Tag Archives: revival

April 8, 2016 · 4:30 AM

Revival

  
Tomorrow marks the 110th anniversary of the Azusa Street revival in Los Angeles. It was the last great, sustained revival in the US. I know there have been several revivals since, but none have had as profound an impact on culture and society. I believe it is time that revival came to us again. George Wood recently said, “Culture reflects religion.” If that’s true, and I believe it is, we are in desperate need of revival in the Church.

This weekend, there will be two major prayer gatherings to pray for revival. One will be at Azusa Street (You can watch here) and the other at the Lincoln Memorial  (You can watch here). I will be attending the one in Washington, DC. I believe if we will humble ourselves, pray, and repent for the sins of the nation, God will bring spiritual healing through revival. I’d encourage you to join with us and pray this weekend.

To help, here are some verses about revival.

1. Won’t you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you?
Psalms 85:6 NLT

2. I am the high and holy God, who lives forever. I live in a high and holy place, but I also live with people who are humble and repentant, so that I can restore their confidence and hope.
Isaiah 57:15 GNT

3. Then will we not depart from You; revive us (give us life) and we will call upon Your name.
Psalm 80:18 AMP

4. When the humble see it they will be glad; you who seek God, let your hearts revive.
Psalms 69:32 ESV

5. In your faithful love, O LORD, hear my cry; let me be revived by following your regulations.
Psalms 119:149 NLT

6. O Lord, I have heard of what you have done, and I am filled with awe. Now do again in our times the great deeds you used to do. Be merciful, even when you are angry.
Habakkuk 3:2 GNT

7. And now, for a brief moment, grace has been shown us by the Lord our God, Who has left us a remnant to escape and has given us a secure hold in His holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and give us a little reviving in our bondage.
Ezra 9:8 AMP

8. I have heard all about you, LORD. I am filled with awe by your amazing works. In this time of our deep need, help us again as you did in years gone by. And in your anger, remember your mercy.
Habakkuk 3:2 NLT

9. And afterward I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and upon the maidservants in those days will I pour out My Spirit.
Joel 2:28-29 AMP

10. Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.
2 Chronicles 7:14 NLT

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 14, 2016 · 5:55 AM

Our Mission

We live in a dog eat dog world. Most people are only out for themselves. When I was younger, you didn’t pass someone on the shoulder who had a flat tire. You pulled over and offered help. Now, we say, “They have a cell phone. I’m sure they’ll call someone for help if they need it.” We don’t give them a second thought because we are going somewhere and we don’t have time to be inconvenienced by someone else’s problem. That’s a spiritual problem that has bled over into our physical world.

  
The Church was founded and built upon helping those in need. It was a beacon on a hill because it was different. It was a group of people whose mission was to serve and help those who were broken down on the Road of Life. The Church fed the hungry. They clothed the poor. The people brought their extra money and possessions to the church with the intent of helping the whole community. When the Church did that, it grew by the thousands daily.

Now, the Church spends its money on many things and has lost its mission. Look at a giving envelope. Very few churches still have a line item for alms and even fewer people give towards it. I believe it’s the number one cause for the lack of explosive growth in the Church today. We have ceased to be a communal organization and have become more like an exclusive club you can belong to. We accept people who look right, act right, and live right. We’ve forgotten our mission to help the broken and hurting.

The military’s phrase, “Leave no man behind,” should be the Church’s mission statement. If we want to reach thousands, we have to get back to that communal place where our purpose and mission is helping others wherever and however they are broken down. It’s not our pastor’s responsibility to make that happen either, it’s ours individually. You can’t read the New Testament as if it was written to pastors, leaders, or even an individual. It was written to each of us as a community of believers.

In Ephesians 6:18, right after Paul tells us to put on God’s Armor, he tells us, “Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out” (MSG). That is written to you and me as individuals in the body. The burden is on us to heal the broken by loving them, to give to those less fortunate to help them along, to support those who are struggling in life, and to encourage those who are down. If each of us will do our part, we will revive not only the Church, but our nation and world.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 7, 2015 · 6:54 AM

The National Day Of Prayer

As you read the Old Testament in the Bible, you come across several places where the nation of Israel were summoned to pray to God as one nation. It was usually during times of captivity that they remembered the Lord, fell on their knees, repented of their sins and prayed. God heard their prayers every time, delivered them from bondage and returned them to their land. Some times it only took a few people to humble themselves before God and He would rescue them. I don’t know why sometimes it took the whole nation and others it didn’t, but I do know that God hears our prayers.

Today is the National Day of Prayer. It’s a day where we as believers have an opportunity to pray with a unified voice for our country and to repent of our sins as a nation. I understand that most Christians may not join in this day of prayer and certainly not all Americans will. Perhaps today will be one of those days where God will listen to the voice of a few and restore an entire nation. Today could be the day that starts a revival that turns the hearts of our people back to God. Revival is sparked by a few and then spreads untamed across the land. Will you be one of the few that sparks it?

The most famous scripture used for days like today is II Chronicles 7:14. It says, “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land. (NLT)” This requires more than a one day commitment of prayer. It requires continual prayer for this nation. It requires us, who are called by His name, to seek His face beyond a day of prayer. The Amplified version says, “Pray, seek, crave and require of necessity my face.” We have got to seek God as if He were a necessity like air in our lungs if we want to see this nation return to Him.

I’m glad that we live in a nation where all but two presidents since George Washington have set aside national days to pray and to seek God’s face on behalf of our nation. The leadership that God has placed in our nation has always understood the value of prayer of its people for the nation. It just hasn’t always been understood by the people. When we pray for our nation, God hears our prayers and moves on our behalf. God desires to restore this or any nation who will get on their knees and seek Him. It starts with a remnant of people who will accept that call. It starts with you and me. Will you join other believers today and in the future to pray for our nation? 

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

September 23, 2014 · 7:59 AM

Prayer Changes Us

In II Timothy 2:1, Paul says, “I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf and give thanks for them.” When I read those words, I wonder if they challenged Timothy as much as they do me. Paul didn’t tell him to just pray for people he liked. He didn’t tell him to just pray for Christians. He told him to pray for all people and to ask God to help them.

To me, that’s hard to do. There are people that selfishly I don’t want God to help. I’m like Jonah a lot of times. I know God’s desire is to bring others to repentance, but I don’t always act in accordance with that. When God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, he disobeyed because he didn’t like them. We know that because later, when God spared the city, Jonah threw a hissy fit. He said, “I knew you were a merciful God. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.”

I wonder if Timothy was beginning to show the same signs. I wonder if he was being selective in who he shared the Gospel with. It’s not up to us to be selective with it or with our prayers. God doesn’t want anyone to perish. When we truly get that, we will start praying for others. We will intercede on their behalf. We won’t hold back from sharing the Gospel because we know that’s what God’s heart is.

God knows we let our human emotions get in the way of His will. We let how we feel about someone to override how He feels for them. Paul knew the remedy for the situation is to pray for them and to give thanks for them. When we begin to pray blessings on people we don’t like and thank God for them, our vision of them changes. We stop seeing them as humans and start seeing them as souls. We quit looking at their value to us, and see the value God places on them.

I’ve always heard that prayer changes things. One of the biggest things it changes is us. That’s why Paul urges Timothy to pray. He knew as a young minister, he could fall into the trap of being selective with the Gospel. He knew that Timothy needed a greater vision. One that included all men, not just a few. It’s a vision that you and I need today. The way we get it is to begin praying for all and asking God to help them. If we truly want to see the world changed, we have to get on our knees and spend some time interceding.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

August 12, 2014 · 6:45 AM

A Revival Of Love

I’m sure that Robin Williams’ death came as a shock to you as much as it did to me. How could someone so funny and entertaining lose a fight with depression? How could someone who brought so much happiness to others not be able to find happiness himself? These are the questions I asked when I heard the news. The truth is that he, like so many people, fought an unseen enemy in an arena that no one else can enter. He tried to deal with it the best ways he knew how. Most of which probably weren’t healthy or productive. We can sit and judge or we can watch and learn.

When I saw others post their favorite movie quotes of his, the one that came to my mind was fitting for the way he died. In the movie “Patch Adams”, his character, who was a doctor, said, “You treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person, I guarantee you, you’ll win, no matter what the outcome.” So many times we look past the person and only see their disease, their sin or their faults. We spend so much time attacking the defect that we forget we are dealing with a person. We like to say, “Love the sinner. Hate the sin,” but too often we can’t see the sinner for the sin.

It’s hard to love someone when we are so focused on the thing we hate. When I read the way Jesus was in the New Testament, I see someone who had compassion for the individual person. He saw their sickness, their defect and their sin and He had compassion. Instead of pointing out the sin or disease, He looked at the person and showed love. He knew that when it comes to sin, you treat the person, not the sin. He knew that showing hate for the sin did more harm than good in most instances. Yes, He overthrew some tables a couple of times. Those were when He was upset at the very ones acting in His name. You never read where He got angry at a sinner.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t call sin “sin”. I’m saying we should be quicker to show compassion and love for others than we are to point out their sin. We don’t know what they have been through or what they are facing. What we do know is that we serve a God who forgives no matter what we or they have done. The only way they will see that is if we learn to show love to the sinner and treat the person not the sin. What would happen if we acted out the Golden Rule as if we believed it? You and I can’t forgive sin, so why do we try to treat it? We can however love the sinner, so why not do that instead?

So many people in this world need hope. So many are fighting unseen battles. Too many lose those battles without knowing there is someone who loves them and there is a God who can forgive and heal them. They’re afraid to come out because of what others might say or how they might be treated. If they knew that they would be shown love as a person and not treated as the disease or sin they have, they would be more willing to be open about it. They would get to see God through our actions of love and find forgiveness and healing from their sin. We could in essence start a revival through love. It has to start sometime, why not now? It has to start somewhere, why not with you and me?

4 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,