2nd Coming

I am currently stirred with urgency about the Second Coming. It is discouraging when this topic is brought up among the church because of how taboo it is. Throughout the past 100 years there has been many ideas proposed concerning this topic, and because of this there has been a mysterious confused precedent set to approaching the book of Revelation, or any eschatology (study of last things). This is an understandable problem, but after going to Israel I am stirred with urgency to pray for the spirit of wisdom and revelation about the coming hour.

In 1948 Israel was restored back as a country for the Jews and then in 1967 Jerusalem was set back up as the capital of this city. Not only is this one of the best proofs for Christianity, but arguably one of the greatest miracles in all of history. 1900 years ago their city was destroyed. The Roman Empire made it illegal for Jews to enter. Not only did it's people not lose their ethnicity, but they kept their original language which some scholars say could be 3,000 years old. This is incredible. The Messiah will not return until all of Israel cry's out, "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." Jesus quotes this in Matthew 23:39 and it comes from Psalm 118:26. The people of the city said it in the day of Jesus, but He was addressing the Leadership in the city (the Sanhedrin). For 2,000 years this was impossible, but now it is possible again.

In Romans 10 and 11 Paul Talks about His desires for Israel to be saved and says that this "mystery" will happen before the restoration of all things. These are statistics given by David Sliker,
In 1999 there were 2,200 messianic believers in Israel. In 2009 there were 10-15,000 Messianic believers in Israel. In 10 years the number of believers has increased by 700%. That is unbelievable.

There are many other things concerning this that are happening in the earth today, but the point is that we must watch and pray. In Mark 13:33 Jesus says, "Watch and pray, for you do not know when the time is." We are commanded to know the times and seasons that we are living in. For 2,000 years the 2nd Coming has been impossible, but for the first time in history the scriptures are lining up and its likelihood is increasing. I encourage you to pray about this and ask the Lord to open your eyes to what the Spirit is saying in this hour.

Update - I highly recommend this article by Josh Hawkins - Click Here!

Faith

I was reading an article on the Gift of Faith by a friend, Josh Hawkins, and wanted to encourage you to read it. Click here to read it.

Eternity

Recently I have been reading one of my textbooks for my Systematic Theology class and the Lord really began to grip my heart with some things. It seems like today most of the church is usually focused on this present evil age that we are living in and we loose site of what is coming. I noticed this so much that when I started to hear things about eternity I began to wonder if what I was hearing was even biblical. Yet, as I continue to dig in the word and read many top theologians, or any christian writers for that matter, I am seeing that this eternal perspective is not a new thing. In fact, the restoration of all things is the longing in Gods heart and the point of all of scripture. God wants to have His dwelling with man. Although it seems as if this stream of thinking has been limited to the elite and the theologians and is not very common among regular church attenders. I hate that and really want to change it!

In fact, this seems like a tragedy. This problem is not the fault of either the leaders of the regular church attender, but it is likely the fault of both of these groups. When you ask a christian what the Kingdom of God is the common answer is, “Love, Joy, Peace, and righteousness in the Holy Spirit.” And that is an incredible answer! But it is only one side of a two sided coin. We are living in what can be called the present evil age and are eagerly awaiting for the age to come. In this current age the primary manifestation of the Kingdom of God is love, joy, peace, and righteousness in the Holy Spirit, but the point is that this expression is incomplete and fallen. We do experience this now to an extent, but if that is our end goal it is depressing! Because the reality is that there is an age coming where that will be the continual sense and emotion of what we are feeling.

I would continue to rant on this, but let me briefly discuss my point in all of this. I have not been doing this very long, but personally, as the Lord has given me the grace to have an eternal perspective it has strengthened me tons more than any other type of teaching or self-help message. It seems like we are so busy trying to help people in the temporal life (which I think is completely valid, and I am not discrediting) that we are not looking beyond to what is coming. My personal experience has shown that when I see the greater glory of the coming age then my pain in suffering in this age is minimized to an extent to where it hardly even matters. Ultimately, I want to start communicating to people the Coming Kingdom instead of trying to give them practical advice of how to live their lives, because if we could just have a vision of God and eternity everything in life would start to fall together.

In 1 Corinthians 15:20 Paul is talking about the Resurrection from the dead and how Christ is only the first-fruits. It is evident through Paul’s life that He was waiting for the Immanent return of Jesus, but it did not happen in His life. When I think of this I want to live in the same way. Whether Jesus is coming back in 50 years or 500 I want to live with an urgency on my heart just as Paul did. Paul had a vision of heaven and was excitedly looking forward to the resurrection. In light of the easter season, lets rejoice that Jesus has conquered death, but more than that, that He is only the first-fruits of all of us who believe. Meaning that we will one day be raised with Him!

Revelation 1:1

I began reading some notes that a friends of mine (Samuel Clough) has on the book of revelation and I was struck by his notes on the first verse as He began to expound on Revelation 1:1. I have not spent much time meditating on this verse until today and the spirit of revelation came and struck me. In the past I usually skip over this verse thinking I want to get to the meat of the Book, but I have just realized there is no meat without this verse. It says:

“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.”

I am used to hear people say that the book of Revelation is not primarily about getting a sequence of events, but I never really believed them. Today I was struck with this reality. It is not given in order to reveal a sequence of events, but to reveal the attributes of God and show who Jesus really is.

The word ‘soon,’ in the first verse is incredibly significant. Obviously, in the natural it has been 2,000 years since this was written and since the word ‘soon’ was scribed. So is it still coming soon? The reality is that for God 2,000 years is a blip on the map in the span of eternity. 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that for God one day is 1,000 years and 1,000 years is one day. So God is outside of time. If this is true than why would He use the word ‘soon’ if it was more than 2,000 years away for humans inside of time? I began to meditate on what Samuel Clough suggests which is that this word primarily describes the urgency that is Gods heart for that hour.

This is a profound reality and my heart has been pricked by the Lord. It could have just said, ‘to show his servants what must take place,’ and omit the word soon. But instead He included it. This shows the deep desire and passion in Gods heart for Jesus to receive the reward of His suffering as described in Eph 1:18. God desires for the earth to return to the way it was with Adam in Gen 1-3. He longs for us, as humans, to dwell in fellowship without any hindrance of sin. The problem is that we are so fallen we have no clue what we are missing. We do not know what it was like when God dwelt with man. But the reality is that this is the ultimate end in Gods heart and it is where the end of all things is going. He wants this so much that we desires that Jesus be revealed soon. He longs for men to dwell with Him again.

I hope this encourages you to ask the Lord for a spirit of Revelation into His word. Sometimes I think I have things figured out, but then the something like this strikes me and I realize I hardly know anything. This book is so profound and it reveals the heart of God. Bob Sorge says, “The more time you spend in the ‘logos’ (written word), the greater your chances of receiving a ‘rhema’ (spoken word).” We usually ask for the thunder and lightning encounter with the Lord and don’t realize that He has given us an incredible way to encounter Him in His word. Yes the dramatic encounter will come, but until then I am going to encounter Him as much as I can in the written word!

The Ground is Growing

It has been a few weeks since I have posted, but the Lord has been doing fantastic things and it has been incredible. I have been super busy, but life has never been better.

I am so stirred that we are living in an incredibly urgent hour. The Holy Spirit is doing something so unprecedented in our nation right now. There is hunger stirring all across the nation and the Lord is responding to answered prayer.

About a year and a half ago we began a prayer meeting at Lee University. We are beginning to see answered prayer. But more than that there have been many laborer's in Cleveland praying and warring for Lee. We recognize that we are beginning to live in the fruit of answered prayer and it is unbelievable. This is more than just a good meeting. The Holy Spirit is beginning to touch us with power and it is unbelievable. I have been a part of emotional meetings and camps, but I am so stirred by the Lord and convinced that this is not like that. The work that is happening is lasting and people are getting set free from addictions in an instant.

We gathered Monday - Thursday night of this past week to wait on the Lord. Each night there were anywhere from 25 to 100 people at each meeting and there was an enormous amount of hunger. We are on the verge of something big in America, and this is the real deal! Colleges students are giving up other lesser pleasures and running to Jesus. So good.

I want to encourage you to check out our blog at www.outpouringoncampus.wordpress.com for more updates and testimonies!

Nakedness

Yes, that is a very interesting title for a blog, but I just connected a few dots regarding the end of the age and decided I really wanted to write a blog about it.

Matthew 21:18-22 is the passage where the fig tree withers. Well a little while back I was with a spiritual father of my generation (Tom Tanner, the Pastor of Riverstone Church) and this is what he suggested about this passage. First, fig trees are supposed to have both leaves and fruit at the same time, but this tree did not have any fruit. If the tree is Israel God is looking at Israel and cursing them for Hypocrisy. They look great with their leaves, but at the core they cannot produce fruit and all they have is religion.

With this in mind, looking back to Genesis 3:7 we see the Adam and Eve covered themselves with fig leaves. So could it be that they were covering themselves with a form of Religion? Did they lose the glory of God that covered them and needed something to look good before God and chose a type of religion?

While I was thinking about this I then read Revelation 3:17-18 where John is addressing the church in Laodicea. He is rebuking them for what they have been saying. Then verse 18 says, "I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness..." So he tells them that they have shameful nakedness. It is likely that this is close to the previous 2 passages with nakedness. It could be that he is rebuking them for the spirit of religion that they are under.

Now it is obvious that there is a religious spirit, especially today in America. Before this point I was under the assumption that it was more than likely a sign of the time, but here is scriptual evidence that says in that day people will be naked and looking for things to cover themselves, but the reality is that jesus is the only one who can give the white garments to wear.

I hope that all made sense and was encouraging. It really provoked me to fall in love with Jesus. Have a great day!