Focus 40: part 2

Today is day 6 of 40. We're closing out this first week and my heart beams as my mind replays the scene at the conclusion of our service yesterday morning. The picture of so many coming forward, linking arms, and acknowledging the need to seek reconciliation in our relationships and unity in our mission. We have to if we want to be legitimate. It's not optional. Not in the kingdom.

#2 - A Spirit of Revival/Renewal 
As we look to the second item on our "Top Ten" prayer priorities, we next cry out for a "spirit of revival/renewal." The plea for revival is an acknowledgment that while our hearts have been made alive, occasionally we need to be resuscitated. So we pray along with the psalmist, "Restore us, O God of our salvation . . . will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?" (Psalm 85:4,6). My specific prayer is that God would renew your passion over this 40 day period, that Christ would be the supreme object of all your affections, and that our joy would be made complete in him.


The next obstacle in our way is bigger than the last. It's the largest we will encounter and one with whom we will continually do battle. Namely, our pride. Revival only truly comes to the broken hearted, the lowly. There is only One who is deserving to be "high and lifted up" . . .


For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isaiah 57:15).