Skip to main content

Revive Us Again.

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (II Peter 3:8-9)

            Yesterday, I shared this video on my Face Book page.: David Barton: Revival video. It brought to mind a book I discovered years ago: Generations: The History Of America's Future, 1584-2069 by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It reviews American history with the perspective that approximately every 80 years, America goes through a secular crisis that effectively destroys our country: Revolutionary War (1776), Civil War (1860), Depression and World War II (1929-1945). On September 11, 2001 as I stood in the County Executive's conference room watching the towers fall, I thought, "Here is the beginning of our secular crisis."
           About half way between those secular crisis (and very like as a result of them) is what they call spiritual awakenings: the Puritan Awakening (1621-1640), the Great Awakening (1734-1743), the Transcendental Awakening (1822-1837), the Mission Awakening (1886-1903) and the Boom Awakening (1967-1980).
         Mr. Barton is correct. As we pray for revival in our nation now, especially during an election cycle, it's easy to pray with one eye open, looking for that person who was shaking his fist at God before we started praying to fall to his knees in repentance before we finish, and rise in the next ten minutes as a fully mature Christian. Of course, that's an exaggeration, but it's also true. As Mr. Barton put it, we expect to see changes.
           Mr. Barton believes we are in a revival. If we aren't, it's likely we soon will be. The thing that the last spiritual awakening should teach us is that the revival of faith doesn't have to be Christ-ward. For it to be, we must be Christ-ward in advance of it. We must also remember what today's passage teaches -  that God is at work even when we can't see it. God will keep His promise, even if it doesn't fit into our timeline or expectations. He will revive His people, and the difficulties we are facing today are very likely how He is going to do it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Listen To Him

              The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him . (Deuteronomy 18:15)           Today, we switch from Jesus’ claims of “I am” to prophecies made about Him. My Bible platform is starting in Deuteronomy. I’d start in Genesis, where we would learn that the one who would save us would be a descendant of Eve (Genesis 3:15), of Noah (by default), Abram and Sara(Genesis 12:1-3). Isaac (Genesis 17:19), Jacob (Genesis 25:23), Judah (Genesis 29:8), and David (II Samuel 7:12-16). There were also references to a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-32). In addition, there were prophecies about when and where the prophet/Messiah would be born and what would happen to him.           Of course, naysayers will claim that Jesus’ life was retrofitted or reverse enginee...
Post a Comment
Read more