Well, another year has come and I am so excited about what the Lord is going to do in the months ahead. We are looking forward to the start of a new location, which will be our third, and we have some new opportunities for outreach and ministry developing. There is a hunger in our congregations and a desire for personal revival...a desire to see Christ truly glorified and to see His power manifest locally in the redemption of broken lives.
As I think about this, I am reminded of the old hymn of the church, "Work for the night is coming, when man's work is done". We live in such a culture of ease. We don't really know what it means to lay our lives down as do our brothers and sisters in the underground church in China, or those suffering behind prison walls in Vietnam or Indonesia. How hard it is for us to discipline these bodies in order to be more effective in our work for Jesus.
My desire this year is to work harder, to be more ready to minister in faith, and to organize my life so that I am more efficient for Him. I was looking back over my journal from January of 2011 and I found where I had penned this prayer. It's still applicable today:
"Lord, give me the faith of a "Word of faith'er", without the errors in their teaching.
Give me the anointing of a charismatic, without the hype and emotional extremes which carry them away.
Give me the knowledge of a scholar, without dryness of religion or the emptiness of the wordly church.
And give me the passion of the greatest missionaries...right here where you have me planted."
I believe a great portion of the church in the Western nations is 'gone'...'checked out'... and doesn't even realize it. "Poor, blind and naked, yet unaware". Who knows how much further our nation will turn from God in 2012? But I believe there is a remnant that can sing these words from the song by Michael Smith, "All I have in this world is fire from above". And that fire is going to burn more brightly as the world grows more dark.
My prayer for you this year is personal revival. May you grow in hearing the voice of the Shepherd and may you not listen to the voice of another.
To my brothers and sisters at Faith Harvest...I pray provision and supply both spiritual and physical for you in the year ahead...and more than this, I pray that Christ fills your life to overflowing. May you roll up your sleeves with us and work hard this year...for the night is truly coming when man's work is done.
That's all for now. God bless you.
