Genesis 26:1-2 Now there was a famine in the land, besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Gerar to Abimelech king of the Philistines. And the LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.
Genesis 26:12 And Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold. The LORD blessed him, Gen 26:13 and the man became rich, and gained more and more until he became very wealthy.
Genesis 26:19 But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water,
As we’ve been speaking a word of revival across the United States, a primary purpose is to re-dig the wells for a great harvest in the midst of such darkness. While many would say “there is no revival coming”, we simply refer to Matthew 13:24-30 which describes a two-fold harvest. First, the WHEAT is ripening for harvest, while second, TARES are growing up along with it.
Even as we see evil and chaos and spiritual darkness rising up, God is also preparing the greatest harvest the world has ever seen as the end of this age draws near; and this is verified by simple mathematics. In the late 1800s the population of the world finally reached one billion people. By the 1930s, a second billion was added. As the multiplication became exponential in the 20th century, up to today, we are now nearly eight billion people in the world. And a remnant, or fraction of eight billion who will come to faith, will eclipse every remnant of every single generation before us! It’s simple math.
So our first meeting on this journey was in Florida, which was discovered on Palm Sunday, March 20, 1513, by Ponce DeLeon and so named by the explorer to commemorate the triumphal entry of the Lord. (Pasqua Florida, or “Flowering Easter”). So, it was a fitting place to begin re-digging the spiritual wells of the nation, which despite what revisionist historians suggest, was established to spread the gospel and to be a “city on a hill.”
The spiritual foundations of America, in their various locations throughout the colonies established by faithful pioneering Christians, over the years have been eroded, and their “wells” have been stopped up … and blocked. Part of our assignment for this season is simply to re-dig the wells.
In Issac’s time, a famine in the land became so severe that he considered going to Egypt. But the Lord intervened and said to him, “Stay here in the midst of the famine, and believe my Word,” … and when he did so, Isaac was blessed 100-fold in the midst of a famine.
According to God’s word, we’re expecting to see Him move powerfully as His glory rises up even in the darkness.
Isaiah 60:1-3 Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
The glory of the Lord will shine, through our faith, our repentance, our obedience; and re-digging our own wells, each individually, allowing God to search us and know us, removing the obstacles in our lives that prevent the wellsprings of living water to flow, the harvest will be great!
Be blessed today, you’re alive for a purpose … to be part of the greatest harvest the world has ever known. In the midst of manifold troubles and problems, be part of the solution. Millions are now perplexed, afflicted, and terrified, and their only comfort, their most needed provision is to drink from the wells of salvation. Dig with us, in prayer and every spiritual work, for the sake of this massive generation. Our God will have a HARVEST!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Recently, I’ve been impressed by the Lord to address the anxieties many are feeling about the future– how to be strong in the face of the intense opposition we’ll be facing as believers. One of the founders of the modern state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion once said, “Courage is a special kind of knowledge, the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared. From this knowledge comes an inner strength that inspires us to push on in the face of great difficulty. What can seem impossible is often possible with courage.”
For a season, I worked in Washington, D.C., for one of America’s largest Christian political organizations. Sometimes I saw how politics could get ugly and, more often than not, how it changed people — not for the better…but usually for the worse!
Have you ever felt uneasy, unsettled or unstable? Or maybe a better question is — who hasn’t? How do we overcome these feelings?
Is that a trend or something? I don’t know what it is but I’ve heard that phrase said quite a bit. We were even walking down the Wal-Mart isle to pick up a few things and my wife showed me a T-shirt with “I have issues” written across the front! I guess the world is coming to the sad reality that we really do have some issues.
It never ceases to amaze me, the way the devil uses our offenses and our “offendedness” to divide and conquer marriages, relationships, churches — even entire nations!
There’s an old adage, “Have the heart of a lion!” Hearing it, we think, “courage”. This recalls a quote I once heard; “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened”. I doubt there’s a single hero story in which the fearless leader fails to inspire the righteous determination of his army or people. The voice of the captain resounds through the ranks evoking the fierce cry of every warrior ready to face death or worse, for the cause. Courage truly is contagious.
The Hebrew word for “face” is “panim”, (the Hebrew letters, peh-nun-yud-mem), literally “faces”, a plural word. Normally, when we think about God, we focus only upon one of His “faces” at a time. God is “love” – or He is “holy”– or He is “just”— or He’s a God of “wrath”. Yet, of course, ALL these “faces” are His at once; and so the word “panim” accurately reflects the truth of God’s multifaceted being. As we get to know Him better we begin to appreciate the complexity of His nature and the fact that our focus on one “face” is a very limited view, since there’s so much more going on in His amazing “Personality”.