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

As we pray for ourselves and one another, let us lift up and reflect on Paul's words to the Colossians today...

Colossians 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. 3 At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

5 Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. 6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

O, holy God, author and perfecter of our salvation,

You know how weak we are. Our spirits are willing, our flesh is weak. Strengthen us to continue steadfastly in prayer. Keep us on alert since the devil is continuing to prowl. His work goes on. He is holding captive souls and blinding them to the glory of Jesus Christ. Impress upon us the importance of our needing to continue steadfastly in prayer. Open our eyes so we might see our need to continue to commune with You in prayer so we might fight against the wiles and schemes of the devil. May You increase our desire to pray so that we can't not pray, that our lives become a picture of Paul's words in Thessalonians: pray without ceasing. Our great high priest is praying without ceasing for us, so we might be strengthened to pray. Your Holy Spirit lives in us to transform our desires so we might desire to pray and then works in us so we might act on those God-imparted, God-breathed desires You are writing on our hearts and in our minds.

And as we pray, let us remember to continue to give You thanks. Thanks for Your love, mercy and grace to us in that we deserve nothing from You. Thank You, our Father, that You chose us and adopted us as Your children.Thank You for hearing us. Thank You for making a way for us to come into Your presence through the body and blood of the Lord Jesus. Thank You, Jesus, that You continue forever and have attained eternal salvation for us. Thank You, Holy Spirit, that You have not left us alone but dwell with us forever and You intercede for us and all the saints according to the will of God.

Today we pray You would open doors for us to declare the Word, the mystery of Christ. O, guard and protect us from proclaiming any other word or from proclaiming ourselves. There is salvation in no other name but the Name of Jesus Christ. O, may we make the word clear, so we might speak as we ought. That we might not compromise but lift up Jesus to the highest place, that He might not be made one of many options, but exalted as Lord and Christ, as the Way, the Truth and the Life. We read these words of Paul who was in prison. How much do we risk by speaking for Christ where we live? For most of us, not very much. Right now we lift up our brothers and sisters in those places where they do risk daily to proclaim Christ. Strengthen them to speak for You. How pitiful we are when we shrink back in fear for what others might think of us when it costs us very little, if anything, to do so. Forgive us for being self-protective. Holy Father and our Lord Jesus, we come to You asking for what You have promised to us: the gift of Your Holy Spirit. Yes, we  have received Him when we first came to Your Kingdom. We could not come to You apart from His quickening work in us. But now we are asking You again for Him to come and empower us to witness, to be bold and confident in Your power so we might declare Christ clearly and speak as we ought. You have promised to send Him and He would help us. We cannot expect to be Your witnesses apart from the One who witnesses of You equipping us to do so. Ought we not be proclaiming You with boldness and assurance? Are You not the Light of the world? Forgive us for so often not being bold and for so often hiding You under a bushel. We are trusting when we proclaim Your word in Your power that it will not return void but will accomplish the purpose You have intended for it.

May we make the most of our time. We are stewards here. May You lead us to open doors and may You embolden us to speak Your word, the mystery of Christ, as we ought. We have many opportunities here on Xanga and Revelife, as well as in other places, but let us be led clearly by Your Spirit in all of those and be discerning. We believe there are particular doors You will open for some of us and not for others. We are trusting You have already been preparing hearts and breaking up fallow ground to receive Your implanted word. There are so many souls who are hungry and seeking but their eyes are blinded. Use us to open their eyes, Lord, to Your gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. May we be discerning in how we use our time here. As You direct us, may we sow in faith, we do not know which of those seeds will produce a harvest or not, but You call us to be faithful to sow and to water as You lead us. Help us to be good stewards of Your word and of our time and our resources. Help us also to continue to study to show ourselves approved so we might be able to speak and write Your word in a way that brings You honor and glory, so we might be prepared to give an answer to the hope which lies within us. May Your Spirit continue to led us into all truth and let us not be afraid when we are ready to speak or write, but trust as You have led us to a particular place, to a particular conversation, Your Holy Spirit will fill our minds and our mouths and He will give us the right words at the time. May we continue to be led not of our own wisdom but of Your Spirit's wisdom. You call us to work, but may we never work out of our power, but through the power of Your Holy Spirit.

Lord Jesus, may our speech always be gracious, may we strike that right balance of grace and truth as You always had. That is impossible for us apart from Your Holy Spirit Who dwells in us. You were full of grace and truth. May we be the same. Yes, our speech needs to be seasoned with salt, to preserve and to purify, so that means it will not be welcomed by all, but yet we are faithful to proclaim Your word, all Your word, and hold nothing back. We are to speak all the words of Your life. May we stand firm in the faith and yet may all we do be done with love. We are trusting that those whose hearts You are preparing and those sheep You are calling will respond. Open hearts and minds to receive the word of Your gospel. Be gracious and open the blinders from their eyes so they might see. This is a work You alone can do in dead souls.

Give us wisdom to know how to answer each one. Each soul is a unique individual, fearfully and wonderfully made. Each soul needs Christ, yes, but yet we do not deal with people in a cookie cutter manner. Give us hearts of love and minds to discern particular needs to know how we ought to speak to each individual. May we have Your heart of compassion for these lost and weary souls. Fill our mouths and our fingertips with life-giving bread and living water so we might feed to those hungry and thirsty souls with You, O Lord. There is not life apart from You.

May You, O Lord God, be glorified in and through us and in this place. May all we do never cause You to be grieved but may we found well pleasing to You. Amen.