​Enduring Revival (Read time ≈ 4 minutes)
Isaiah 57:15
"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."
 
To be revived is to be given life again or to greatly increase the quality of life. What then, should we do with revival? Keep it revived! God can bring revival to a soul or to a people in just a moment of supernatural brilliance. It can be through many different ways or methods. But what matters the most is, will we maintain it? The life that has been given, will we tend to it? We cannot go from revival experience to revival experience and expect to form any meaningful type of relationship with our Lord. In fact, we run great risk of that flame dying out all together and never being reignited. Revival of our lives is God stoking the flame in our spirit but that flame must be steadily fed and maintained to experience an enduring revival that will go beyond just a moment and become more than just an experience.  
 
If we want enduring revival, we need to be enduring saints. That as we once were all of contrite and lowly spirits, we now have been given a revived spiritual life by God but now, we are redeemed, sanctified and called to purpose. Those who are sanctified by the Blood of Jesus are made saints (1 Corinthians 1:2). We are brought from contrite and lowly spirits to sainthood by the supernatural revival of God.
 
Revelation 14:12
Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus
 
The Kingdom of Heaven is near and the attacks on the faith of the saints are real. True revival is not a moment, but it is something that lasts. At the heart of every revival in church history, you will find enduring saints who have stayed true to the Lord and His ways for them. Do you want enduring revival? Then be an enduring saint. Hold Jesus as Lord over your life and allow His word to direct your life, even outside of the bonfire, gasoline on a fire, type of revival moments and then you will find something even more valuable. An enduring faith centered around the eternally enduring love of God. A life of continual, enduring revival. Don’t wait for moments. Life is but a mist, here today and gone tomorrow (James 4:14). Life is just a moment, rise to it, endure as a saint and you will continue to see Him revive you each day.
 

​The Heart of God Towards All Who Wonder (Read time ≈ 4 minutes)
Mark 16:6–7 (ESV)
And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”
 
“And Peter”! What a call out! See, if we are not aware of the heart of God this may seem almost like a diss. Like, “my disciples… oh and Peter too”. We can almost take it as a dismissal of Peter as a disciple. We are well aware of Peter’s denial of Christ during His crucifixion. Peter crashed and burned… bad. If this angel had only told them “Go and tell the disciples.” then human judgement may have determined to leave Peter out of that classification. That because of Peter’s actions, he clearly is no longer a disciple. What was the status of Peter’s soul at that time? That is between Peter and God, but what we do know, is that Peter was in a rough spot.
 
No, this was no diss, this was no call out, this was the very love of God breaking through to Peter directly. This was, “go and tell the disciples that Christ fulfilled His promises to all of them! And for Peter too!” This was, “Peter is still mine, and I still care for him.” This was, “Peter, I’m not giving up on you that easy.” This was the very heart of God towards a struggling believer. That when someone has given up on themselves, and people have given up on them, God has not! This is the heart of God towards all who wonder. Not condemnation, but He calls to them for redemption.
 
We can both rest assured of Gods desire to restore us to repentance, but also we should reflect this heart towards others. That we should “put on” the characteristics of Christ in our lives (Colossians 3:12-15). That as our life crosses the paths others who perhaps are going through their own seasons that resemble Peter’s life in this moment, we too can be sure to reach them in this same manner. That we understand the very love of God and His compassion towards us and others. His desire for redemption for us and for others. That as God calls us to “go and tell” the ‘Peter’ around us that we would not go begrudgingly, but excitedly. That the Good News is good news every single day to every person and that we would be eager to deliver it to all.
 
 

​The Necessity to Spiritual Empowerment (Read time ≈ 7 minutes)
Proverbs 3:5–6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
 
Empowerment, confidence, boldness, strength. The path to achieving this is not the path that seems natural to us. There's countless self-help books, motivational bloggers, social media life coaches or whatever else there is. They try to teach to focus on yourself, to do things that satisfy you or make you feel empowered or worthy or whatever it is that they push. These techniques are also self-centered and self-focused. This is the cultural norm. The status quo. However, this is what leads to some of the most damning feelings a human can feel. This strategy is the idolization of ourselves. Putting our self in the throne of God. When we do this, we will inevitably show our flawed human nature. Whatever interpersonal activity we have bestowed upon ourselves to create this false sense of completion and accomplishment will eventually fall and break. We will mess up, we will lose site, we will fail. That brutal part about being human is that as much as we fail at things, we hate being failed by others. This is why idolatry is so dangerous. Rather we place ourselves or something else on the throne of our hearts, we will be failed, and it will hurt.
 
The source of true individual empowerment is not superiority of oneself over others or emboldening of ourselves from within, but rather it is quite the opposite. There is only one source of true empowerment, which is spiritual empowerment. That spiritual empowerment is found only through a complete and total submission to God. For a season, we may be able to find a false sense of stability. It will not last. Submission to God in order to find real comfort and peace is contrary to our very nature. Our flesh says, dominate, rule over, find strength and power. This only feeds an insatiable (Def: impossible to satisfy) appetite within us and ultimately compounds our issues. It is when we find that we cannot but that He can that we find the courage to lay down all that we are in submission to Him. “In all your ways, submit to Him and He will make your paths straight”. In all your ways submit to Him and He will do in your life what you never could do! Laboring for our own empowerment by our own strength is like a hamster on his running wheel. We are running and running but we never get anywhere and only wear ourselves out. True freedom, true spiritual empowerment is found only when we submit to the freeing service of God. Our heart and our souls are naturally submissive yet we also long for freedom. We are naturally submissive while longing for freedom. The problem is that we submit to things that lie to us saying they will make us free. This almost seems like an oxymoron, an impossibility. This is Gods design for us. The quintessential necessity to spiritual empowerment and freedom is found in submission to the true God who can both, put you to work and make you free. Jesus calls to us to submit to Him. That He would give us rest in our submission, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30) and He also says, He has come to set us free (John 8:36). Is this a contradiction? No. It is the very design of God. He designed us to find freedom in submission to love. He created us to love and to be loved by Him. He created us to worship Him. True freedom is not found in the ability to roam and explore all that we desire. True freedom is found in flourishing in the very thing we were created to do. However, it is impossible to achieve this without a full, dying of oneself, submission to God and His will for your life. Our own understanding says to work and push ourselves to find satisfaction in the ways of the world. But His ways say, “submit to me, and you will find the path meant for you.” And this is what empowers us to rise up to the call of God that He has placed upon our lives. That we would find empowerment through submission to Him because ultimately the very power that we so desperately need to be satisfied is not our power, but His supernatural power that He places within us by His Spirit.