Hosea 10:12 Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy; Break up your fallow ground, For it is time to seek the Lord, Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
Over the years I’ve often gotten emails asking “When do you think revival will come?”
Well…. first, what is “revival”, exactly? One of Merriam-Webster’s definitions is “a renewed attention to or interest in something“. Here are some important questions for us to answer today:
How interested are we in knowing Him more intimately today than yesterday?
How interested are we in gaining a greater knowledge and understanding of His Word?
And just how interested are we in sharing those precious things with the dying world around us?
A true revival must begin with us — it must be intimately personal. And it’s not just a one-time thing, either. Once, a lady asked Billy Sunday “Why do you keep having revival meetings?” He quickly retorted, “Why do you always take a bath?”
Revival is something that needs to happen daily. It’s an ongoing transformation of our hearts to be constantly moved by the Spirit of God. We need to be daily breaking up our fallow ground, those places in our hearts which we’ve allowed to grow hard. We have to ask the Lord to reveal those hard places, pray that He would forgive us and ask Him to heal all our rough edges that we might be soft before Him and sensitive to His leading. As we open ourselves to the moving of the Spirit of God … then we will usher in a new move of God within us.
Let’s get serious as we approach Shavuot (Pentecost) this coming weekend! It’s a new season — so let’s begin this season the right way — in revival!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]“On Sunday, believers arrived at a house church in the Soviet Union in small groups throughout the day so not to arouse the suspicion of KGB informers. They began by singing a hymn quietly. Suddenly, in walked two soldiers with loaded weapons at the ready. One shouted, “If you wish to renounce your commitment to Jesus Christ, leave now!” Two or three quickly left, then another. After a few more seconds…
This unique passage in Revelation has a warning and a blessing.
The first part of this verse was a warning about the suddenness of the Lord’s return as He is coming as a thief to the world not anticipating His return.
The Hebrew language contains numerous words that have the same root yet vast differences in meaning. On deeper examination however, these words can be related in illuminating ways. For example, the three Hebrew letters --"Lamed", "Chet", and "Mem"-- which spell, "lechem", or "bread" in English, are also the root letters for "fight" (lehilachem) and "war" (milchama). For centuries Rabbis have discussed and debated the connection between these three words.
When the twelve spies were sent out by Moses into the land of Canaan, ten came back with a bad report. Joshua and Caleb, however, returned with a good report, saying in essence, “If God is for us — then who can be against us?” The two courageous spies expressed their confidence in a way that was quite cool: “Do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us.” [Numbers 14:9]
In Israel, the celebration of Shavuot took place yesterday. Most Christians would recognize this as the celebration of Pentecost in Acts 2. However, the very first Shavuot took place fifty days after the Israel crossed the Red Sea. It was on this day according to Jewish tradition that the law was given on tablets of stone.
An ancient Hebrew commentator wrote of this verse, "In the words of our teachers of blessed memory and in the Midrash [ancient Hebrew commentaries of the O.T.], it is taught that the 'breaker' is Elijah and 'their King' is the branch of the son of David."
In the Greek olympic games of old, a unique race was run. The winner was not the runner who finished first --- it was the runner who finished with his torch still lit!