Dear brothers and sisters whose hearts are seeking His face and longing to see revival in our own hearts and in the Church as a whole,
I know I have not been posting here so frequently as of late, but I hope and pray your hearts are continuing to burn with holy desire, that our LORD rends the heaven and God's holy fire falls fresh upon His Church once again. (I would invite you to be checking out my other sites here and here for many of the things I write reflect my desire for revival to come once again.)
We can be assured that God always has a faithful remnant who are continuing to worship Him and Spirit and in truth and are seeking His face for revival in the Church. Let us not be weary in well doing. For those of us He has called to be watchmen, may His grace work in us to strengthen us so we might not be silent at His throne in the heavenlies or be silent in our congregations here on the earth as His love constrains and compels us.
I have set watchmen;
all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the LORD in remembrance,
take no rest,
7 and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it a praise in the earth.
There are so many wonderful promises for us in that 62nd chapter of Isaiah that we can take hold of and pray for the Church today. I would encourage you to read it and reflect on it and to pray it. We know that the LORD has not deserted us. We see His love there. Though we look and feel desolate and forsaken, our LORD reminds us that He has not forsaken us, in spite of our sinfulness, for His covenant mercies for us in Jesus Christ are secure, we are the bride of Christ and He delights over us for Jesus' sake! He calls us the Holy People, the Redeemed of the LORD; and promises that we shall be Sought Out, and A City Not Forsaken.
In spite of what we see throughout much of the Church today, in spite of the ruins and dry bones that are so prevalent, we know the LORD continues to have a glorious plan for His people. His desire is that His glory would come into the midst and would shine once again, that we might be a praise in the earth, a crown of glory and a royal diadem in His hand, so the nations might stream to Him and He might be highly exalted and Jesus Christ preeminent.
May we not let our grief and dismay over the dry bones and our importunity discourage and paralyze us, but may the Spirit sanctify that grief and dismay and turn it into a holy desire that burns in our hearts, a deep Spirit-led abiding conviction to seek revival and see revival come again. May the sight of the ruins and the dry bones drive us to knees to intercede with boldness and lift us to our feet to proclaim Jesus Christ with boldness. May we not hold peace or keep silent, but continue to make mention of the living God, to continue to lift up the living and true Christ in the midst of the valley of dead and dry bones in which many of us find ourselves, congregations which have a form of godliness but who deny the power of the living God, where the living word has been replaced with the external tablets of stone, where the Gospel truth has been exchanged for a lie.
May we not give our LORD rest until He makes us a praise in the earth again! May His Spirit carry us along, imparting to us His supernatural strength to persevere with all longsuffering with joy, even as we see little or no life at times. He has promised to work in us to will and to do of His good pleasure, so we can trust Him to provide strength to persevere in prayer and proclamation, to fulfill His calling to be watchmen. Let us continue to eat of Christ's promises for as we do so, we eat of Christ Himself. May those promises in His Word becoming sweet to us, become truly living food to sustain us to walk in the good works He has ordained for us, much like our Lord who said His meat was to do His Father's will.
May we look up to heaven and ask Him to look down and see and to come again...and to keep asking. To ask that His zeal and might come down, that He be stirred and show compassion on us again.
15 Look down from heaven and see,
from your holy and beautiful habitation.
Where are your zeal and your might?
The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion
are held back from me.
16 For you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us,
and Israel does not acknowledge us;
you, O LORD, are our Father,
our Redeemer from of old is your name.
17 O LORD, why do you make us wander from your ways
and harden our heart, so that we fear you not?
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your heritage.
18 Your holy people held possession for a little while;
our adversaries have trampled down your sanctuary.
19 We have become like those over whom you have never ruled,
like those who are not called by your name.
O LORD, our Father, our Redeemer, You do know us. We are Your children, Your chosen people, Your holy nation. Thank You for choosing us and calling us to Yourself and for doing for us what we could not do: for sending Your Son, Jesus Christ to die for us while we were weak and powerless. Your love, mercy and grace were set upon us before the foundation of the world! You loved us first.
We stand before you and confess our total inability. Just as we were dead and unable to save ourselves in the first place, we confess we are weak and powerless and apart from You we can do nothing to revive our own souls or the Church. We confess our need for Your Spirit's power to come to us again and revive us. We have no hope or strength or wisdom apart from You.
Be merciful and gracious and loving to us once again. Return for our sake! Return for Your Name's sake! We confess Your sanctuary has been trampled down. We confess we have not guarded the Gospel as we ought. The Precious Cornerstone has become a stumbling stone. We confess we have not guarded our hearts as we ought. We have become like those over whom You never ruled. Come and break and soften our hard hearts. Put Your Godly fear into us: a greater sense that You are a consuming Fire and we deserve nothing from You but wrath and eternal punishment, and yet in Your sovereign grace, You chose to show love to us, to grant mercy and grace to us to save us from just condemnation for our sin and to free us from power of sin, to translate us from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Your Son. O wonderful Lord, help us to know in greater measure Your glory: the glory in which grace and truth met, where justice and mercy kissed. The glory that overlooks all our sin and makes us righteous because You provided the propitiation for all our sins in Jesus Christ and counted His righteousness to our account by grace through faith. We confess and give you thanks and praise that it is only by Your grace, by Your covering us and clothing us with Christ's perfect righteousness that we stand before You. Holy God, be kind to us, we are Your people the sheep of Your pasture, lead us now to repentance. Give us ears to hear. Take our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh and put Your Spirit into us in a fresh and new way. Come again and set us free to live by You and to You as You have intended.
Yes, Jesus Christ came at the incarnation over 2000 years ago, but let us have eyes to see ourselves and the Church as a whole through His eyes, and pray He might come again in glory to revive us again. Where is the glory today in the Church? Are we not rightly called Ichabod today in so many places because we are living so far below the glory God intends for us? We have made lively religion into a dead ceremony. We have taken the living promises of the Word of God and not believed them to be true for us. Are we not captive, in dire need of deliverance from our worldly thoughts and concepts of God and His power? Are we not guilty of quenching, grieving and limiting God? Are we not become much like the religious authorities in Jesus' day and that of the early Church, whom Jesus called whitewashed tombs and whom Stephen described as stiff-necked and always resisting the Holy Spirit? We are in sore need of our Emmanuel coming again to free the Church from our captivity and reliance on the power and strength of men. May He send His glory to us once again! May He come to us again – no, not to ransom us – for the ransom was paid once for all! – but may Emmanuel come again revive us again! May our mourning become joy unspeakable as He comes into our midst again and He establishes us and He makes us a praise in the earth! But in the meantime we can rejoice in the sure hope that our God desire to revive us again – far more than any of us do – and continue steadfastly as watchmen on the walls in prayer and proclamation in eager anticipation of His coming!
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Day-spring, come and cheer
Our spirits by Thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O come, great Lord of might,
Who to Thy tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times once gave the law
In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Root of Jesse’s tree,
An ensign of Thy people be;
Before Thee rulers silent fall;
All peoples on Thy mercy call.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
* * *
This Advent, as you commemorate and celebrate Christ's first coming at the incarnation, will you please join me in earnest prayer He might come afresh and anew in power to revive us again?
We can be hopeful and rejoice for we can be assured that Emmanuel shall come to us for we know our God not only delights in us but delights in steadfast love! He is love!
and passing over transgression
for the remnant of his inheritance?
He does not retain his anger forever,
because he delights in steadfast love.
19 He will again have compassion on us;
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.
20 You will show faithfulness to Jacob
and steadfast love to Abraham,
as you have sworn to our fathers
from the days of old.
Your sister in Christ, seeking His face for revival in the Church, rejoicing that Emmanuel will surely come again!
Karen
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