Much More Than
Revival
Revival is wonderful! I have
read about powerful revivals
throughout the history of the body of Christ, and have experienced
revival myself several times in my own life. But revival would
not be necessary if we did not have the tendency to not 'abide in the
True Vine' as Jesus taught in the Gospel of John, chapter 15. In
spite of the fact that 'no one can steal us out of Father's hand', His
gift of free will always enables us to remove ourselves from His hand.
So, because we tend to stray from God
like sheep, He is always on the
lookout for those who stray from Him, and seeks to bring them back to
Himself if they are willing. The trouble is this: not
everyone is willing to come back to Father when they stray. A
great example is the Jews mentioned in John chapter 8:
John 8:31-33
So Jesus said to
the
Jews who had believed him, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my
disciples, and you will know
the truth, and the truth will set you free." They answered him,
"We are offspring
of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you
say, 'You will become free'?"
On this occasion Jesus missed a great
opportunity to reply, "Who, then,
are these Romans? Are they tourists? Did your forefathers go on
holiday in Mesopotamia?" But instead He went on to tell them the
even greater truth that those who sin are slaves to sin, and there is
the utmost penalty for remaining enslaved to our self-righteous
misunderstandings. They did not realize that the self-righteous
pride of their hearts had deceived them into thinking that they
already were righteous and had no need for further instruction from
Jesus.
As a result our loving Heavenly
Father sends His messengers to restore
lost truths to His people and anyone else who is able to receive the
truth.
For example, God restored the truth
about 'Salvation By Faith' through
Martin Luther, and He has been restoring lost truths ever since Jesus
ascended to be seated at His right hand.
It is important to note that the
truths which are restored are often
accompanied by traditions of men and other doctrines which only a
person who seeks God's discernment can discern. The enemy sows
weeds in God's field. This happens because we have failed to
apprehend one of the fundamental principles of the Kingdom of God - we
have leaned on our own understanding rather than trusting God with our
whole hearts.
Pro 3:5
Trust in the LORD with
all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.
We need to understand
that the main result of the
disobedience of Adam and Eve resulted in their being separated from
fellowship with God. They could no longer trust God for wisdom
and discernment because of the separation of their sin, so they began
to trust their own understanding.
The remedy for this is not simply
deciding to stop relying on our own
understanding and trusting God with our whole hearts. That,
sadly, is the course of action which we usually try when the Lord
convicts of of the truth in Proverbs 3:5. But it does not take
long for an honest person to admit defeat because we simply cannot rely
on our own willpower to accomplish anything of eternal worth. The
proper course of action, as always, is to appropriate the power of the
death and resurrection of Jesus to be manifested in our lives. I
have found, for example, that when I ask Jesus to help me to stop
leaning on my own understanding so that I can trust our heavenly Father
with all of my heart, that major breakthroughs happen in my life.
And when I go on to ask Jesus to help me to keep trusting Father with
all of my heart rather than reverting to leaning on my own
understanding that He is able to start training me to do so.
I hope that this makes some sense to
you, dear reader. But if it
does not, be sure to ask Jesus Christ to help you to be all that God
the Father wants you to be!! And even if you are not inclined to
do this, we can always ask God to work in you both to will and to do
whatever pleases Him most!
Please feel free to give me your
feedback! RHarms@woh.rr.com