revival!

Recently I have been burdened by all of the pain and disillusionment around me. I can rationalize all of it, chalking it up to the poor economy or the overwhelming nature of the phase of life that so many of my friends and I are in, but those are merely symptoms. The root of our disillusionment is that we have pulled ourselves away from the life water of the Lord Almighty.

Brace yourself for a long post, but I would really like to share a scriptural journey I went on this morning. I pray that it breathes as much vitality and peace into you as it did for me.

My small group is beginning a study of Psalms. As fitting for any study, we started at the beginning with Psalm 1 this week. In it, David lays out the simple distinction between a blessed (righteous) man and a wicked man:

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by the streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does prospers.

Not so the wicked!
They are like chaff
that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

To compare, we looked at Jeremiah 17:5-8 which also outlines the distinction between the blessed and wicked:

This is what the Lord says:
"Cursed is the one who trusts in man,
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."

I feel convicted for falling into the wicked half of the t-chart in so many parts of my life. We are literally experiencing a drought in Texas and so often this summer I became fussy and even fearful over the heat and lack of rain. What is happening in the tangible world reflects the state of the spiritual realm. God is not kidding when he speaks these words to us in the scriptures!

Trying not to become even more discouraged, I turned back to Jeremiah 1 as I remembered the entire book being about the fall and redemption of God's chosen Israel. I wanted to remember the depth from which the Lord mercifully restored Israel. I wanted to remember what kept him from destroying his beloved people completely, since that is what they deserved.

This is what the Lord says:
"What fault did your fathers find in me,
that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
and became worthless themselves...

I brought you into fertile land
to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
and made my inheritance detestable...

My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water...

Your wickedness will punish you;
your backsliding will rebuke you.
Consider then and realize
how evil and bitter it is for you
when you forsake the Lord your God
and have no awe of me,"
declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.

Jeremiah 2

So, the Israelites got things pretty messed up. We have it all pretty messed up too! Thankfully, the Lord is compassionate. He is wrathful and just, but he also keeps his promises:

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosterity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." Yes, this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them," declares the Lord.

This is what the Lord says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the Lord, "and i will bring you back from captivity..."

Jeremiah 29:4-14

God is sovereign! He puts in places for us to grow, to learn to rely on Him. He only has good plans for us, yet we so easily believe otherwise. We can have joy and peace in simply living wherever we find ourselves because we can know that God's hand is in it.

In the next chapter of Jeremiah, the time comes for God to restore his people to the land he gave their forefathers. He warns and comforts them, "It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it... So do not fear, O Jacob my servant, do not be dismayed O Israel... I will not completely destroy you. I will discipline you but only with justice; I will not let you go entirely unpunished... Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing... But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds." (Jeremiah 30)

Is that incredible or what? This is what I cannot understand about God and what moves me to worship: we are beyond repair in our sinfulness, we should be completely destroyed, but in His perfect wrath, His perfect justice, His perfect love, He choses to restore us. Why? Because it will glorify Him. He says:

"So you will be my people,
and I will be your God."

Jeremiah 30:22

He continues:

"I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with lovingkindness.
I will build you up again
and you will be rebuilt, O Virgin Israel.
Again you will take up your tambourines
and go out to dance with the joyful...

I will lead them beside streams of water
on a level path where they will not stumble,
because I am Israel's father...

I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,'
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the Lord.

"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."

Incredible! He will remember our sins no more. We will be restored to virginity! This is the love of God. This is the power of God. Why do we prostitute ourselves to other things? Why do we settle for less than the Lord Almighty?

We should be moved to repentance, being a 180 degree turn from our selfish ways to those of our gracious Lord. We should be moved to gratitude and thanksgiving, saying: "Give thanks to the Lord Almighty, for the Lord is good; his love endures forever." (Jeremiah 33:11) We should have great relief! We were not made to live without God! He is glorified by our desperate, daily need for Him!

I realize that this redemption story in Jeremiah concerns the Jews, but I'd like to share with you the finale of my journey: the Gospel, as presented by Paul in Acts 13, which is for the Jews and the Gentiles: (I promise this book of a blog post is wrapping up!)

On the Sabbath they entered the synagogue and sat down. After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the synagogue rulers sent word to them, saying, "Brothers, if you have a message of encouragement for the people, please speak."

Standing up, Paul motioned with his hand and said: "Men of Israel and you Gentiles who worship God, listen to me! The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers; he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt, with mighty power he led them out of that country, he endured their conduct for about forty years in the desert, he overthrew seven nations in Canaan and gave their land to his people as their inheritance. All this took 450 years.

"After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet. Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years. After removing Saul, he made David their king. He testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.'

"From this man's descendants God has brough to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. As John was completing his work, he said: 'Who do you think I am? I am not that one. No, but he is coming after me, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.'

"Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.

"We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm:

'You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.' (Psalm 2:7)

The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words:

'I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.' (Isaiah 55:3)

So it is stated elsewhere:

'You will not let your Holy One see decay.' (Psalm 16:10)

"For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.

"Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could be justified from by the law of Moses. Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:

'Look, you scoffers,
wonder and perish,
for I am going to do something in your days
that you would never believe,
even if someone told you.' (Habakkuk 1:5)

People, these words are truth! These words can transform us! We don't have to be slaves to our sin and to this world; we can live in the light of the one who saved us! This should ignite revival among us today as it did for the people in Acts. Jesus Christ has freed us from the trappings of disillusionment and fear. Now we can be the people God made us to be, not by our own strength or for our own shallow betterment, but because God enables us and is glorified by it! Even through we will go through hard seasons, the Lord is sovereign and is in it with us. We must be patient - Israel's restoration took over 450 years! Let's go in peace!