My recent posts based on Nehemiah 8 have focused us to pray that the Word of God might be restored to its rightful place in our churches.

• May we gather as one man to hear Your Word (Nehemiah 8)
• Give us ears to be attentive to Your words alone (Nehemiah 8:3)
• one sign of revival: attentiveness to the Word of God (Whitefield's Journals)
• "People cannot take preaching...People are dying through lack of knowledge." (ML-J)

As we look through the Word of God, we can't help but see how much God values and treasures His Word, and we ought to do the same. So much of the Church today has been guilty of not treasuring the Word and not giving the Word of God its rightful place. That's why I am continuing to post on this theme (and expect to continue to do so with at least a couple more posts from Nehemiah in the coming days, D.V.). If we don't have our foundation set rightly in the Word of God, we will end up going all wrong. In the past several years, we've certainly reaped what we've sown; we've seen the sorry fruit of that over the past many years now.

For today's post I'm returning once again to Nehemiah 8.

As you read and reflect on the passage below, please notice how the ministers of God were used by God to read and teach the Word of God to give understanding to the people of God. (You may also like to read my related posts here, here, here and here.)

Lord God,

We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We thank You that while we had gone astray each to our own way, You laid our sin on Jesus Christ, the Lamb without blemish. We thank You for redeeming us with His precious blood. We thank You for giving us the gift of Your Word to sustain us day in and day out.

We are Your people. You have given us Your Word, but apart from Your Holy Spirit we can have no true and right understanding of Your Word. As we read and listen to Your Word, we pray You would continually guide us, protect us from error and lead us into all truth.

We are Your people. You have given us Your Word. In addition to Your Holy Spirit, You have ordained and gifted and sent men and women today in the Church to give us understanding from Your Word. We pray You would protect those You send from error and lead them into all truth. We pray You would give us ears to hear Your voice and to flee from the voice of strangers.

We see in Nehemiah 8 how You ordained and sent and gifted leaders who

We pray You would send us such ministers today!

We confess how so many of our leaders no longer read from the Book at all! Preachers and teachers in the church and parachurch organizations look to their own ideas or to the words of men in other books or on television or the internet. They go everywhere else for messages but to You, O Lord. O, how foolish we are! You alone have the Words of life. So many confer with other men but they have neglected to sit and commune with You, living God, and listen to You speak to them through Your precious Word. We confess there are so many leaders out there who center and ground their teaching on any and all things but Your precious, life-giving, life-changing Word.

Forgive us, Word of God, for neglecting the holiness and the absolute centrality of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders may read from the Book but they do not read from the Book clearly! Forgive us, Word of God. We confess how so many of our leaders have taken Your wholesome words and made them unwholesome. They have taken the living waters and made them stagnant. There is no life in the words they speak. They have not preached Your Word with authority. They have not preached Your Word with Your Holy Spirit power. They have not preached Your Word as if it were truth. They preach no differently than Pilate who asked our Lord, "What is truth?" They preach as if the Bible is just another book and its teachings not authoritative or vital to us. So many make no clear distinction between the broad way that leads to destruction and the narrow, straight gate that leads to life.

Forgive us, Word of God, for devaluing the authority and uniqueness of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders no longer give the sense as they preach and teach but rather they end up confusing their hearers! We confess how so much preaching and teaching today does not clearly lift up Jesus Christ as the way, the truth and the life. Your Gospel is to be proclaimed, not to be debated. The Word of God is to be expounded, to show forth Christ clearly from beginning to end. Satan is a deceiver and a liar and the father of lies. The devil wants to keep people blinded and entangled by his lies. Misinformation, disinformation and confusion are his specialties. He delights to keep people wrapped up in his kingdom of darkness, in the shadows, in confusion, without a true sense of reality, blinded and unable to see the light of Your glorious Gospel and hear the good news of great joy proclaimed. Your Word is to be preached and taught clearly so it might bring light to those in darkness, to set the prisoners free, to bring oil of joy for mourning. Yet how often is the Gospel message clouded and blurred today, so no sense is given, but only nonsense is taught and souls remain lost and in the dark, apart from You, the true Light. So many who sit under such teaching never understand their true spiritual condition: that they are lost sinners with no hope apart from the Gospel. How can lost sinners believe on Christ unless they hear preaching that gives the sense?

Forgive us, Word of God, for obscuring the light and truth of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

We confess how so many of our leaders do not impart understanding to their hearers! We confess that some leaders have been enamored with intellect and scholarship and the esteem of men that they no longer preach the simple message of Christ and Him crucified. We confess that other leaders have added layers and layers upon the simplicity of the Gospel, to confound it, to make the Gospel about us and our works rather than about Jesus Christ and His work done for us on the cross and continuing in us through His Holy Spirit. You, Lord of the universe, invited the little children to come to You. Even the common people heard You, Lord. The glorious Gospel is foolishness to the world, but to those being saved it is the power of God. Yet today we confess that so much of what is preached and taught complicates, confuses, clouds and confounds those who hear it. So many leaders today do not clearly lead and shepherd the hungry sheep into green pastures and the thirsty sheep to still waters. We confess so many of our leaders no longer impart understanding of Your Word to Your people, but rather cause much misunderstanding, so the flock remains hungry and thirsty. Our leaders neglect to clearly proclaim that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only power to save sinners; that Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

Forgive us, Word of God, for being ashamed of and stumbling at the simple wisdom of Your precious Word.
Be gracious to us. Restore Your Word to its rightful place in our churches.
We are Your people. The sheep of Your pasture. We are hungry for true and living Bread.
Send us ministers after Your own heart,
ministers who love You and Your Word,
ministers who will

Exodus 32:1  When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, “Up, make us gods who shall go before us.  As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” 2  So Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” 3  So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. 4  And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” ...

33:1  The LORD said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ 2  I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 3  Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

4  When the people heard this disastrous word, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. 5  For the LORD had said to Moses, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, that I may know what to do with you.’” 6  Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.

7  Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the tent of meeting. And everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp. 8  Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people would rise up, and each would stand at his tent door, and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent. 9  When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the LORD would speak with Moses. 10  And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship, each at his tent door. 11  Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his assistant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.

12  Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13  Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14  And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15  And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16  For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

Lord God, we confess we are a stiff-necked people. Except for Your love, mercy and grace toward us who are in Christ, You would have consumed us long ago. We are no different than our forefathers. We have made our golden calves and worshiped them. We have discarded Your glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ for cheap imitations. We have preached Jesus as anything but the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. We have lifted Him up as a good man or teacher but not as the atonement for our sins. We have shrunk back from preaching the torn flesh and the shed blood, but You, spotless Lamb of God, You never shrunk back from Your Father's will for You. You became obedient unto death, even death on the cross, all so we might be redeemed. You died for us while we were yet sinners. Some have even taught the lie that the cross was cosmic child abuse. O, but it was Your will, holy Father, to crush the Son so He might be lifted up as an offering for sin and so we might have life in Him. There was no other way for us to be brought to You but through His death on the cross. Our sins had to be punished in Him. He had to be made a curse for us so we might become the righteousness of God. The punishment that brought us peace was upon our dear Lord.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

Just as the Israelites stripped themselves of their ornaments, we come before You now and we are stripping ourselves of all that is not glorifying to You: for those ways in which we have discarded, minimized, marginalized, diluted, corrupted and hidden the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified. We have sinned a great sin in Your sight, O Holy God. For us to receive the free gift of salvation by grace through faith and not to proclaim it as we ought is most grievous to You. For us to receive the free gift of salvation by grace through faith and to be ashamed of it is most grievous to You. Forgive us and cleanse us from our sin. We plead the blood of Christ, for we have no other plea.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

We confess that too often we have wanted to gain favor in the world's eyes and so we exchange the glorious Gospel for a lie. We do not act distinctly from the world. We confess we are afraid of offending others, but yet You have told us clearly that the cross of Christ will offend. Forgive us for fearing men more than we fear You. You have told us that many will stumble over the cornerstone and that few will walk the narrow way and many will remain on the broad way that leads to destruction. We cannot be obsessed with men's opinions of us. We must be obsessed with the pearl of great price and preach Christ and Him crucified. For through Christ alone is Your power unto salvation to all who believe: Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. From beginning to end, our salvation is all through the cross of Christ. There is no other way for men to be saved. In Christ alone is the true wisdom of God, though the cross may appear foolish to men. And we will look foolish as we speak it and write it. Yet there is no other good news for bad men but through the cross. The cross shows us our sin and points us to the only way to be reconciled to You. There is no other Mediator between God and men but the man Christ Jesus. There is no life for dead men but through the cross. There is no freedom from the penalty of sin but through the cross. There is no freedom from the power of sin but through the cross.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

Forgive us, Lord. Cleanse us from our sin.  Bring us back to the preaching of Your Word as we ought to preach it. If Jesus Christ and Him crucified is not lifted up and made the main thing, then how can we presume Your presence will go with us? We cannot. The Spirit was sent to glorify Jesus. The way Jesus is glorified is through the preaching of the cross. The only way You receive all glory, honor and praise is through Jesus Christ and Him crucified. How can we say we love You if we shrink back from preaching Christ and Him crucified? Forgive us for not holding fast to what really matters: Your glorious Gospel. We have grieved and quenched Your Spirit. Forgive us. We cannot accomplish the work You have for us apart from Your Spirit falling once again on the Church to revive us. Yes, we have been given Your Spirit when we were first saved, but we ask You to come again to us as You have in days past. In Your time we are trusting You will come again and revive us. Our bones are dead and dry and we need life, Lord of life. Be gracious to us, sovereign Lord.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

How can anyone believe in You if they do not hear the preaching of the cross? No wonder why we are so ineffective today. No wonder why the Church looks no different than the world. No wonder why we continue to have churches that are a mile wide but an inch deep. True growth in holiness will never occur without the right preaching of the Word of God. We will remain as infants. And You will never bless us when we do not make the cross of Christ central. Yes, many churches may appear to be blessed, yet no church can ever rightly claim to be blessed by You unless they are lifting up Christ and Him crucified. As we try to serve two masters, we may gain a bit of favor in the eyes of men, we may grow numerically, but in the process we are losing our souls. And countless souls will leave our churches never having heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ rightly preached. And one day You will hold us accountable for what we have done with this glorious Gospel committed to our trust. How many lambs have we neglected our of expediency or fear of men or in an attempt to be trendy?

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

Lord God, how can preaching anything but Jesus Christ and Him crucified be pleasing to You? Forgive us for seeking the approval of men. Forgive us for giving into the desires of our flesh. Your flesh was torn so we might be freed from the flesh nature and walk in the Spirit. How can we say we have Your Spirit if we do not preach Christ rightly? Forgive us, Holy Spirit of Christ for how often we have quenched You. The Spirit longs to have Jesus Christ lifted up. May we lift Him up as we ought. Lord God, You have committed this Gospel to us, this Gospel of salvation through faith in the blood of Christ. This is the Gospel You have entrusted to us. It is the only Gospel. Forgive us for not being trustworthy. Forgive us for not being good stewards. Forgive us for not guarding it as we ought. Forgive us for not contending for the Gospel as we ought. We cannot yoke ourselves with the world – ever. We are sent into the world but we are not of this world. We are sent with a message that comes from heaven. May we not dumb down or accommodate the message of the cross in any way. It will appear foolish and weak to the world. We will appear foolish and weak to the world as we preach it. Yes, the preaching of the cross is foolishness and weakness to the world, but it is the only power to reconcile lost men to God. Strengthen and equip us to speak clearly Your Gospel, no matter the cost to us. Send us pastors who are committed the preaching of Christ and Him crucified.

Lord, have mercy on us. Forgive us for not preaching Christ and Him crucified.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ whom God has given a heart and hunger to prayer for revival in the Church,

I've not posted here in a while and would like to update you today. The following is something I originally posted on my other website here in response to my concern that we who are seeking God's face for revival are too thinly spread on the wall, something I had touched on here. I know some of you may have already seen this post, but some of you may not.

I've been reading and reflecting on Nehemiah both here and on my other blog (see here).

The devil loves to undermine the work of the people of God anyway he can, and he particularly loves to nip in the bud any stirrings of prayer in the heart for he knows the effectual fervent prayers of righteous men, women, boys and girls avail much. Therefore I am praying God would keep all of us steadfast, immovable and abounding in the work of prayer for we know prayer with an eye to the glory of God is never in vain! May the resurrection Spirit of Jesus Christ who dwells in us keep us steadfastly setting our faces toward His throne of grace our Lord set His face like a flint and set Himself steadfastly to Jerusalem to finish all the work the Father had given Him. So long as we are here on the earth, we are called to intercessory prayer for the Church.

If you are already here you know God's desire is for His Church to give glory and praise to His Name. We also know that we as individuals as well as the Church as a whole continue to fall far short of that. However, we also know that God has promised to hear us for Jesus' sake as we ask anything according to His will. So may God give us grace and strength to persevere in prayer like the importunate widow and acknowledge, "Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the cross i cling." We all clung to the cross for saving grace in the first place, and we must continue to cling for sustaining grace to persevere in prayer. We are nothing apart from Him. He is the Vine, we are the branches, without Him we can do nothing. Yet He has placed us in His Body, the Church, and given us to one another so we might strengthen, support and encourage each other through the life we share in Him in one Body through one Spirit.

My prayer is that my writing on my blogs, our prayers together, and our conversations with and messages to one another might serve to build up the Body and help us to put our eyes once more on Him because for too long we have sought help in all else but Him. We cannot orchestrate a revival because true Biblical revival comes through the sovereign grace and will of God alone as He chooses when and where He might pour down blessings upon His Church, but we can continue to seek the face of the sovereign God who may be gracious to us and have mercy on us and rend the heavens and come down and revive us again for the sake and the honor of His Name.

Therefore let us continue to work as God has directed us, yet while we work let us also continue watching in prayer in much the same way Jesus commanded the Church to tarry at Jerusalem. May we trust that in His sovereign time He will shake us once again and fill us once more with His Spirit to empower us to speak His Word with boldness and witness to Him to the ends of the earth. (e.g.- Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4-8; 4:23-31; Eph. 5:18)

If you know of anyone at all who has a heart for revival, I would encourage you to let them know there are others here whom God is also raising up with a similar passion. I am continuing to pray God would raise up laborers broken-hearted over the ruins in the Church and stirred in their hearts by His Spirit to pray for revival in the Church.

If you have any questions or comments, please message me or comment below.

Nehemiah 4:19  And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another. 20  In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.”

Though we're each to be part of a local congregation, we are each also part of the church universal. Over the past few years of blogging, I've made a couple close friends here, friends that have encouraged me and prayed for me and I've done the same for them.

For quite some time now I've felt a bit like Nehemiah did, i.e.- The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another.

God has placed each one of us in the church for a reason (both the local church as well as the church universal). We are not only dependent on Him, but we are interdependent on one another. That's part of God's design. It's a reflection of the diversity and unity we find in the Godhead: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

I've always felt an affinity, a calling, to minister cross-Church/cross-denomination, what have you. I love being able to fellowship with believers from all across the Body of Christ and for now, that's primarily the harvest field to which God keeps sending me (e.g.- please see my posts here and here). Yes, with that, there's always a bit of tension...

Now I'm expecting, Lord willing, to enter into a commitment to my local congregation, so I do have a calling and responsibility to minister there. However I also have a calling to minister to and in the church beyond that particular body of believers.

Specifically, I have seen that God has brought some of us together here who have a passion for Him and a heart to pray for revival. There are some of us who have seen the ruins in the Church and have been grieved over them. Please see my posts here, here, here, here, here and here. Please, please read these things if you've already been grieved as an encouragement to stay the course, and if you've not been grieved, I ask you to read them; my prayer is that the Holy Spirit might prick some of your hearts and show you things you've not seen before and be grieved like Nehemiah for we are in great trouble and shame...we are broken down.

In addition my blog here, which is devoted primarily to the teaching of the Word, a year ago I opened up tent of meeting, a blog devoted to prayer for revival. If God has been putting into your heart a burden to pray for the Church, I invite you to visit tent of meeting; you can read more about it here.)

For quite some time now I've been praying about a way we might support one another in a more tangible way, in a bit more organized way...

I shared some of my thoughts and desires about that in this post a few months ago...

I've had contact with some of you via your comments here, your own blogs and personal messages. I have been blessed to have found some like-minded believers who have a passion for God. I am eternally grateful for your prayers and support for me and your challenges to me to press on toward the mark of the prize of the high calling.

In case you didn't know it, a few days ago I started up another blog, deerlife. (Yes, some of you might be tempted to say I am beginning to collect blogs much like Imelda Marcos collected shoes... )

You can read more of my vision for deerlife here. If you have a heart for God and a passion to see the people of God revived through the local church, and if God is leading you to be involved in that work and to encourage others in that work, I invite you to check out deerlife. I'm hoping that deerlife might be one means God uses to bring us together as we work on the wall, similar to Nehemiah's intent:

Nehemiah 4:19  And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another. 20  In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.”

The work is great. The work is widely spread. We are separated on the wall, far from one another.

If we back up in Nehemiah 4, we see another reason for us to come together: the world is united in opposition against Christ and against those who are working to do His will (Nehemiah 4:8):

(Please also see my posts on Nehemiah here and here about the opposition we face.)

Notice that the enemies of God were united: Plotting together. Conspiring all of them together. (How often does the church come together as God intends?)

Of course this opposition to God's people and God's work is nothing new:

As we look at Jesus' words in John 17, we love to read about the essential unity we as believers share in Jesus Christ and how our unity brings glory to God and is a witness to the world, but let's not forget this: the world is also unified: unified against us because we are of Christ, because we are no longer of this world, because we have been born again into a new life through the Holy Spirit and are no longer of the world. Yet we are sent into the world; as a result we will have tribulation and trouble.

The race set before us is a race we must run by faith despite the tribulations and troubles we will face in this world. But God has given us the means to do so. He given us His Word, His Spirit and one another to assist us in running the race. And of course, our great high priest Jesus Christ is continuing to intercede for us at the right hand of God in glory. He was in the world and was victorious over the world and conquered the grave, overcame sin, death and Satan. He can sympathize with our weaknesses; consider that He was tempted and yet without sin! All these things are necessary ingredients so we might press on to know Christ and make Him known.

So as we are sent into the world (in this case: many, many places all over the earth), my prayer is that deerlife might be one means we sound the trumpet and rally to one another: to fellowship with, encourage, exhort, build up one another and bear one another's burdens, to rally to one another to stand strong against the wiles and taunts of the devil and our own flesh. That includes rejoicing with one another and weeping with one another, and even our having fun on occasion as well for we know that a cheerful heart is good medicine. Much like Elijah, we sometimes lose perspective and forget there are many, many others God has called to His work (at least I know I do).

My intent here is not to undermine or supplant or minimize the local church but rather to encourage others to rise and go and minister primarily in their local churches and communities, wherever God leads. I will add that for some of you, your local church may actually be a church plant or a mission or God knows where. I want each of you to be where God wants you to be, to fulfill the holy ambition He has for your life and not to waste your lives! I am praying as we run the race, we might be a means of support for one another as we rise and go and minister wherever God sends us (including here on Xanga and Revelife as He leads us).

Last year I wrote how I believed that God could bring something good out of Xanga. Though my faith has wavered, I still believe that. Yes, it seems preposterous if we begin to look at the situation through human eyes, but may God anoint our eyes to see Who He really is! Is His arm shortened that He cannot save? Our God is the God who can do immeasurably above all we can ask or image. Why can't God bring something good out of Xanga and Revelife? I know many of us have gotten discouraged disenchanted and dismayed with much of the watered-down content here (as well as in many congregations and denominations, even those which were once strongly orthodox):

• the tearing down of the authority of God and the Bible
• the lack of solid Biblical teaching rooted in Christ and Him crucified
• Christianity being remade into just another religion rather than the only way of salvation
• the Jesus who would never sit as Judge over anyone
• the watering down of Biblical definitions of sin and holiness
• so-called gospels which allow for continuing sin without conviction of sin
• Jesus as our boyfriend
• Christianity rooted in emotions with no doctrinal foundation
• Christianity rooted in intellectual profession with no room for the working of His Holy Spirit
• Christianity that is more concerned about the outward appearance than the heart
• so-called gospels which are but legalistic bondage
• moral teaching, family values and social gospels which cleverly disguise themselves as Biblical Christianity
• entertainment being exchanged for discipleship
• the pick-and-choose, self-centered Christianity which makes Christianity a means to gaining happiness

There are more, I know, but those are just a few off the top of my head. Looking at this list can either make us depressed...or press us into our Master's service to work on the wall once again! If we look at the situation through our own eyes and forget the power God provides us, we will have every reason to be depressed! I admit I've been depressed about these things, but God has been gracious and hasn't ever let me stay in my depression for very long...He's kept taking my eyes off the ruins and put them on Him time and again. He is Lord! He is Lord! He is King of the Church! He is Head of the Body! He will have the preeminence in His Church, which was created by Him, for Him and to His glory! When we see the ruins (which we will and should), we need to help one another to keep looking away to Jesus, our sure hope! He whose live birthed us into being will not fail to revive us again for His glory!

Do the things I've listed above bother you? (Have you ever noticed them?) Do you care? Do you see how far short we are falling of the glory God has intended for us? Will you do whatever it takes?

Wouldn't it be just like God to take the blogging communities of Xanga and Revelife and use them to sweep through the world with the wind and fire of His Holy Spirit, starting with a few of us here! Remember that the King of kings and Lord of lords delights to use the foolish, despised and weak things of the world for His glory! Look through the Bible and Church history and see the unlikely people He uses to accomplish His will!

I believe He can do that. Will He do it? Who's to say? I can't say He will. God is sovereign. But let's not be guilty of limiting God based on what we see or what we think is possible but trust by faith what He can do in the blink of an eye! With Him all things are possible! We know how His mighty Spirit has come in and worked in many of our lives and brought us from death to life and begun to transform us into the image of Christ. (If you've not known that work in your lives, then perhaps you've not really known Him...) Can almighty God not work in a similar way many times over to bring revival to thousands and thousands of people? After all, is He not the God who orchestrated the saving of 3000 souls on the day of Pentecost almost 2000 years ago? Is He not the God that preserved the nation of Israel time and again from extermination all so He could preserve the line of Jesus Christ? We see God preserving and providing for His people time and again. Let's walk with the same faith we read of in the great cloud of witnesses. We have the same God as they did!

Until God calls me elsewhere, I am willingly offering myself to remain here (Nehemiah 11:2). It is my heart's desire to encourage anyone who has but a mustard seed of faith that God wants to bring revival to His Church once more to come alongside you to help to plant, water, nurture and fertilize those seeds of faith and trust God to give the increase. The Church today in many places is much like Israel and Jerusalem were after the exile: we are in great trouble and shame...we are broken down. We are sorely in need of revival. We must look to the living God and His power to work in and through us what we cannot do apart from Him. May almighty God be gracious to us and rend the heavens and come down and restore, revive and renew us once more for His glory!

If you have further questions, please comment below or message me

Yours in Christ, seeking His face for revival in my own life and in the Church for His glory,
Karen