Praying for Revival

Prayer Focus Day 4:
Pray that each person in Christian homes (particularly husbands and wives) will be humble in spirit, in order that their prayers may be answered (1 Pet. 3:8-15).

What Do Outsiders Think of the Church

Courtesy of ChristianClips.com

I Have the Best Family Ever!

The only thing I treasure more is JESUS CHRIST

Praying for Revival for 31 days

Prayer Focus Day 2:
Pray that those who have a personal relationship with the Lord will walk in the spirit of humility, as Jesus walked, and live with a daily recognition that pride leads to destruction and that humility precedes honor (Micah 6:8; Proverbs 18:12).

Praying for Revival for 31 days

Join me in praying for Revival for the next 31 days and lets see how God answers our prayer.

Prayer Focus Day 1:
Pray that we as Christians will bow our knees before the Lord at the beginning of each day, so that we may receive His grace daily to live as we should (Jas. 4:6-10).

Eschatology and Mission

"Eschatology is central to any understanding of mission...The gospel is an eschatological message. In evangelism we declare that Jesus is King and that Jesus will be King."

~ Tim Chester

Veteran's Day and My Family

My mother posted this on her blog yesterday:

Today we celebrate Veteran’s Day. There were speeches and parades and plaudits from politicians. For me, this is holiday is personified by my grandfather, my father, my father-in-law and my brother. Men in my family have served in every war and conflict from the Revolution forward. It is somewhat bittersweet when I think of friends who served and did not return from Vietnam. My reflections today are shared by families all across the country and my memories are theirs.

I have my grandfather’s letters written during his service in WW1. He wrote regularly, first from boot camp and later from Europe. It was strange to see those letters, marked “somewhere in England”. Somehow I always thought that was a bit of fiction until I saw the actual letters. He served honorably and returned home. He never talked much about his service, seeing it as just what an Indiana man would do in that situation.

My father volunteered for the Army following Pearl Harbor and was sent to England after basic training, and then to Europe with the invading forces. He rose through the ranks to Tech Sergeant (Sergeant 1st Class in today’s army) and served in a mechanized battalion, commanding a half-track. (An armored jeep with tracks instead of rear wheels capable of carrying supplies, weaponry, personnel). He took part in the Battle of the Bulge and pushed into Germany with Patton. His platoon was trapped behind enemy lines and considered MIA for a time. He was seriously wounded just before the end of the war and was evacuated to England and then home. He was awarded two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and numerous citations such as a sharpshooter award. He was always proud to have served his country and was seriously irritated when the Army told him he wasn’t fit to serve in Korea.

My father-in-law served in the SeaBees of the US Navy, their construction division. After the devastation of the Pearl Harbor attack, rebuilding the port facilities was a high priority. Men with peacetime jobs in the construction industry formed construction battalions to rebuild Pearl Harbor and then to build bases, airfields and support the advance through the Pacific. Their motto was “We Build, We Fight”. Dad served in Hawaii and was later assigned as part of the Iwo Jima attack force. The SeaBees arrived on the island hard on the heels of the Marines and immediately began working to repair an airfield. The field began receiving flights just a few days later. Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945 and Dad’s SeaBee battalion was decommissioned and returned to the US just thirty days later. He mustered out in California and returned to St. Paul, MN to his family, his wife and the son who was born after he shipped out.

My brother served in the “peacetime” army in Germany and at Fort Campbell, KY. He considered making the army his career, but decided against it as he had a young son at home and he wanted to be a hands-on father. Various cousins and nephews have also served.

These men all considered it an honor to serve in defense of their country. I grew up hearing the history of the military men in our family, but these I knew well. I honor them every day, and especially today as we celebrate all the veterans who have served with honor. My prayer today and every day is that the men and women currently serving will be protected and come home with honor to their families.

What is the greatest need of the church today?

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

Mt. 5:6"

"My soul thirsts for God, for the living God"

Ps. 42:2

"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you;"

Ps. 63:1

"Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger; and whoever believes in me shall never thirst."

Jn. 6:35

"Hunger and thirst vividly express desire...for the deepest spiritual famine is hunger for the word of God."1  We hunger and thirst for many things in this world and they leave us wanting more. The things of this world grab our attention and we are to easily satisfied. 

Many are asking these days, 'what is the greatest need of the church today?' The answers offered abound, and many have pinpointed great needs but they miss the big picture. A.W. Tozer wrote, "What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us." 

This is true because all the we feel and do flows out of our thinking. If we look at the church in America and its practices we clearly see that there is some disturbingly wrong thinking about who God is. 

"The one thing we most urgently need in Western Christendom is a deeper knowledge of God. We need to know God better." 2  Jesus said that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness would be satisfied and that those who come to him and believe would never be hungry or thirst. His promise is that rivers of Living Water will flow out of our hearts through faith.

My soul is greatly comforted by these great promises from our God and King. My question is, 'where are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness?' Where are the people who will cry out with the psalmist, "my soul thirsts for God, for the living God."?

I pray that the LORD would give you an ever-deepening desire for him and an unquenchable hunger and thirst for righteousness.

O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray Thee, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, 'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.' Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.

In Jesus' name. Amen 3

1. D.A. Carson - Expositor's bible Commentary, Matthew 1-12
2. D.A. Carson - A Call To Spiritual Reformation
3. A.W. Tozer - The Pursuit of God

Hungry?

Jonathan Edwards argued for this in a sermon that he preached on Song of Solomon 5:1. The text reads, “Eat, friends, drink, and be drunk with love!” Edwards drew out of the text the following doctrine: “Persons need not and ought not to set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites.” Instead, he says, they ought

“to be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame their desires and to obtain more spiritual pleasures. . . . Our hungerings and thirstings after God and Jesus Christ and after holiness can’t be too great for the value of these things, for they are things of infinite value…[Therefore] endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement…There is no such thing as excess in our taking of this spiritual food. There is no such virtue as temperance in spiritual feasting.”

Therefore, be encouraged that God made you to rejoice in him. Do not settle for any lesser joy. Lay yourself in the way of allurement. That is, fix your eyes on the all-satisfying treasure of Jesus Christ who loved us and gave his life as a ransom for our everlasting joy. [ John Piper in What Jesus Demands from the World, pp. 90-91]

HT: Tony Reinke