That the World May Know
We know that the God of Love is after our hearts. There is no “Revival” that doesn’t begin in the hearts of God’s people, personally.
But, the Lord isn’t JUST after our heart. We know that in the same way Jesus marries the command to love God with our heart/soul/mind/strength with the command to love our NEIGHBOR, where and how we live in our HOMES, the physical locus of our lives, also matters to God. Faith may be personal, but it is not PRIVATE; it is embodied, and social, and involves our life together, and the life of our own families most intimately so. God desires to be invited, not ONLY into our hearts, but into our homes! So we ask: What is the central organizing principle of our homes? Is it Jesus and His Kingdom, or is it something else?
Still further, when Jesus speaks of family, He is always thinking and speaking of something more broad and radical than just our nuclear, biological households; He always invites us to understand that our true, eternal family is the FAMILY OF GOD. The Body of Christ, breathed into and bound together by the Spirit of Christ; the local congregation, embodied, living community of prayer and worship and neighboring and mission is the most basic expression of the manifest, embodied Kingdom of God in this age.
And, the vision and aim and pursuit of God doesn’t stop here, either. We know that THE Church is much bigger than OUR church, and the heart of God is not just for our congregation, but for the WORLD; beyond even the Church, it’s the world that has God’s heart. God loves and longs for the lost of every tribe and nation and culture and language. This is why the Christian Church has always been a “missionary” Church; because God loves the world - not JUST me, my family, my tribe - and so from the beginning, Jesus tells his disciples that they will go “to the ends of earth”, with His Good News of life in the Kingdom of the Heavens.
As such, to truly contend for revival: We will seek the Lord as a region, and not just as individual, isolated congregations, because the heart of God is for the World.
That’s a mission that’s bigger than any one congregation. And that’s why, over and against all our differences and second-tier convictions and idiosyncrasies - the things that divide and differentiate us as congregations - the UNITY of the Church matters. Unity and agreement - not necessarily in all things - but in our longing for JESUS and for His Kingdom, and in prayer.
Jesus’ prayer for His Church in John 17 is that we would be ONE, even as the Father, Son and Spirit are one, and it is in OUR prayer, together, that Jesus’ prayer is answered! And, further, as this happens it is not just the Church that is blessed, but that witness is made to the WORLD of the reality of Christ and the goodness of His Gospel ( “…so that the world may know that you sent me…”)
In today’s prayer prompt, we see a similar vision and desire on the part of the prophet Habakkuk. As he prays for the works of the Lord to be revived in his day, it is a prayer for a general renewal of the knowledge of God’s power and goodness in that generation. And our prayer, in our day, is much the same.
Rev. Chris Bannon
Area Coordinator North, Revive New England