Repentance is a turning away from sin, disobedience, or rebellion and a turning back to God. Repentance means a change of heart or and a feeling of remorse for past behaviour. It is about getting right with God and choosing to follow His path.

Repentance is also about re-prioritising our lives. I was reminded of this when I was prompted to turn to the Old Testament book of Haggai a few days ago. In this short book we see that the people were starting to return from exile to join those who had stayed in Jerusalem. In their return they had focussed more on their own homes and lives, rather focussing on rebuilding God’s Temple.

God sent Haggai the prophet to tell them it was time to focus on the rebuilding of the Temple. God wanted it to be a place where people could come and worship and where His glory could be seen.

Several times in Haggai chapter one God says through Haggai “”Give careful thought to your ways” (v5 & 7). Rather than focussing on their own lives, homes, crops, drink, food, clothing or wages (v7), they needed to be about the work of building God’s Temple.

In verses 12 to 15 we see that the people received the word from God that Haggai brought and they began to work on rebuilding the Temple. In chapter two God promises the glory of His new Temple would be greater than the old Temple (v9) and that God would bless the people (v19).

For the people in Haggai’s time there was an apathy to the things of God. They were off track and were more interested in building own lives rather than God’s Temple. Unfortunately, we can do the same today. We can focus on building our own homes, families, careers and lives and we can leave God out of the equation.

It is just vital for all of us that we have God in the centre of our lives. He needs to be our focus and our priority. His Kingdom is eternal and we will all live for eternity. Let’s all re-commit today to making God the priority of our lives and commit to following His ways in all we do. Let’s be about building His Kingdom today.

True repentance is about confessing sin and turning to God humbly. It is also about re-prioritising our lives too.

God Bless,

Dave

Here is a copy of my message that I brought today in Merredin and Bruce Rock. It is titled, “Repentance and Peace”. You can find it here http://www.passionaustralia.org/repentanceandpeace.html.

God Bless,

Dave

The blunt assessment is found in verses 15 and 16. It says, “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!“

The interesting thing about Laodicea is that it was located between two other cities – Colosse and Heropolis. It had no fresh drinking water of its own and water was piped from the two other towns. Herolpolis had therapeutic hot springs and Colosse had cold refreshing mountain water, so the water that arrived there was lukewarm and undrinkable.

Lukewarm as it describes in this passage is talking about being indifferent to the things of God. They are not really committed to follow God or are they against Him. They are apathetically sitting in the middle. Bible scholars tell us that they had become this way because of the wealth the Roman Empire had brought them and they felt they had it all and lacked nothing.

But in verses in 18 and 19 we see that they are being rebuked or corrected because of the Lord’s love for them. In verse 20 we see it is not too late for them to turn from their indifference and truly return to Him. The invitation says, “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends“.

So what can we learn from the church at Laodicea? Well I think for us as Christians we can all get comfortable and become apathetic to the things of God. Maybe we have a great job, a nice house, two cars in the garage, food in the fridge, a large screen TV and a nice family. We can feel like we have it all and as a result our hearts can grow cold or indifferent to God. We can become lukewarm!

The key for us is to remember the invitation that the Lord gave to the church at Laodicea out of his love for them. He wanted to return to the intimate friendship they once had. I believe this call is to us today too if we have become lukewarm or indifferent. We just need to simply pray and open the door of our hearts back to God and invite Him in. God is always ready to welcome us home, just like the father welcomed the prodical son home in Luke 15.

It is my hope and prayer that if you have grown cold to God, that you will ask Him back into your life today. I pray that you will be on fire for God and live each and every day for Him.

God Bless,

Dave

Let’s all make this a prayer of our hearts today…

Create in me a clean heart, oh God
And renew a right spirit within me.
Create in me a clean heart, oh God,
And renew a right spirit within me.

Cast me not away from thy presence oh Lord,
And take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me, the joy of Thy Salvation,
And renew a right spirit within me.

While there have been many things in common in their lifestyle like prayer, commitment to the Word of God, to live in holiness and an unshakeable desire to tell people about Christ, there has been another thing that has come through.

Many of the people mentioned in the book have had to overcome huge obstacles to preach the Gospel. Many had serious health problems, had lost family members along the journey, were not educated and some we rejected by the mainstream Christian community.

I have been really inspired by some of their stories of overcoming their obstacles and their intense desire to be faithful to God and fulfill the call on their lives. Some of them didn’t even reach the age of 3o, but their lives made such an impact for Christ that we are reading and talking about them hundreds of years later. Amazing!

If you would like to check it out you can find more information here at Koorong

As I heard one of my daughter’s ask this question today though, I thought of God reviving His people – the church. The words quickly changed from “Daddy can I revive my people” to a prayer that asked, “Father, can You revive Your people.”

Like many Christians I long to see revival break out. I long to see people set on fire for God and living every moment of every day for Him and Him alone.

Perhaps today we can say the words of Psalm 85:6 “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” Let’s make it our prayer for today for Christians all over the world.

God Bless,

Dave

As I read I was reminded on my own nights of prayer in the past. Nights where I would spend hours in prayer before bed and at other times I would wake in the night and go out to my driveway to pray and seek God’s heart. Sometimes I would see the sun come up and then go to work with only a couple of hours sleep!

Last night as I read I recommitted myself to this type of prayer. I simply turned off everything, sat in my loungeroom and began to pray. I invited God to come and spend some time with me. I prayed, He spoke to my heart and I sat in His presence for several hours. To be honest I missed these amazing times alone with God.

If you are a Christian and you have felt like you are in a bit if a rut and God seems distant, I would encourage you to take the time to sit and be in God’s presence each day. Commit at least one hour each day to being alone with God and you will find that He comes to be with you too.

The truth is that He longs to have this time alone with you, just like He did with the old time revivalist preachers that we are still talking about today.

God Bless,

Dave

‘Revival is a renewed conviction of sin and repentace, followed by an intense desire to live in obedience to God. It is giving up one’s will to God in deep humility’.

While reading John Peters book on revival I have come across a few more definitions that I thought are worth sharing…

‘Revival is God bending down to the dying embers of a fire that is just about to go out, and breathing into it, until it bursts again into flame.’ (Christmas Evans)

‘A revival is something that can only be explained as the direct action and intervention of God.’ (Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones)

‘Revival is something above and beyond that spiritual environment and climate which we, for want of a better word, deem normal.’ (Vernon Higham)

‘In revival, God visits His people, making His presence known and revealing Himself as the holy God.  In revival people are overcome and overwhelmed by God’s love.’ (Robert Backhouse)

If we put all these definitions together we see that revival is about God intervening in a sovereign way to refresh and revive His people. As a result they live in newer and deeper level of love, commitment and awe of who God really is.

In the closing summary he shares some of the common things that the major revivalists believed or were committed to. I found these quite interesting.

1. Submission to the teaching of the Bible
2. Openness to the supernatural guidance of the Holy Spirit
3. Deep devotion to prayer and worship
4. Integrity of lifestyle in terms of transformed behaviour
5. An intense desire to glorify Jesus
6. Humility

Peters shares throughout the book that while true revival is solely based on the will of a sovereign God, these things were present in all of the major revivalists in the last 300 years.

I really hope and pray that I get to see and I am involved in true revival in my lifetime. In the meantime I am going to commit myself to the things mentioned above and pray for a sovereign move of God in my region.

It starts with a chapter that surveys some of the revivals in this time period and has biographies of some of the great revivalists. It includes names like Spurgeon, Wesley, Whitfield, Finney, Wigglesworth, Cho and more.

Each bio has a summary of what they did, what their major strength was and a challenge for today. In many ways it teaches us what they did and how we can apply to our lives today.

As someone who longs to see revival in our region and our nation, this book looks very exciting to me.

If you would like to check it out you can find more information here at Koorong