Focus on repentance on National Day of Prayer
Editor: On May 4 about 40 followers of Jesus gathered on the National Day of Prayer. We didn’t pray for federal, state or local government officials, for police and firemen, teachers and school administrators, nor our military. While these are areas that we definitely should be praying for and what most National Day of Prayer gatherings focus on, our prayer time was spent on something else — repentance.
If God is to move in our midst and bring a genuine revival, repentance is the key. After reading Daniel’s passionate prayer of repentance (Daniel 9:4-19) we repented fervently and with a sense of urgency for the sins of our nation — abortion, assisted suicide, sex outside of marriage,homosexuality, gay marriage, the transgender chaos, greed, materialism, and “self.”
We also repented for the sins of the church — lukewarmness, watering down the gospel, shallow discipleship, passionless worship, and adopting worldly ways. And finally, and most importantly, we repented of our own personal sins — each one of us got a piece of chalk and drew a circle around ourselves and silently prayed that God would send a revival in our land, and that He would begin inside the circle we stood in.
Revival is our last hope, and that revival must start inside the walls of the church. The very term “revival” means to bring back to life, which insinuates that there was life there to begin with.
This life is the church, which is made up of individuals who have been born again through faith in Jesus Christ.
In short, revival is a sick church receiving a fresh vitality and falling in love with Jesus all over again. All historical revivals were birthed in the humble, desperate cries of repentance from a remnant of God’s people who knew that He was their only hope.
On May 4, a small remnant of such people cried out to God in such a way. But it was only a beginning.
We need to continue to cry out to God until He rends the heavens and sends a mighty wind of revival in our midst. Will you?
God is speaking to us through the holy Bible
Editor: Martin Luther (14831546) wrote “feelings come and feelings go and feelings are deceiving. my warrant is the Word of God naught else is worth believing.”
The Holy Scripture, “this volume is the writing of the living God: each letter was penned with an Almighty finger; each word in it dropped from the ever lasting lips, each sentence was directed by the Holy Spirit.”
In other words, the Sovereign Lord of heaven and Earth is the ultimate author of every word of the Bible. And that means something wonderful, astonishing, glorious:
God speaks to us. Does this not fill your heart with joy, your mind with wonder, your mouth with praise? The trice — holy Lord, the almighty Creator of heaven and Earth, speaks through his spirit and word.
He chose human servants to write down his words to preserve them; and his spirit so moved upon the human authors that, when they wrote, their words were God’s words.
And these God-given words are preserved in a 66-book Holy Spirit library that we call the divinely inspired Bible.
This God- breathed collection of infallible words was written over 1,500 to 1,600 years by more than 40 authors: kings, prophets, leaders, and followers of Jesus.
Stories, poetry, laws, instruction, letters, apocalyptic writings, prophecy, and more, reveal the one true and living God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And through these writings, the Holy Spirit infallibly communicates God’s nature and attributes.
His will for human beings, and his eternal purpose of salvation in Jesus Christ.This was once the bedrock doctrine —the foundation — of biblical Christianity. It lay of the heart of the Protestant Reformation, which many are remembering with thanksgiving this year.
That extraordinary event was not merely about the correct view of justification, the true worship of God, or the reformation of marriage and family: underlying all this was and is the most important question for all people at all times in all places to answer: “What is our final authority?”
Without an authoritative revelation from God, we have no object of our faith. The inspired, infallible Word of God is the final authority for faith and practice for all born again souls, for all the blood-bought children of God, for all of life.
The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.
Unfortunately, it seems that few professing Christians believe this anymore. Certainly, few would die for it, as Christians often have.
The living God speaks trough his living Word when it is read and preached in the power of the Holy Spirit. God breathed and preserved his holy word to reveal himself, to save sinners, to sanctify the saved, and to establish his mighty Kingdom. Let us take up the Holy Book and read.
God speaks, God has spoken.