Thu 16 May 2013

On Unanswered Prayer for Revival

Posted by GlennDavis under Prayer, Revival
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WHAT is awakening Intro by John Hall On Unanswered Prayer for Revival

Then another angel with a gold incense burner came and stood at the altar. And a great amount of incense was given to him to mix with the prayers of God’s people as an offering on the gold altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense, mixed with the prayers of God’s holy people, ascended up to God from the altar where the angel had poured them out.

Rev. 8:3–4 NLT

Revival hunger is wanting God’s presence more than sleep, desiring God’s face more than food, hungering for God’s holiness more than our comfort, and pursuing God’s glory more than our daily routine. Revival hunger yearns for God above all others, removes idols of the heart, glorifies God in public worship, mortifies sins of the flesh (i.e., sin nature), renews commitment to God’s covenant promise, and more importantly, humbles oneself under God’s mighty hand (2 Chron. 7:14). Revival hunger yearns for God more than self-exaltation, self-concern, and self-fulfillment.

Revival hunger is a good thing, but it can become a bad thing if our desire for revival causes us to become impatient with God and doubt his willingness, timing, and provision. Though we are called to participate in preparing for revival, ultimately God’s timing for revival is his sovereign choice. Even if a revival is delayed, not a single prayer for revival has gone wasted or ignored.

This thing becomes an obsession. For fifty years I’ve wept, and I’ve prayed and I’ve groaned, and I’ve read, and I’ve fasted, and I’ve met with guys for nights of prayer, and days of prayer and days and days of prayer, for revival.

There is not much sign of it. Well, are you sure? You see, prayers never die. What are these: the prayers of the saints (Rev. 8:3). You never pray a prayer born of God without it being on record with God. God never wastes anything. Do you think you and I have prayers born of grief, born of anguish, born of desire to see an overthrow of iniquity (for after all that is what revival is), and you think God will let them die?”

Leonard Ravenhill, Revival Study Bible, note on Rev. 8:3

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Sat 20 Apr 2013

The Voice of the Lord

Posted by GlennDavis under Hearing God
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m218903742 The Voice of the Lord

And the Lord came and called as before, “Samuel! Samuel!”

And Samuel replied, “Speak, your servant is listening.

1 Sam. 3:10 NLT

Principles of receiving God’s guidance in our lives:

First, God’s voice often sounds, whether spoken outwardly to the physical ear or inwardly to the human soul, like a human voice.

Second, God’s voice is hindered by unrepentant sin, unsurrendered goals, and self-centered ambitions.

Third, God’s voice can be corrective, or even a word of rebuke, but it will be seasoned with encouragement that is full of enabling grace.

Fourth, God’s voice speaks in silence and repose. Spend little or no time in God’s presence and you will not receive guidance from the Holy Spirit.

Fifth, God’s voice is precious to those whose hearts burn for more of Christ. They maintain yielded and surrendered hearts opening their lives to more and more of God’s presence.

Sixth, God’s voice is gracious, he will speak to us over and over again until we understand his direction.

Seventh, God’s voice is more concerned with developing our character than getting us to the next place in life.

Last, God’s voice always leads to a deeper, more intimate relationship with Jesus and never contradicts Holy Scripture.

The servant’s open ear is a reason for the Lord’s open lips.

Alexander MacLaren

I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard to GOD, which I may call an actual presence of GOD; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with GOD, which often causes in me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them, and prevent their appearance to others.

Brother Lawrence, Practicing the Presence of God

 

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Sat 9 Mar 2013

Development or Deliverance?

Posted by GlennDavis under John Wright Follette, Trials
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Falling%20for%20America%20Autumn%20leaves%20and%20road trip%20days%20as%20New%20England%20turns%20to%20gold%205 Development or Deliverance?

And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.

Romans 8:17

We live in the midst of the fallout of the Fall: sin has affected every area of creation and all aspects of our lives. Disappointment, pain, and trouble are significant ingredients of our daily lives. Ill-timed, unexpected tragedies can shape our Christian lives for the better or make our hearts hard through bitterness. The choice is ours: better or bitter. Do we simply want God to deliver us from trials or do we desire Christ-like character? We should know that it is God’s plan to develop us spiritually before he delivers us physically. God’s goal in our lives: character development before physical deliverance: maturity over and against a life of emotional and physical ease.

“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience” (Rom. 5:3). However, suffering for suffering’s sake is not character transforming. It is faith in Christ and his finished work on the Cross which transforms. Our weaknesses, failures, and struggles are channels for his grace-enabling power when we trust Christ in our circumstances.

Do we want deliverance or development? Our choice: a life of relative ease without the presence of Christ or a life of seasonal character-transforming difficulties lived in the experiential love of Christ?

What are you seeking in your trouble today? Is it deliverance or development? You may have the one and not grow, or you may have both and grow. Get the development first and the deliverance will be yours, too. Let this servant minister to you in a way no other servant can. Take the positive attitude and use your trouble as one of the most skillful and wonderful instruments God ever placed into your hands for the working out of the character of Christ to be duplicated in you.

John Wright Follette (2009-07-15). Broken Bread – Enhanced Version (Kindle Locations 132-135). Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Kindle Edition.

 

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Sat 2 Feb 2013

Anamnesis: A Fresh Experience of the Cross of Christ

Posted by GlennDavis under Holy Eucharist, John Stott
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20090518 vasnetsov Anamnesis: A Fresh Experience of the Cross of Christ

And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

Luke 22:19

Remembrance is the Greek word, anamnesis. Anamnesis does not only mean memory by mental recall, but the fresh experience of a past event by reenactment. This mysterious work of the Holy Spirit brings the evening of the Last Supper forward in order that the people of God may experience the crucified and resurrected Christ afresh.

At the Last Supper, the apostles enjoyed all the benefits of the Cross before Christ actually died. Similarly, when we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ, we encounter afresh all benefits of Christ work on the cross after he died: liberty, forgiveness, renewal, healing, etc.  These benefits and more are imparted to us at the moment we partake of the Body and Blood of Christ. All that Christ was, all that Christ did, and that Christ is today is communicated afresh to us when we partake of Holy Eucharist.

It is highly significant that the only regular ritual act instituted and commanded by Jesus sets forth supremely his death. It is his *death*, his body given and blood shed, which the bread and wine were intended to signify. In issuing the command to ‘do this in remembrance’ of him, he intended that his atoning death should be kept before every generation, indeed ‘placarded’ before their very eyes. This according to Paul is the function of preaching. It is one of the functions of communion also.

The ministry of both Word and sacrament makes Christ’s death contemporary, presenting it anew not to God (for the sacrifice itself was offered on the cross once for all) but to men (for its benefits are always freshly available).

John Stott, Christ the Controversialist (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1970), 119.

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Sat 2 Feb 2013

Eucharistic Love

Posted by GlennDavis under Holy Eucharist, Roman Catholic Church
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tumblr m2gte0zq701rsd0e4o1 250 Eucharistic Love

Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

John 6:54-56 ESV

The Apostle Paul describes the Eucharistic meal as a koinonia (1 Cor. 10:16).The Greek word, koinonia, has a great depth of meaning: sharing, partaking, fellowship, communing, and unifying participation in the life of God. When we drink the Blood and eat the Body of our Lord Jesus Christ: we commune with Christ, we share in his resurrection, we partake of his grace, we fellowship with God and his saints, and we are brought into union with his heart and will. In short, we become partakers—people who share in the very life and love of God. Whenever we participate in the Lord’s Supper, we experience Christ’s Eucharistic love.

This God adored by multitudes of angels comes to me as love, the redeeming One, the eucharistic One to give me everything, to fulfill me abundantly. To delight me with himself so that even I, so much immersed in this world, do not want anything else, but only His eucharistic love.

Tadeusz Dajczer, The Mystery of Faith: Meditations on the Eucharist (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2009), 10.

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Thu 24 Jan 2013

Spirit-Filled Souls Are Sanctified Souls

Posted by GlennDavis under Holy Spirit, Passion for Christ, Samuel Chadwick, Sanctification
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But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Romans 6:22

This is the will of God, even your sanctification.

1 Thessalonians 4:3

Sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit which delivers us from the control of sin and transforms us into the likeness of Jesus Christ. God takes worldly thinking, fleshly habits, and unrighteousness behavior and convicts us of our wrongful thoughts, breaks our selfish patterns, and transforms our sinful actions through the Word of God, sacraments, prayer, circumstances, and Spirit-filled worship.

Sanctification is the progressive work of the Holy Spirit which creates Spirit-filled souls. He removes sinful imperfections as we are daily enabled to put off the bondages of sin and put on the life of Christ. Walking in the Spirit is actively attained for it involves continuous choices of faith and obedience. We passively receive the empowering of the Holy Spirit, but we purposely choose to appropriate his power for victory over the world, the flesh, sin, death, and the devil.

Fire is the chosen symbol of Heaven for moral passion. It is emotion aflame. God is love; God is fire. The two are one. The Holy Spirit baptizes in fire. Spirit-filled souls are ablaze for God. They love with a love that glows. They believe with a faith that kindles. They serve with a devotion that consumes. They hate sin with a fierceness that burns. They rejoice with a joy that radiates. Love is perfected in the Fire of God. Nothing can separate us from the love of God (Acts 2:1-4).

Samuel Chadwick, The Way of Pentecost (Berne, Indiana: Light and Hope, 1937), 21.

HT: Holiness Data Ministry

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Thu 17 Jan 2013

Whereas I Was Blind, Now I See!

Posted by GlennDavis under Abiding in Christ, Christ in You, J. Hudson Taylor, Jesus Christ, Keswick Convention
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1280x960 5 Whereas I Was Blind, Now I See!

On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

John 14:20

The secret to living the Christian life is no secret at all, it is the mystery of Christ in you (Col. 1:27). The indwelling Christ is our hope of intimacy with the Father, he is our joy and forgiveness in the Son, and he is our holiness in the Spirit. As we trust Christ by faith, he gives us the power to love the unlovely, the freedom to walk apart from sin, and grace to experience God’s presence moment-by-moment (Gal. 2:20). The indwelling Christ is joy, liberty, and fullness in the Holy Spirit (Eph. 3:20).

J. Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), founder of the China Inland Mission, reads a letter from John McCarthy on September 4, 1869. McCarthy is a fellow missionary in China and a man who hungers for a deeper, more intimate relationship with Christ. Upon reading McCarthy’s letter, Hudson Taylor declares that he has entered into the “exchanged life.”

McCarthy wrote to Taylor:

I do wish I could have a talk with you now about the way of holiness. At the time you were speaking to me about it, it was the subject of all others occupying my thoughts, not from anything I had read . . . so much as from a consciousness of failure—a constant falling short of that which I felt should be aimed at; an unrest; a perpetual striving . . . .

Then, while reading that same letter, the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of the indwelling Christ to J. Hudson Taylor. Taylor describes the experience:

Abiding, not striving or struggling; looking off unto Him; trusting Him for present power . . . resting in the love of an almighty Saviour, in the joy of a complete salvation, “from all sin”—this is not new, and yet ‘tis new to me. I feel as though the dawning of a glorious day had risen upon me. I hail it with trembling, yet with trust. I seem to have got to the edge only, but of a boundless sea; to have sipped only, but of that which fully satisfies. Christ literally all seems to me, now, the power, the only power for service, the only ground for unchanging joy . . . Not a striving to have faith . . . but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need; a resting in the Loved One entirely, for time and for eternity.

After reading McCarthy’s letter of September 4, 1869, Taylor tells a Mr. Judd,

Oh, Mr. Judd, God has made me a new man! God has made me a new man! Wonderful was the experience that had come in answer to prayer, yet so simple as almost to baffle description. It was just as it was long ago [at his conversion], “Whereas I was blind, now I see!”

Howard Taylor, Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret (Chicago: Moody Press, 2009), 156.

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Tue 15 Jan 2013

Christ Permeating You

Posted by GlennDavis under A. W. Tozer, Abiding in Christ, Christ in You
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3014 Christ Permeating You

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

1 John 4:9

At Lamb of God: A Three Streams Church, we talk much of the indwelling Christ who is present in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our Christian growth comes by trusting the Christ who lives in us. Jesus is grace in us–a person not a quantity. Christ in us is freedom from performance-driven Christianity. The question is not what would Jesus do if he were here, but what is Jesus doing in us at this moment. Jesus is the moment-by-moment, minute-by-minute, constant, conscious presence of God. Christ in us is the freedom to enjoy God now in this life at this moment in this very place.

Again, Christ lives in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. All that Christ is in the gospels, all that Christ is as the second person of the Trinity, and all that Christ is as Lord now lives in us as believers. Since Christ lives in us, we are never alone. Since Christ lives in us, we have the power to live holy lives. Since Christ lives in us, we can respond (not react) to every life situation according to the will of God. Since Christ lives in us, we can daily experience Him intimately and powerfully. Therefore, we desire all of Him in all of us all the time.

Unbelief says: Some other time, but not now; some other place, but not here; some other people, but not us. Faith says: Anything He did anywhere else He will do here; anything He did any other time He is willing to do now; anything He ever did for other people He is willing to do for us! With our feet on the ground, and our head cool, but with our heart ablaze with the love of God, we walk out in this fullness of the Spirit, if we will yield and obey. God wants to work through you!

A. W. Tozer, The Counselor  (Camp Hill, PA: Christian Publications, 1993), 122.

 

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Sat 5 Jan 2013

What Is the Feast Day of Epiphany?

Posted by GlennDavis under Church Calendar, J. C. Ryle
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three wise men star What Is the Feast Day of Epiphany?

For the grace of God [i.e., Jesus] has appeared [Greek: epiphany], bringing salvation for all people.

Titus 2:11

The feast day of Epiphany is celebrated every year in the Western church on January 6th. It commemorates the appearing, or manifestation, of God in Christ as Savior to the world. Epiphany is the oldest feast in the church calendar, it is especially revered in the Orthodox East. Three events in the life of Christ are commemorated: arrival of the Magi, baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding at Cana. Appropriately, these three stories, all revelatory events, are found at the beginning of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, respectively.

The Apostle John tells us, “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:9). God incarnate in human flesh is revealed to the Gentile wise men, manifested as the Lamb of God, and made known as Messiah in his first miracle. Now, the saving life of Christ has been fully manifested to both Jew and Gentile alike. Let us join the Magi, John the Baptist, and the wedding feast at Cana by worshipping Jesus in all his saving glory.

The conduct of the wise men is a striking example of faith (Matt. 2:1-12). They believed in Christ when they had never seen Him – but that was not all. They believed in Him when the Scribes and Pharisees were unbelieving – but that again was not all. They believed in Him when they saw Him a little infant on Mary’s knee, and worshiped Him as a king. This was the crowning point of their faith.

They saw no miracles to convince them. They heard no teaching to persuade them. They beheld no signs of divinity and greatness to overawe them. They saw nothing but a new-born infant, helpless and weak, and needing a mother’s care like any one of ourselves. And yet when they saw that infant, they believed that they saw the divine Savior of the world. ‘They fell down and worshiped Him.’

We read of no greater faith than this in the whole volume of the Bible. It is a faith that deserves to be placed side by side with that of the penitent thief. The thief saw one dying the death of a criminal, and yet prayed to Him and ‘called Him Lord.’ The wise men saw a new-born babe on the lap of a poor woman, and yet worshiped Him and confessed that He was Christ. Blessed indeed are those that can believe in this fashion!”

J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Matthew, 12-13.

HT: J.C. Ryle Quotes

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Wed 2 Jan 2013

What to Make of the Blood of Christ?

Posted by GlennDavis under Blood of Jesus, Watchman Nee
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Lamb VE 1 What to Make of the Blood of Christ?

And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.

Rev. 12:11 ESV

The blood of Christ is clear confirmation that Christ died a sacrificial death to pay for our release from the captivity of sin and bondage to Satan’s schemes. In other words, we owe our salvation to the death of Christ. His blood removes our guilt before God (1 Pet. 1:18-19), cleanses ours stricken consciences (Heb. 9:14), gives us bold access to the Father (Heb. 10:19), on-going cleansing from our sin (1 John 1:7) and conquers all of Satan’s accusations (Rev. 12:10-11). Jesus’ blood condemns death and in that death, the penalty of our sin was paid.

The Blood is for atonement and has to do first with our standing before God. We need forgiveness for the sins we have committed, lest we come under judgment; and they are forgiven, not because God overlooks what we have done but because He sees the Blood. The Blood is therefore not primarily for us but for God.

If I want to understand the value of the Blood I must accept God’s valuation of it, and if I do not know something of the value set upon the Blood by God I shall never know what its value is for me. It is only as the estimate that God puts upon the Blood of Christ is made known to me by His Holy Spirit that I come into the good of it myself and find how precious indeed the Blood is to me. But the first aspect of it is Godward.

Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life (Fort Washington, PA: CLC, 1985), 17.

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