Will You Not Revive Us Again?

There is an old hymn titled “Revive Us Again” that Big Daddy Weave has rearranged and put a some what modern spin on it but still has the old hymnal sound to it. I love that song because I do not remember ever having sung the original hymn. The words to the song is a wonderful call for revival.

I think America has long moved past that request in the hymn.

We should not be singing revive us again.

We should be pleading, “Will You not revive us again?” The nation of Israel had found itself so far out of favor with God that the sons of Korah wrote Psalm 85 praying that God would restore favor to the land.

    “Restore us, O God of our salvation, and cause Your anger toward us to cease. Will You be angry with us forever? Will You prolong Your anger to all generations? Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? Show us Your mercy, LORD, and grant us Your salvation.” (Psalm 85:4-7)

God’s favor left America so long ago you would be hard-pressed not only to say when it happened, but also where our disobedience began. Yesterday I wrote about Christians returning to God’s Word in obedience and actually living the life that Jesus’ has outlined for us.

I hear so many people tell me, Bro Dave I just can’t figure out God’s Will for my life. Most times I know that person pretty well, and I look at my own life in times past and realize we really don’t want to know God’s Will.

But for the sake of discussion let’s say we really do want to know God’s Will for our lives, where do we begin?

It is actually quite simple…

God wants us to obey His commands. Let’s review the Ten Commandments, shall we dear Christian?

God commands us to have no other gods before Him and yet our materialism holds first place in our lives.

God commands us to not take His name in vain and while we may not use it as a curse word, we constantly talk of the Lord as though we are equal to Him. I see the new hip-hop crowd in Christian music talking about “J” or the “J Man” as though Jesus would be wearing baggy pants and His hat sideways rapping out the latest psalm. On the opposite end I see too many Christians unwilling to speak Jesus’ name openly in public for fear of retribution and use the less offensive “God” or “Lord” when they know in their heart of hearts they should be saying Jesus. Our Lord God warned Moses that He will not hold us guiltless who takes His name in vain.

God commands us to observe the Sabbath day and to keep it holy and yet the NFL and NASCAR gets a higher place in our lives than Jesus. I have been horribly guilty of this in the past. I am not saying that you can’t watch these sports on Sunday, I am saying do it with the knowledge that God must not be replaced by it. If you find yourself more excited about going to a football game or an auto race then going to church, well it’s probably time to give that up for a while if not for good.

God commands us to honor our fathers and mothers and this is the only commandment with a promise of blessing. However, we hold grudges over our parents because they were horrible parents and maybe they were. Even if you had the worse mother and/or father recorded in history, you have something that over 50 million Americans don’t have. You have life; at least your parents decided you were not an inconvenience and allowed you to be born!

God commands us to not murder and yet over 3,000 unborn Americans are murdered every day in America and we still pragmatically vote for the lesser of two evil politicians because they are pro-life except in cases of rape, incest, and the mother’s life is in danger. Sorry, that’s not pro-life! For further clarification read “That’s Not Pro-Life” here at my blog.

God commands us to not commit adultery and Jesus said that lusting in your heart was committing adultery. Gentlemen, when was the last time you looked lustfully upon a woman and failed to repent of your sin? Ladies?

God commands us to not steal and yet we fail to tithe as God commands and wonder why our finances or so messed up. Perhaps it’s because you are stealing from God and your whole attitude about money is unholy. The first thing God did with me when I purposed in my heart to tithe as He has commanded was to change my heart about money.

God commands us to not bear false witness against our neighbor and yet we swallow the latest juicy morsel of gossip (in church circles that’s camouflaged as a prayer request) about this brother or that sister’s recent failure.

American Christian, prepare yourself for the tenth commandment…

God commands us to not covet and yet we long for a bigger and nicer house, or a newer car, or a better job, or worse yet, a different spouse. Well Bro Dave are you saying it’s not okay to improve your living conditions or get rid of the old jalopy outside you call a car? No! I am saying if you are unsatisfied and unthankful with what God has already provided you then you are standing on covetous ground.

Bro Dave I thought this devotional was going to be on revival. I did too but the Lord needed to explain to me the impediments to revival before we could even explain what revival is much less pray for it.

More on that tomorrow…

In Christ
Dave
Ps. 37:4

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    Copyright © 2010 David Jeffers

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