Revival at what cost?
There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling. ~Ephesians 4:4
I had been thinking about this over the last few weeks, how desperately we were all seeking revival and a change of heart. Not only in this country but around the world. My conversation last week with Christians about immigration(see here) spurred me to really think about it more.
My conclusion is the Lord is moving…despite Christians.
We can’t get out of our own way. It’s ridiculous. There is so much in-fighting. So much he-said / she-said bickering that the Lord is forced to use others in our place. You’re church is not “the body”, my church is not “the body”. We are ALL the body. Knock it off. Without a doubt, God is up there saying Knock it off.
There is a lot of prayer going on around the country and world for revival. It certainly is a great prayer to have but we can not all just sit on our laurals and hope to all hope that someone else is going to do the dirty work for us. God called us to get our hands dirty. To reach out to sinners and prostitutes, to the desolate and broken hearted.
Revival needs to start in the hearts of you and me but we can not continue to preach it in to a lifeless congregation and hope that one day they’ll “get it”. Someone needs to decide to step up to the plate and take action. Is it you?
Are you willing to sacrifice? To be chastized, perhaps even by Christians, for the sake of what you believe is the true way of Jesus? Will you lose your grip on the things that are holding you back in this life? Will you give the Lord your anger, your fear? Will you put your life in His hands and make the cross your only defense?
I’ll be honest, those last words scare the crap out of me. And for a long long time I let that fear control my actions. It’s not that I was doing wrong, it was that I was doing nothing. I was sitting there waiting to join the bandwagon. Like the old saying “if you want it done right do it yourself”, I realized I could start my own bandwagon.
There is no one on this earth who can tell you what your called to do for Christ. You need to ask Him. And if there is someone trying to tell you what you can or can’t do for Jesus, or someone who is putting rules and limitations on your actions you need to figure out why and ask the Lord what He would have you do. Because you will only answer to God when the time comes and not any authority here on earth.
This all seems good on paper but maybe you’re someone out there only 16 years old and feel helpless to make a difference. I’m sharing something I figured out way to late in life; It doesn’t take much. Bring an extra sandwich and hand it to someone who needs it on your way to work, help someone out in school, hold the door for someone. Kindness spreads like wildfire. Try it and watch the doors open to share Jesus. It’s been an eye-opening experience for me. If we want revival, it starts with us, and it starts with the little things. How can we expect the Lord to entrust us with large undertakings when we aren’t willing to accept the little challenges of our day?
What drives you?
Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” ~Matthew 19:21
I had to take a bit of a break this past week or so after dislocated and breaking my finger in 3 places in a football game. As I got up after the play I lined up for the next play feeling a little pain in my hand. It was cold and rainy and a brisk breeze was blowing across the field. My initial thought was that my hand was just numb from the cold and wet along with hitting the hard dirt ground.
Upon looking down at my hand my ring finger from the top knuckle to the tip was bent up. It looked real bad. Not enjoying the look of my finger I pushed it down and in, relocating it. I began bending it to make sure I had function. I leveled my hand to my eye line and checked it again, it was still twisted up.
I called in another player and ran off to the sideline. This is the part where you say, phew he’s going to get help. Nope, I was going to find tape… A friend buddy-taped two fingers together and I was anticipating going back in.
What drives you? What motivates you every day? Why do you wake up in the morning?
The question seems simplistic but really think about it for a minute. I have a hard time with it. Why am I getting up and doing the same thing over and over? What’s motivating me to get up, go to work, come home, sleep, repeat
I feel tired and worn out. I feel bored with life and the mundane tasks of daily living. My motivation is in the wrong place. When “life” is your motivation you lose your desire, your hunger, your determination.
“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.”(Matthew 4:19). Jesus gives a decree and follows it with a job. Follow me and take the job of saving souls. The majority of us take to following Jesus and brush off that second piece. We continue with our daily rituals and we get bored. We lose our motivation and fall in to this funk.
For years I shrugged it off as attacks of Satan pushing me down. “I’m going to church, I’m reading, I’m praying”, I thought. I’m certainly not saying some or perhaps all of them weren’t attacks, what I am saying is we’ve become so indoctrinated with how we ought to act and what we should and shouldn’t do from the “church” that we’ve lost the ultimate goal of Christ’s message: follow me and become a fisher. We dare not step outside the box for fear of being to radical.
It’s time to step out of the box. It’s time to give everything for the sake of the Cross.(2 Timothy 2:10) It’s time to start making waves.
I find the story of the rich young man to be a fascinating one(Matthew 19:16-28). This man has everything and yet he’s thirsting for more. When Jesus tells him he needs to give up his possessions he walks away dejected. In a world which feasts on fast paced, I wonder if it’s possible to give up all your possessions. Could I even give up my cell phone, or my computer, or tv?
Desiring to fight on in the face of injury for my own selfish reasons in my football game, over the last few weeks, in reflection, I’ve decided that what motivates me is “things”. Maybe it’s 80% of the time, maybe it’s only 20% of the time, but it’s to much. God has really been pressing it upon me to change my motivation. When your motivation is Christ, your desire and determination return and not only that but they’re steering you in the right direction.
Mountains to molehills
if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ~1 Corinthians 13:2
A while back God really pressed upon my heart to pray for someone. I was in a broken place, a place where God’s voice and direction could not have been any clearer. And so I prayed. I prayed ferverently, both day and night, when I woke, when I went to bed, any moment I thought about this person, I prayed. Sometimes it was just a quick thought other times it was a long conversation but I have never prayed that hard in my entire life.
For 6 weeks this went on, day after day. And then one day I was given some information that forced me to a decision. You see, Satan whispers in our ears, and sometimes those words come out in our conversations with others. I should have seen this, looking back, but I took it and used to rashly. Simply put, I gave up on this person.
I wrote about this before, Daniel 10:12-13 talks about an Angel sent to Daniel as an answer to his prayers to God and how that Angel was caught up with a demon for 21 days fighting to keep him from coming. If Daniel had just given up praying on day 11 or day 20 would his answer have come?
I believe that part of the reason I gave up was because I gave up on God. Satan knew exactly what words would bring me to despair and drive me away from God. He knew what my prayers were doing, changing lives through the spiritual. And he would stop at nothing to make sure I stopped.
I pushed and pushed and pushed through the weeds that entangled me over the last several months. At times I felt like I was walking in knee deep mud in the pitch black. I couldn’t see Jesus but I knew He was there somewhere ahead so I kept on moving, even if at a snails pace. Something special happened. The closer I got the more the Lord pressed that same person on my heart again. I hadn’t blown it. There was still time. I had forgotten one thing, written here in Amos:
He who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
and reveals his thoughts to man,
he who turns dawn to darkness,
and treads the high places of the earth-
the LORD God Almighty is his name. ~Amos 4:13
He formed the mountains and reveals His thoughts to me!! How much easier is my small little bump in the road for Him? My little hill… I had faith that He could change lives through my prayer and yet I gave up after only 6 weeks. In my world I lacked the true love needed for this person and gave up far to easy.
We serve such a BIG God. A God who formed the mountains and treads the high places. A God who told us if we only had faith the size of a mustard seed we could move mountains ourselves. When I was little I imagined this God fuming when I failed. As I’ve grown I’ve recognized His compassion and grace. I see Him now pleading and weeping for me to continue praying.
I’m beginning to understand the love my Savior has for me and the charge He’s placed on me to love others and continue to pray for them. My sins held Him to the cross and He still found it in His heart to love me and He intercedes for me dispite my shortcomings(Romans 8:34).
My point is, recognize how big our God is, how much He loves us and desires good for us, and how really simplistic the tasks He asks us to do are. Prayer can not only change lives, but the world.
Carrying the Burdens of Others
they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus ~Luke 23:26
I think we can all agree that the health care bill now shoved through Congress despite the outrage of the American people is frustrating. Why are we burdened with the few? Why is American becoming more socialistic as the days progress? The economic system in America is being held up by popsicle sticks as we’re determined to spend nearly a trillion dollars on just 32 million of the 309 million Americans to provide them with health care.
I spent a bit of today in a heated argument with someone about the whole thing. I’ll be honest, Christianity did not ring out in my words. As her comments became more ludicrous and began landing below the belt I retaliated back with jabs of my own. I felt good. I know what I’m talking about, I feel somewhat educated on the subject and have formed my own opinion. I thought “Yeah I’ll show her.”
A little while later, still steamed by the whole thing, I was chatting with a friend and expressing my dismay at the cluelessness of Americas youth.
“The sad thing is, they are two of the people I will probably be paying for health care for.” I lamented.
“Of course they are.” my friend replied.
“As if I don’t have enough problems now I have to carry the burdens of other peoples?!” I argued back at no one.
And literally as the words were forming in my mind I heard “I did it for you.”
I felt ashamed of myself. Jesus carried a cross ladened with my burdens, my sins, my troubles.(John 19:17) He didn’t pick and chose who; For the sins of all he bled. It wasn’t whether he liked it or not or which sins He felt like forgiving, He took them all.
Here I am whining and complaining about some bill my government is passing. Why?
- Do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow has enough worries of it’s own.(Matthew 6:34).
- Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?(Matthew 6:25)
- Then he said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.(Matthew 22:21)
See, I should be more focused on the Lord’s call for my life every day and less concerned about this health care bill. If we want to spur change, go out and spread the gospel and make some real change. All these things will burn but the Word of God will stand forever.(Isaiah 40:8)
Am I pissed off at the fact that this bill is a pile of junk? Absolutely. Will I continue to fight for what I believe in and push for the possibility that my tax dollars will be used in a better way? Without a doubt. But should I really be this concerned? No.
Ask yourself, would Jesus be picketing somewhere over this health care bill or would He be teaching the gospel?
Simon from Cyrene didn’t know Jesus personally. He was just a passer by and they plucked him from the crowd and put the heavy cross on his back. As sweat dripped from his brow he continued on. Splinters dug in to his shoulders and back as he pushed forward.
We should be more like Simon, helping pick up the burden of someone else, even if it’s unfair. After all, Jesus did it for way more.
Authors
Dana Fisher
Computer Consultant
Dana@brokenstones.com
I remember vividly when I got saved like the moment happened yesterday, yet I was only 4 years old. I grew up in a Christian home all my life but never really walked a full Christian walk until I was 23. The Lord kept me from most things up through high school and most of college but at some point I just gave up.
From 19 – 21 I rejected the idea that Christians were inherently good. Having been burned and stabbed in the back by so many Christians and watching them take advantage of people, just like the world, I became frustrated. I stopped going to church because of the rules and the people and embraced the world. Life slowly spiraled out of control. It’s not like it happens instantly. The devil lures you to sleep until suddenly you don’t recognize your surroundings. I was so far away from God I didn’t even think about anything I was doing. I was without a doubt living in the moment.
God finally gave me a wake up call one night in 2004 and my life has been different ever since. I still struggle and have my ups and downs but my focus is on Christ and I rely on Him to provide my every need. I hope that everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve witnessed and learned comes through in what is written on these pages and if I even help just one person, it was all worth it.
Dave Capozzi
Emergency food coordinator at the Esther R Sanger Center for Compassion
Dave@brokenstones.com
I was born into a protestant Christian family, of the evangelical variety. From an early age my family bounced around from church to church and denomination to denomination, mostly due to moves relating to my father’s work. Therefore, I do not really identify with any particular brand or denomination. I’ve been everywhere from pentacostal to congregational, baptist to calvary chapel and everything in between.
I had always taken my parents faith very seriously, and was “saved” about 4,263 times throughout the course of my youth. However, I didn’t truly come to know Christ until I was in my early 20s. I say this because I had always just taken everyone else’s word for it. I knew I believed, but wasn’t sure what I believed in until I really started digging into the scriptures.
Through this process of what seemed like never-ending questions and doubts, I came to find the truth in Christ. It was not until I was about 23 that I can say I had finally been saved by the grace of God, and saved from evangelicalism at that! I believe that I was saved out of religion to be put back into it. cleaned off so that I can be a more effective and true witness of the Gospel of the kingdom of God.
Who am I now? I am a Christian who seeks to follow the way of the cross with every breath.
our f word
luke 23:34 – and Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
here, while Jesus is dying on the cross, he asks his father to forgive his killers for the ignorance of their actions.
haven’t we always been taught that we have to ask for forgiveness from God before we can receive it? why then does Jesus ask his father to forgive his killers, despite the fact that they crucified him with no remorse?
through Christ, i’ve come to find that the most shocking and earth-shattering thing you can do to another person is what Jesus did. forgive them. whether they deserve it or not.
forgiveness is central to the life of a follower of Christ. it leads us to love neighbor and enemy alike, since we know that we are nowhere near being worthy of the forgiveness we continually receive.
imagine, if you will, that someone close to you has ripped you off, lied to you, told lies about you or turned their back on you. would it not be far more Christ-like to offer forgiveness to them (prior to them asking) than to seek revenge in-kind?
we are called to a revenge far more powerful than eye for an eye. forgiveness is our greatest act of revenge.
-dave-
the hardest way to live
hey everyone,
thanks so much for all of your fantastic insight into this issue. i resonate with everything that was written and struggle with the implications of being a peacemaker in this world of violence. it is quite simply the most difficult way to live.
i have questioned, for quite some time, why it seems to be true that Christians (more than other people i speak with) have a hard time accepting that God asks us to love (and do good) to our enemies, to bless those who curse us and to turn the other cheek. not only does he ask us to live this way, but God himself lived this way through Jesus Christ.
why is it that we praise the martyrs of 1st and 2nd century christianity, but we are now baffled by those who would rather die and kill?
why do we continue to pluck out our brother’s and sister’s eyes for the wrongs they have committed against us?
why do we battle other christians, showing no love or compassion in our words, over trivial matters of theology?
why do we believe we can be pacifists by abstaining from physical violence, while neglecting to be peacemakers with our words?
the answer to all of these questions really is very simple…it’s not easy. Christ showed us the beautiful and selfless way of the cross, but we will always prefer the quick and easy way of the sword.
we still desire that which is the easiest and least costly.
if only we really believed what our Savior did and said.
peace
-dave-
Get off your butt
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ~2 Corinthians 12:9
Any one who’s ever been in a relationship long enough or who is married has seen this scenario. You both are exhausted, you can barely keep your eyes open. Maybe you’re lounging on the couch or falling asleep in bed. And then men, you hear “Honey, could you get me a glass of water?”
Perhaps if your relationship is young you jump up and grab that glass of water or whatever she asked for. But the day comes later on when you’ve been together so long that the voice in your head wants to tell her “Your legs aren’t broken, I’m tired.”
See, the Bible tells us to die to self(1 Peter 2:24) but inevitable our selfish nature creeps back in. When we started out as new Christians with our baby relationship we wanted nothing more than to please the Lord. ‘Yes Lord!’ ‘What now Lord?’
We eventually hit that brick wall of Satan. We’re tired and down-trodden. We just need to rest, we want to close our eyes for just a minute and recover. And we look up and say “I’m thirsty”. Jesus said ‘whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst’(John 4:14)
While I might selfishly make my girlfriend or wife get her own glass of water, as Jesus bride he never will say ‘Nah, I’m tired too man. I’m helping 6 billion people here. Get your own water.’ What an amazing revelation! I wanted to quickly look at two things to ponder as we go about our day. One for men in particular and one for us all.
Ephesians 5:25 says ‘Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her’. I love this because you know what? It means I need to get off my lazy butt and get that glass of water. It means surrendering my life for the sake of my wife. It means loving when I don’t want to love, it means striving when I want to give up, and it means sacrificing when I want something else. Because if we look at the love of Christ for the church we need look no further than the foot of the cross. Where he bled and died and gave up his spirit for each and every one of us.
Romans 8:28 – 39. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him(28)… If God is for us, who can be against us?(31)… nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.(39). Read those 11 verses and tell me you aren’t amazed at the love of Christ.
We can hit that brick wall. We can be broken, tattered, left for dead and know that ALL things work together for good. We know that God is for us. We know that Jesus is at the right hand of the father interceding for us. We know that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. And we can get back up and fight with him right along side us.
It smells so good!
Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. -Romans 6:11
A couple of months ago I was walking to my car after work and recognized an unmistakable smell; The smell of autumn. It was 45-50 degrees, the sun was beginning to set, and it just smelled like fall. I love that smell for some reason. Maybe it’s memories, maybe it’s the changing landscape but something about that smell seems calming.
I started thinking about what the smell actually was and it dawned on me that it was leaves. And I started thinking about why leaves die and regrow, why they change color, and why do they smell so good in the fall.
God gives us a perfect example of His word in a real world visual. See, leaves bud, the sun gives them light and they grow. They mature and turn in to a vibrant color of green. As the sun moves farther away from the earth and the days become darker the leaves begin to lose their vibrant green. For a few weeks they explode into beautiful yellows, reds, and oranges, cascading through the neighborhoods and forests, indulging our eyes. We actually plan vacations around this! But those bright colors are short lived. Without the sun the leaves lose their food. They begin withering and fall off the tree and within days are brown and brittle.
In those few weeks of colorful explosions and in the days preceding when the leaves have fallen and are brown and brittle they give off this smell I call “fall”. It smells so good, and personally, I love basking in a perfect fall day.
You probably already see the example, we are the leaves, Jesus is the sun, the son of God. When we turn our lives over to Him he changes us. We grow and become vibrant leaves.(Romans 6:4)
We are all sinners(Romans 3:23) and eventually that sin rears it’s ugly head even when we have committed are lives to Christ. Sometimes it’s brief, sometimes we backslide for a while. And during that time sin seems good. We feel good, we change color, we feel as though life is going fine. And for that brief time we look good to the world. We’re the bright reds and yellows, and oranges that attract other non-believers. We have more friends, we can do more things.(Matthew 7:13)
Eventually sin consumes you, you lose your connection with God and He becomes far away. Without food you wither and die.(1 Corinthians 10:3-4) You become brown and britle. Sin smells so good. Those reds, oranges, and yellows are so pretty to look at and on a nice fall day the smells can consume you. However, just like fire with it’s reds, yellows, and oranges, sin will consume you and devour everything turning it to dust.
Here’s the beauty of Christ: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”(1 John 1:9) You know what that means? That means, like a leaf in spring time we can rebud. We grow again! No task required, no 15 hail mary’s, no physical death. Just dead to sin, alive in Christ. Glorious, wondrous grace from the cross. That’s it! If you don’t get goosebumps reading that!
Don’t let sin consume you, don’t let Satan take hold and drag you down. It may feel good right now but in a few days, weeks, months, years, you are going to be hurting. Renew yourself now. Confess your sins, submit to His will for your life and let Him make you whole. You need food to survive and so does your soul. Pick up the Bible read a chapter, and pray to your Father in heaven. He’ll turn you a vibrant shade of green!
