(Picture courtesy of the morgue file.)
No, that title doesn’t mean it is snowing again. It means my thoughts are swirling around like a snowglobe. I often sort things out in the process of writing, but I have a to-do list longer than the day, so there’s not really time…plus I am really trying to avoid long, long, long posts, believe it or not. So I may just hit some highlights — or I may delete this if it is not making sense and come back when there is more time.
Our church is having revival services this week, and in preparation I began what I thought was going to be a word study on the topic in the Bible last week. But the concept is much broader than the verses that mention the word “revive” specifically. Really, the idea of searching our hearts and getting things right with the Lord is all throughout Scripture. So, though I started a post about it last weekend, I didn’t finish — it was just too big for a blog post.
But I’ve been thinking, usually the need for revival stems from one of two things. Either there is some kind of sin in the life that needs to be forsaken and confessed, or we’ve “left our first love” even though we’re doing all the right things:
Revelation 2:2 I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
3 And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name’s sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted.
4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
In either case, the solution is the same: repentance.
If you’d like to study this out more, you can look for verses with the following words or phrases: revive, quicken, return (in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Revelation, and some other places), turn us again (you’ll have to filter out some usages of those words that aren’t talking about revival or coming back to the Lord specifically).
Then yesterday in a grand evidence of my own need for revival, I got colossally angry over a relatively small thing. There is not time to give a detailed account, but, no, it wasn’t with anyone in my family. It was at a store, and I was in the right, and I did something I don’t think I have done since childhood: I stormed off in obvious anger while the other person was talking. After a while I was smitten — I thought, what if that person happens to come to our revival services and sees me? I totally ruined my testimony — over $2.50 plus tax.
And this anger bubbling up, usually below the surface, has been happening all too often lately. So, I’ve been doing some confessing and going over Colossians 3, especially verses 8-17, and Ephesians 4:20-32.
And I was thinking, in the course of all that, how are you supposed to handle it when you are in the right? There is such a thing as righteous indignation. Many of the Scripture verses about anger refer to God’s anger, so anger in and of itself isn’t always a sin, though of course my reaction was a sinful one. Sometimes we are called on to suffer wrong or to overcome evil with good. As I was dressing and fixing my hair, I listened to the section of Jim Berg’s Quieting a Noisy Soul dealing with overcoming anger. He read the incident in Numbers 20:1-13 where the Israelites were without water and were complaining to Moses about it. Moses had just suffered the loss of his sister, Miriam, and the people were wrong in their attitudes and demeanor, but Moses reacted in a wrong way, striking the rock rather than speaking to it, and losing the opportunity to enter the promised land. People often say Moses was punished because he obscured the symbolism, but God says in this passage he was punished “Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel.” Berg brought out that unbelief was the source of his anger, and he sanctified something else rather than God. That’s what I did — I sanctified my “rightness” over “the principle of the thing” instead of God and His instructions to me about how to honor Him and conduct myself.
Then, looking unto Jesus as our example in all things, I thought how often He could have been frustrated when He walked the earth with all that was done wrong, yet He was longsuffering and gracious.
Later this morning as I was maiking breakfast, I was listening to the new CD by the Galkin Evangelistic team, Christ Only Always. The song “Come, Let Us Return to the Lord” really stood out to me last weekend, and then again this morning it was a balm to my heart. I’ll just include the chorus here:
Oh Come, let us return to the Lord.
Let our hearts yearn for the Lord.
Only His love will save us.
For though our lives are broken,
He will mend and restore hope again.
Let us return to the Lord.
(Words and music by Dick and Melodie Tunney)
Well — I’ve gone ahead and ended up with a long post, haven’t I? 🙂 It’s been a help to me. Hopefully it will be to someone else as well.
I’ll close with one of my favorite passages from my study last week:
Lamentations 3:40-41:
Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD.
Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens.
Stray Thoughts 