Act 2:38-39 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.
One of the greatest moves of God took place in 1727 on the estate of Count Zinzendorf. Count Zinzendorf was a strong believer who was deeply influenced by the faith of his grandmother and aunt. At the tender age of 22, he opened a portion of his estate to refugees seeking asylum from the religious persecution throughout Europe.
After five years, this fledgling settlement of three hundred was growing; but in the midst of their growth, divisions were arising among the brethren over doctrinal issues. Then on May 22, 1727, the Moravians made a covenant with Zinzendorf whereby they committed themselves to the Lord, confessed the sin of religious quarreling, and “sincerely renounced self-love, self-will, and disobedience … deciding, each one, to be led by the Holy Spirit in all things.”
Later that same year, on August 13th, after a week of fasting and prayer, the Moravians, whose average age was around 30, were gathered when an outpouring of the Holy Spirit took place. Count Zinzendorf called it the Moravian Pentecost. This led to over one hundred years of continuous prayer, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, which supplied spiritual power to one of the longest sustained outreaches the world has ever known. The revivals led by the Wesley brothers that took place in the United States and England were a direct result of the Moravians. In 1867, one of the earliest missions established in the Modern State of Israel was also fruit of this move of God.
So what can we learn from this amazing revival? First, it began when the brethren laid down their differences and came together in prayer, determined also to lay down their lives for the Gospel’s sake. Secondly, the outpouring of the Spirit is always connected to spreading the Gospel in power, which leads to widespread radical change in the world of that generation.
As we approach the feast of Shavuout (Pentecost), let’s be stirred with a sense of urgency, also….to lay down our differences as believers, and then lay down our lives for the Gospel, so we can be eagerly expecting to be renewed with the power of God — not only for our own spiritual quickening but for all the souls who have yet to receive this awesome gift! With so much work to be done — let’s do it in His Power!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Approaching a new year always seems to carry a sense of adventure and expectation, although that attitude is not normally mixed with the level of trepidation we might be feeling just now. Moses’ successor Joshua, one of two faithful spies, seems to have embodied this sense of courageous expectation much of his life, but even he needed an extra dose of Divine encouragement as the Lord commanded him to cross the Jordan and take possession of the promised Land.
As we approach the New Year, we’re back to making New Year’s resolutions … but this year is a bit different, since it’s not only a New Year but a New Decade! During the past ten years we’ve seen such radical changes in our society; the definition of marriage, millennia-old norms of gender identity, bath and locker-room privacy, have all been affected by court decisions as a sea change in social mores has swept through the western world. People of Biblical faith are witnessing the fulfillment of Isaiah’s warning, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” [Isaiah 5:20]
There were thousands of people bundled up in freezing New York weather to witness a few short seconds during which a descending ball of light announces the arrival of a New Year — 2023. These hardy people endured the freezing air to mark the passage of time, but even more, because they were anticipating a “new beginning!” Saying goodbye to a tumultuous 2023, they were looking forward to making a fresh start in 2024!
When I teach about “understanding the will of God,” I’d like to talk about a story that is told in all the synoptic gospels, except that Luke’s account gives a significant nuance. (Many skeptical Bible “critics” point out differences in the gospels to argue that they can’t be reliable — yet it’s actually the differences that support the validity of these accounts because they reveal that the events recorded were simply experienced and told from slightly different viewpoints, a very common circumstance when people are telling a story.)
Charles Swindoll wrote about these men who bring in animals from Africa for American zoos. They say that one of the hardest animals to catch there is the ringtailed monkey. For the Zulus of that continent, however, it’s simple. They’ve been catching this agile little animal with ease for years.
From the beginning, we anticipated a time when we would need to produce all our news content. Over the past month, as many of you are aware, we’ve fully shifted to generating articles exclusively through our dedicated in-house writing team. We’ve also expanded as we continue to freely syndicate our news to any online Christian ministry. Operating on faith and independent of advertising revenue, our ministry’s content is driven not by external factors but by a deep commitment to fulfilling the Lord’s will.
Over the past few days, one of our servers that hosts roughly 20 different web sites was breached and used to send SPAM. While there was no real damage done, the thousands of bounced messages literally caused the server to shut down. There was no personal information stored on the server, however, the hours spent setting up a new server in the midst of a speaking tour created chaos which we really didn’t have the time to deal with. However, the worst of it is all over, and we’re back! Just as we’re getting ready to launch another website (https://worthy.bible) for the Kingdom … we get attacked from all sides!