several articles a week. Topics will vary, but will fall under advocacy, education, and accountability. Each writer will be asked to contribute 2-3 articles each week.

- Online Advocates. We need a team of people committed to sharing our materials via the interwebs (sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other places). This is a relatively simple task. Ultimately, this team will play an enormous role when we launch our campaigns.

- Researchers. We also need a team of people committed to scouring news sites, online resources centers, and more for the latest information on abolition and human trafficking. These are things like new bills being passed, local and international busts, stories from survivors, and more. Each researcher will be asked to contribute 10 finds each week.

- Graphic Designer. I know that this is a stretch, but we could really use someone helping us with some killer graphic designs for our campaigns, subsequent logo needs, and more. Not sure the time this will demand from someone, but likely only an hour a week.

Do any of these roles sound like you? THEN PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I don’t care if you’re male or female, whether you have 20 hours or two hours a week that you can commit – I need your help.

If you want to commit to helping me empower men to fight human trafficking in the most effective way possible, shoot me an email at matthew.la.snyder[at]gmail.com. I will reply to you ASAP.

And for those of you that just want updates on the soon-to-be rapid growth of 3N1 MEN, you can join our newsletter list here.

Follow 3N1 MEN on Facebook and Twitter

Deep Gratitude

Ultimately, I’m indebted to your support over the past several years and all that I’m doing to combat the issue of human trafficking in the way that I feel the LORD has directed me to do it. You are my biggest fans. I couldn’t be more thankful!

Blessings,

Matt

“Come unto Me.” — Matthew 11.28

Is it not humiliating to be told that we must come to Jesus! Think of the things we will not come to Jesus Christ about. If you want to know how real you are, test yourself by these words – “Come unto Me.” In every degree in which you are not real, you will dispute rather than come, you will quibble rather than come, you will go through sorrow rather than come, you will do anything rather than come the last lap of unutterable foolishness – “Just as I am.” As long as you have the tiniest bit of spiritual impertinence, it will always reveal itself in the fact that you are expecting God to tell you to do a big thing, and all He is telling you to do is to “come.”

“Come unto Me.” When you hear those words you will know that something must happen in you before you can come. The Holy Spirit will show you what you have to do, anything at all that will put the axe at the root of the thing which is preventing you from getting through. You will never get further until you are willing to do that one thing. The Holy Spirit will locate the one impregnable thing in you, but He cannot budge it unless you are will to let Him.

How often have you come to God with your requests and gone away with the feeling – Oh, well, I have done it this time! And yet you go away with nothing, whilst all the time God has stood with outstretched hands not only to take you, but for you to take Him. Think of the invincible, unconquerable, unwearying patience of Jesus – “Come unto Me.”

I’ve made the mistake of feeling as if I can only love others in the context of environments where I’m free to discuss matters of faith.

I’ve made the mistake of thinking that if I’m not dedicating at least 40+ hours a week to the expansion of God’s Kingdom through the Church, that I’m a failure as a Christian.

I’ve made the mistake of mis-defining “Church”.

I’ve made the mistake of letting my faith grow cold because I wanted it to happen to me, not through me.

I’ve made the mistake of allowing the tough times to keep me from moving forward.

I’ve made the mistake of not dreaming with God and allowing my ability to create with Him become weak.

I’ve made the mistake of allowing prophecies to go unspoken because I fear how others will respond.

I’ve made the mistake of not feeding my passion fuel.

I’ve made the mistake of not leading others towards Christ because I wanted to remain “relevant” to the popular opinion around me.

I’ve made the mistake of believing God sees my sin and hates me for it.

I’ve made the mistake of not standing up for justice.

I’ve made the mistake of letting circumstance mandate the expression of true manly character and integrity.

I’ve made the mistake of not loving patiently.

I’ve made the mistake of not thinking His grace is sufficient.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes.  In fact, all of these mistakes I have made within the last month. I can let them define me or I can learn from them.

I’m going to learn from them.

– matt

How to Live Out Your Calling and Write About It

Sometimes I think it’s easy to reduce the Kingdom of God down to a matter of talk and forfeit it of its right to manifested power.  It’s a common problem in the Church today.  We have pastors, music ministers, youth pastors, every kind of clergyman, and even the ‘laymen’ standing in front of congregations week after week and speaking a message that half of them don’t even believe.  Why?  They’ve never seen the message’s power.

I’m guilty of being one of those guys.

For years I stood in front of the pre-mature, undeveloped, searching, and lost souls of America’s youth and flattered them with a message that I had never truly understood.  I had never gotten around the theology of all of it because I never even understood what I was really saying.  I was regurgitating a message that I had heard time after time myself, convinced that it was the only reality that there was, that it was absolute truth when, unfortunately, that wasn’t the case at all.

Deep down I was aching for more understanding.  I was hoping to be exposed to the secret message that was hiding behind our lousy doctrines and theology.  I wanted an encounter with the Spirit of the living and active God of today – the one that the Bible boasts about but I had never seen, touched, or experienced.

And so I left.

Why I Left to Find Something

I left the Church of America and planted my feet on the pavement in search for a more fulfilling reality.  I didn’t give up on God.  I didn’t give up on the Church.

I gave up on the message I was boasting.

I started seeking a Truth etched into the faces of the lives on the streets of my hometown.  I engaged myself with the forgotten ones, the invisible people without homes that we pass day after day.  I finally got to know them and, in turn, God revealed to me a piece of His heart.

It was the most real that God had ever been to me, the most real thing when I befriended a crazy guy off the street and months later saw him come to the Lord.  Unbeknownst to me it was merely the beginning of my own pilgrimage; the start of a call that God placed on my own life.

Less than a year later I found myself wandering the streets of third world countries scattered all across the globe befriending some of the poorest of the poor.  God was doing something huge in my heart.  In abandoning the traditional views of the Church, I found the heart of God.  It wasn’t buried in a textbook.  It wasn’t engrained in a complicated three-point sermon.  It wasn’t hidden in the roots of Calvinist theology.

No.

What I Found

I found the heart of God in the heart of my brother and sister in Peru.  I found the heart of God tucked away in the back alleys of India, abandoned and forgotten.  I found the heart of God in the laughter of the orphans in Swaziland, Africa.  I discovered that the deeper truth I was longing for was outside of the box I had placed God in for so many years.

A Kingdom is resonating all around us, even here in America.  We just have to be willing to look for it.  We have to do more than just be willing to talk about it.  We have to be willing to go live it out.

Finding Balance

And so as a writer I struggle.  I wrestle sometimes with whether or not I should write about what I want to do or if I should go do it and then write about it.  Many writers, including aspiring ones like myself, have pondered this issue.  We have to find balance in our lives.  We cannot reduce the Kingdom of God to a matter of talk, to a conglomeration of words on a page.

We have to shove our way down the back alleyways and seek God out under the heap of trash.  We have to be willing to walk boldly into our workplaces and profess a spirit of freedom, not of bondage.  If God’s calling us to it, we have to be willing to give up months of our lives to go serve him in some distant nation.  We cannot neglect the call that God places on our lives.

It’s always easier to talk about doing things than it is to actually do them.  I would much rather tell you that I gave the homeless guy on the street corner five bucks for lunch rather than actually driving him to my favorite restaurant, investing in his life, and then building a relationship with him.

I would much rather tell you I did something that I didn’t do because I’m more concerned about my image than anything else.

Part of finding balance means getting over myself.  It’s harsh, but it’s true.  And maybe I’m the only one that struggles with this.  Maybe I’m the only one who writes about things and subconsciously wonders how my reputation is at stake with the words that I pen to the page.

God has called each of us to something, whether it is teaching a classroom chalked full of kindergartners, managing a small business, or even pastoring a body of believers.  God has put a piece of his dream in each of our hearts and he’s counting on us to pursue that call because it’s an important piece to a larger picture of what he wants to do in the world.

How to Write About It

And so as writers we have to be willing to be honest with ourselves.  Are we more concerned getting a blog posted or an article published than we are in communicating a message of integrity?

I’m finding that as a writer I have to establish some boundaries and principles in my life. I will not write about anything that I’m not already doing myself.  I will not tell you to go feed the homeless guy on the street corner if I’m not already doing it myself.  I will not tell you to go hold the orphaned children who are dying of AIDS in Africa if I’m not already doing it too.

In my writing, I refuse to be a hypocrite.

I also make an effort to go out and minister every week, to at least engage myself in conversation with people that I don’t know.  I know writers who stay in their homes and offices all day long and never get out and experience the world.  As writers, we cannot write about a world that we don’t have a relationship with.  We must be willing to get out, engage ourselves incarnationally in the world around us, and serve.

I might be slightly biased when I suggest all of this because I’m also a missionary apart from being an aspiring writer.  When I’m traveling the nations and reaching out to the abandoned, it’s hard to go home at night and find a heart to write about what I just saw.  I want to communicate to my readers what I’ve just experienced, but I would much rather spend my time finding ways to help the orphan I just spent three hours fathering.

The Power of Words

However, I must remember that words have ways of provoking people to movement.  Countless times I’ve returned home to emails from people who have read my blogs and been so inspired that they have booked tickets halfway across the world to get a taste of what I’ve experienced.

There is power to our words that we oftentimes neglect.

It’s vital to write about our experiences, especially the ones that we just “know” will arouse people to go experience the heart of God themselves.  When we merely write about what we want to do, people are inspired by our laziness to remain lazy.  But when we write about a powerful movement, about the fruit of our actions, people are driven to action to change the world.

As writers desiring to change the world, we must allow the Kingdom its right to manifested power.   We have to operate out of integrity and not hypocrisy, driven by a willingness to serve and to not be served.

In the words of Keith Green, “I am just a pen in the hands of the Lord.  He is the author.  All praise should go to him.”

May the words we write boast a message of hope from the stories etched in the back alleyways all across the world.  Let’s not rewrite the same message over and over, but that one which resonates from the halls of the Kingdom around us.

“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered in the dusty basement of medievalism, a whole cellar full of 1500-year-old, 200% proof grace… of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly after all those centuries of trying to lift ourselves up with our own bootstraps, and worrying about the perfection of those bootstraps. Something had changed. The saved were home before they had even started. Grace had to be drunk straight, undiluted.”

– Robert Farrar Capon

I woke up this morning and knew that I needed to listen to this sermon again. I made a deal with myself that I would. What I got this morning as I put in my earphones was a shot of grace. It burned my throat, seared my heart, revolutionized my spirit, and left me changed – again.

I had a divine encounter with Truth. I drank it straight and undiluted from my self-ascribed laws and perceptions – again.

Like a shot of whiskey.

I want to challenge you to drink this shot of grace . It’s only 38 minutes long, so perfect for a lunch break or extended smoke break (do people still take those?).

Get it here –> Grace, Drunk Straight, Undiluted.

I want to be staggering drunk with grace. How about you? 

Confessions can bring out the deepest liberation in the soul of a man. With a simple declaration, I can break chains that have fettered me for years, or create a future to dance in to. But it’s my choice as to how I’ll wield the weapon that is my tongue. Is that true or what?

My friend Jeff Goins has kicked off a new blog series: Mastering the Habits of Great Writers. I have willfully joined the 15 day journey to create habits that will enable me to become a better writer (and it’s still not too late for you to join).

Today’s exercise was simple: declare you’re a writer.

I think it’s no secret that I’m a writer, though I oftentimes keep my words secret from the world. The majority of my creativity is compounded within the pages of my journal; a place that I harbor my thoughts with great selfishness. Maybe I need to get over myself a little bit.

I remember the first time that I wanted to become a writer. I was in college – an eager and egotistical schmuck – and ventured away from campus one day to satisfy a frequent craving: coffee and emotional release. It wasn’t uncommon to find me tucked away in the corner of coffee shops, pen in hand and scribbling away violently on the page. It was the best way that I processed and this day was no different.

It was somewhere between cups two and three that I paused to reflect on how I felt cocooned in the aroma of coffee, with the carnage of my thoughts scattered on paper. I felt more alive than I ever thought possible. And it was in that moment that I recall thinking, “I want to do this forever.” I wanted to be a writer.

And today is really no different. I feel a strong connection with words and I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s not like I’m having a romantic affair with the English language, I’m just enthralled with the way that authors, poets, and writers of all types use words to communicate. It makes me want to do the same thing.

I want to write books. I want to write novels, screen plays, and columns for various publications. Honestly, it’s one of my dreams that has never fluttered away – just one that I’ve placed on the forgotten shelf in the closet.

This public confession is good. It’s healthy. And the best part is that it’s challenging me to really wrestle this with integrity.

I am a writer. It’s time I start writing towards my dream.

“If you get into the habit of doing a thing in the physical domain, you will do it every time until you break the habit determinedly; and the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will get up to what Jesus Christ wants, and every time you will turn back when it comes to the point, until you abandon resolutely. ‘Yes, but – supposing I do obey God in this matter, what about…?’ ‘Yes, I will but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.’

“Jesus Christ demands of the man who trusts Him the same reckless sporting spirit that the natural man exhibits. If a man is going to do anything worth while, there are times when he has to risk everything on his leap, and in the spiritual domain Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold by common sense and leap into what He says, and immediately you do, you find that what He says fits on as solidly as common sense.

“At the bar of common sense Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad; but bring them to the bar of faith, and you begin to find with awestruck spirit that they are the words of God.

“Trust entirely in God, and when He brings you to the venture, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis, only one out of a crowd is daring enough to bank his faith on the character of God.”

– Oswald Chambers

As worshipers, it’s vital that we abide in the Vine.   Jesus reminds us the importance of this in John 15.5.  He says, “apart from me you can do nothing.”

It’s so true.

I spend time sitting at the Father’s feet and trying to get as much from Him as I can.  It’s not that I’m asking Him “this” or “that”.  I’m just listening.  Prayer is about more than us talking.  It’s about more than us asking.  Prayer is also about us just listening to what He’s saying (it’s how we align ourselves prophetically).

God gave me a great word one day when I was just listening.  He said: Worship is intimacy.

It’s a profound and simple statement.

Worship is intimacy.
Worship is intimacy.
Worship is intimacy.

The overflow of our intimacy with the heart of the Father is what worship is birthed out of.  It’s not music.  It’s not a new song.  Those are expressions of worship anyway.

Worship is my lifestyle; music is my expression.

So how close are you to the heart of the Father?  Do you sit at His feet daily and listen?

Abide in the Vine.  It’s what worshipers do.

On speaking to the disciples concerning Lazarus, Jesus says, “our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going to Bethany to wake him up.” Yet the disciples just thought Lazarus was sick and needed to sleep; they didn’t understand Jesus’ words, so he said in language plain to them, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
– John 11.11-15, my paraphrase

Spending a year away from the kingdom of America a few years ago was one of the best things that I have ever done. I don’t think we realize how much our environment can truly affect us, especially when we’re born into it, raised into it, and live life in it for so long. The concerns and worries of life in the States attack us on every front that we unconsciously become disillusioned to the spiritual realities around us.

For me and many others, ‘God had to take us out in order to bring us in’ (Deut. 6.23). I say this meaning that He had to draw us out of our life of complacency in an attempt to birth us out of it and into something greater, the Kingdom reality, a spiritual reality that we’re foolishly and indirectly taught is no more than an idea or theory. I say all of this out of great humility because I’m realizing the difficulty of living this Kingdom lifestyle in the States. In the last several months I’ve found myself overwhelmed with the worries of this life, with trying to figure out how to make ends meet, pay the bills, and effectively prepare for marriage.

But I refuse to neglect what God’s done in my life.

I love this chapter of John where Jesus goes and raises Lazarus from the dead. There are truly two perspectives on the story: the way Jesus sees Lazarus (asleep) or the way that the disciples see Lazarus (dead). Like I said, here in the West we’ve been born into a reality that sees the physical and in many ways everyone all across the world is. We’re born into the flesh, born into the sin and corruption of this world, and we’re limited by our sight.

We have to allow God to capture our hearts in such a way that it draws us into a greater reality where the scales fall off our eyes (such as the blind man in Jn. 9) and we begin seeing things for what they really are.

The world looks at Lazarus and sees him dead. For years on end I read this passage of Scripture and I couldn’t help but be overcome at the thought that Lazarus was rotting away in the grave – DEAD! And I thought it was marvelous because Jesus walks into Bethany bearing Life and he lets it loose on Lazarus’s lifeless body. The thing is that I saw no differently than the disciples did. They couldn’t see past the physical problem (death) to the spiritual problem (a silent slumber). And to no surprise, when Jesus got to Bethany, it was no different. Mary, Martha, and the whole town were overcome and grieving because if Jesus had been there, “Lazarus’ sickness would not have resulted in death.”

And Jesus wept.

This is where we might differ on interpretation, but I believe that Jesus wept maybe not just because he loved Lazarus so much, but that Jesus wept at the unbelief of those that he was surrounded by, that no matter how long they had been with him they still weren’t seeing things the way that he was seeing them. They couldn’t see the unseen because they were too focused on the visible realm. They weren’t operating out of faith in the greatness of who God the Father is and what He is capable of.

My favorite part is what Jesus did next though. He told them to take away the stone, to essentially remove the thing that was binding Lazarus to the grave. And then Jesus says to them, “I told you that if you believed cool things would happen, right?’ Watch this…” and he looked up to heaven, did some discussing with the Father, and simply said, “Lazarus – come out!”

And he did – in grave clothes and all.

Jesus told the people standing around Lazarus gaping in awe to take the grave clothes off of Lazarus and to let him go, to free him from, again, the things that bound him. To the world, Jesus raised a man from the dead, and to the angels of heaven, Christ merely woke one up.

I look at this passage of Scripture and I can’t help but think of the Church in the West. I’ve said several times in the past that I love what Bono says of our Church in the States, that we’re the “sleeping giant.” And I’m filled with hope because I see a generation rising up, a group of faith-filled sons and daughters who are being stirred at the voice of the Lord, a voice that’s beaconing them to movement to pull themselves out of bed and to get on their feet and walk. The best part is that their voices aren’t silent either – they’re also provoking one another to movement.

Our heart is to ‘raise the dead’, but our heart can also be said to ‘wake the dead’.

I think for too long we’ve been binding ourselves as a Church with labeling each other as a hopeless cause, as just another sinner saved by grace, and we’ve been clothing ourselves with death instead of Life. Jesus has called us to remove those things from our life that stand between the way of us and him… and we have to help each other through it.

Lazarus wouldn’t have been walking out of the grave had others not been willing to move the stone for him; we have to be willing to fight for each other.

Lazarus wouldn’t have seen the world clearly a second time had others not unraveled him from his funeral garb; we have to be willing to clothe others with the likeness of Jesus.

And Lazarus wouldn’t have been walking had the voice of God not been bellowing out from Jesus’ mouth; we have to be willing to speak the words that God gives to us – they’re words of Life!

So let’s unite together as ONE Church where divisions don’t stand and right and wrong don’t exist. Let’s acknowledge the different workings of the body and let’s all raise a battle cry that’s going to wake up the rest of this 42nd generation, that’s going to set into movement an army that’s equipped with Life, an army that’s going to go change the world.

May the ‘sleeping giant’ no longer sleep, but storm the gates of hell to see Kingdom come…