FROM HEAVEN TO THE VALLEY

Jesus chose to be a child of the valley. Before He came to earth He was living in greater glory than we could possibly imagine. The Son of the King of the universe. He sat at the right hand of God. He is God. And yet He chose to step down from His throne and enter the world of the valley. He chose to live among the hopeless and lost of creation. He humbled Himself, denied Himself, emptied Himself for our sake. And He went to the cross in shame to create a bridge between the valley and the mountaintop.

The valley is a cold and heartless place to live. It is defined by blindness, drought and hunger. You can feel the rejection, the hurt, the insecurity, the fear, the turmoil. You can smell the hopelessness and pain. You can sense the anguish and sorrow. And the valley has nothing to do with income or social status. It’s a state of the heart. It is anyplace apart from knowing and trusting God.

Jesus came to the valley to bring hope, love and compassion, to bring sight to the blind, to show the way out. He came to bring new life to those who were dead. He went to the valley because that’s where the lost people lived. And yet, so often, those He sets free never take the time to look back. They never make an effort to journey back into the valley to help others find their way out. They never travel into the valley of hopelessness to bring hope.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10, NIV).

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run.