Many say that the are Christians and true followers of Jesus Christ, yet many will never stand in the gap for others. Do you even realize that when we do stand in the gap for others, for our nation, for our loved ones, for the schools/education, for those hurting, sick, and everything else what we are doing is not just praying to God…but standing up for others in a very special way. We come into agreement/unity for the needs of others.
All throughout history some people have stood in the gap for others. Because of other people’s faith things did change in the life of many people. Some people who stood in the gap for others preserved
Today we’re going to see someone in a different period of Israel’s history who actually did stand in the gap, and because of his faith for his people, the southern kingdom of Israel, was preserved from destruction and experienced a great revival in his generation. The man’s name is Hezekiah; he lived 123 years before Ezekiel wrote these words (Ez. 22:30-31)-he held off Ezekiel’s judgment for 123 years(!), and his story is found in 2 Chronicles 28.
All around the world today it is filled with evil people doing all they can to destroy people’s lives. No matter what direction or means you look around today you find insanity, corruption, fraud, distractions, liars, cheats, schemers and a myriad of everything else. But know this: God has a remnant and we are part of it. It is our obligation to stand in the gap for others. Also know this: That one person standing in the gap for another can really move the mountain and even cause God to give more time for others to repent. Today, it is your turn, and it is my turn to actually stand in the gap for others such as our family, our friends, marriages, our government, schools and colleges, the lost and dying, the church, our jobs/others jobs, and so much more. We can make a difference. We can help change their destiny by the prayers we lift up to God. God is looking for people to stand up for others. We are an instrument of faith and our faith carries great weight in the halls of heaven. We are the capacitor and God is the energy. God sees our faith and listens to our prayers.
We are the bridge in the situation. That is what we need to be, and God is the builder and the word of construction to bring about the bridge and make it strong. We, you and me, need to be the gap people. We need God and others need God. Some don’t even understand they need God so it is up to us to take them to God in prayer.
What we need is revival and it begins with us. We need to wake up and we need to do it yesterday. If not us: Who? If not now: When? It is up to us to wake up and stand on God’s word, pray as God says, and to stand in the gap for others.
First, we need an awakening and that happens when God’s people clean out the junk from their lives. I’d venture to say that each of us is holding onto a lot of junk in our life that needs thrown out of our life. It is when we open the door to our heart and allow God in giving Him access to all of us that God can start repairing us. Maybe your life was like mine prior….full of disrepair and junk that should never have been there. I was a total mess and I really didn’t even know it. Maybe you feel abandoned by those who you feel should love you. Maybe they never will love you but your life is not in them no matter how much you love them. Yours and my life belongs to our creator God….and in Him we can change our life and ultimately our destiny. The best advice I can give you is go to God…give Him your heart including all the hidden spots and ask Him to help you. You might be the biggest mess there is out there, but you are fixable if you give your life to the Lord. God won’t abandon you. Whatever you have defiled your life with and doing…God wants to help you.
Revival really does start with each of us. God can revive us and give us strength to understand and go on. He can give us hope, wisdom, strength, faith and so much more. We don’t have to be on the outside any more…we can be on God’s inner circle. We can make a difference in this world.
Next….real revival always beings in the house of God. If you look around right now on this earth at the church what do you see? What does God see? God’s opinion is not our opinion. God gave us His word to dictate what our church should be and look like. Looking around I see many churches who are not doing God’s will. Many are corrupt, fraudulent, lying, stealing, and so many are compromising the word of God and saying things like it is okay with God. God is old fashioned and would now approve of these things…NO HE DOES NOT! If God called it sin then it is still sin. Sin needs dealt with in us and in the church. God did not give us the church to tickle our ears and compromise His word. He didn’t give us interpretations that do not line up with what He really said/says. If we want revival it begins with each of us and our church. If others can’t see it in us…why would they be drawn to it?
We can no longer go around blaming others for the things we do. Looking around the world all we see is fake news, lying schools who are hurting our children and brainwashing them, we see callous and unbelieving people. We see liberals who just don’t get it nor do they want to understand God. We see Hollywood which for the most part is immoral. We see corrupt politicians, corrupt leaders, lying fake news, people who are angry and everything offends them. People fail us each and every day. People lie to us each and every day. People are trying to brainwash us at every turn. They say good is evil and evil is good. But do you remember what God said? God said in the end times this would happen. People fail us! God does not fail us!
Do you want revival? Do you want what is God’s best for you and all those you love? Do you really? Then it must begin with me and it must begin with you. Revival begins with us. The thing is we must get rid of the hidden sins in our life. It is us that keeps revival from happening. Maybe you will agree or disagree. Do we want revival? Really? Then we must confess our sins to God and repent/change. That doesn’t mean we won’t sin again…but when we do sin we run to God and confess and repent and get right with Him. When we harbor secret sins in our heart we know we are not right with God.
Nothing grieves and drives out presence of the Holy Spirit like harbored, unconfessed sin in the church, and with us personally. Sin destroys our sense of, and hunger for, God’s presence. Do you hunger for God in your life? Do you thirst for Him, or have you grown complacent and not caring? Do you search out God’s word and most of all do you try to do God’s word?
If you grew up a Christian but have walked away…why did you walk away? Do you know that most times it is because you are doing something in your life that you know God does not approve up….like living with someone/sex with someone you are not married to, had an abortion/s. Living a homosexual lifestyle that you know in your heart God calls sin and so on. You know your sin!!!!!!!! Yes, you can make your choice to live a life God disapproves of, but what will it cost you? Most sins we do really are willful sins.
How to we quench the Holy Spirit? Well, sin extinguishes the presence of God like throwing water on a flame. We say we want God to bring revival then we must….read that again….we must extinguish the sins in our life, change our ways, and get right with God. We start that in our heart and in our church.
I saw this and want to share it with you: One of the greatest revivals ever in church history happened in Korea in the early 20th century. It’s beginning always gets traced back to one event, when the Korean church was small, just a few hundred believers in the whole country. At a prayer service one of the Korean church leaders-Mr. Kang-stood up, trembling, and said in barely more than a whisper, ”I have something to confess. I have, for weeks, harbored an intense hatred in my heart for Mr. Lee, our friend and missionary. I confess before God and before you, and I repent.” The room fell silent. Did this man just publicly admit to hating the host of the conference? Every eye turned to Mr. Lee, to see how he would respond. Mr. Lee was taken aback, and could not hide his own surprise. But he quickly answered, ”Mr. Kang, I forgive you.” What followed was a scene that people there later called ”a poignant sense of mental anguish due to conviction of sin.” Church members began to confess hidden sins, to weep over them, and to pray for forgiveness. The meeting, which was scheduled for a few hours, stretched on until 5 the next morning.– It led to a massive outpouring of God’s Spirit, and in 1 year 50,000 Koreans had come to Christ-this in a country where before there had only been a few hundred. The local college campus in Pyongyang, where this started, saw 90% of its students come to faith in Christ. 90%! Today South Korea is one of the most thriving missionary-sending hubs in the world.
Revival always begin when God’s people get serious about their sin. True revival, it said, is not noisy; at least, not at first. It usually begins in a hushed awe. People weep over sin before they shout with joy. Might this be you? Might this be me?
Attitude, action, neglect, intent, pornography, gossip, hate, adultery, greed, envy, jealousy, anger, and so many more. We all have junk in our life. What kind of junk do you need to confess to God and repent from? If you want revival and you want to dance for joy in the world look first inside your heart and change what needs changed…now do the same within the church. Revival will come. Establish God’s word in your heart and let if flow out.
Awakening happens when churches re-center themselves on Scripture. We must, must, must be centered on God and His word. Without God, you will never be complete. The Bible is the church’s life. Without it we die. The Bible must stand!
God is the one who should give what a church preaches about. Some never even read scriptures and just give opinions. God says learn of Him, teach of Him, and be thirsty for Him. You can’t do that if you never open His word to find out what it says, or if someone is really teaching His word to you. God decides what you should know, and he’s put it in here, and so I better serve you by walking you through it. God wants us to know the scriptures. Really, how will you know you are being deceived if you don’t try to find out what it really says?
You need to hear from God not ministers who are not truly living for God but who are living for themselves. Let me now say this: There are thousands of good, honest, caring, loving, pastors out there. There are also bad ministers who build their own so-called kingdom and are not really working for God or teaching you truth. There are greedy pastors out there that church is a business and not a calling. Don’t be that person. Don’t listen to that person. They will one day answer to God. God won’t tickle your ears but will tell you the truth…even when it is hard truth.
Some days we might feel good and other days we might really feel spiritually cold in our prayers. It is those times to go to God and pray even harder. We are not always up! Sometimes we need a doze of God’s medicine…the word of God to get us out of the kinks of what we are going through.
How many of us go to church and worship God while we are thinking about what we are going to do when church is over? Let us learn to lay down all that “stuff” we are thinking about and give God our full attention. Let our worship be based on the revelation of who he is and how he loves, and then we’ll respond naturally.
No angel in heaven, around the throne, seeing God has their hands in the pocket wondering what time we are getting out. Base your prayers on Scripture. Because Scripture teaches us how to pray. Effective prayer is figuring out what God wants and asking him for it. It is getting to know His will in any situation. Do you have the courage to pray God’s word and do God’s word? Scripture is the life of the church. We put it everywhere. Remove the centrality of Scripture from the church, and we die. Remove the centrality of Scripture from your life, your marriage, your family, your job, and it will die. Cling to it; savor it; plumb its depths. So saturate yourself in it that everything that comes out of your mind and heart are Scripture.
You want revival? Do you really? Then it begins when an awakening happens when Christians re-center themselves on the gospel. Christ died for us. He came to the earth and took the punishment each of us deserves so that we could be set free, forgiven, and live with Him forever. We have a choice to follow Him or reject Him. Those are the only choices you have.
If you go back and study Israel’s times of spiritual decline, they are always characterized by a ”spiritual forgetting.” “They forgot what God had done; the forgot his mighty works in the past.” How God brings them back is by reminding them of his great salvation. The same is true with us: 2 Peter 1:9 says that when we grow cold spiritually it is because we have ”forgotten” that we were cleansed from our first sins. “Forgotten.” That doesn’t mean we don’t know that it happened, just that it’s not real and fresh to us. Are you cold spiritually? Ask God to open your eyes to the magnitude of what you have in Christ; what manner of love the Father has bestowed on you. Remember this: You were so bad that Jesus had to die to save you; his love for you was so intense that he was glad to die to save you. Now, what are you going to do for the kingdom of God? You are up! Want revival? Be revival!