Tag Archives: Awakening

-America Needs a Third Great Awakening or It’s Over?

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(united states currency seal: kevindean)

This is not a popular message among Christians in America but many leaders are beginning to sense a turn in history that America may not be able to recover from unless God brings on a Third Great Awakening in our nation.

Many see the economic problems that face our country and hope that they will be solved by merely electing a new president with exceptional business experience. Unfortunately, the choice before us is between a professing liberal Christian with a secular world view and a Mormon that shares our values but maybe not the Holy Spirit that is so needed in these trying times.

But what about the decline in our culture and the headlong charge towards same-sex marriage and the continuing secularization and the increasing demonization of Christianity in the public square? What about the very real decline in religious freedom in our nation? Pastors being arrested for holding Bible studies in their homes. Social change trumping the Constitutional guarantees of religious freedom. Secularists claiming that conservative Christians that stand up for traditional marriage and hold to Biblical teaching when it comes to homosexuality are ‘immoral’ unethical discriminatory bigots that need to be silenced and controlled. Liberal church leaders claiming that homosexuality is ordained by God and evangelicals who oppose it are actually opposing the teaching of Jesus to love one’s neighbor?

What about the upheavals in nature and changes in climate? Are they just happenstance or has God lifted some of his protection from our nation? The fact is that the problems facing America are greater than any one person or group of people will be able to solve. Without a new download from heaven I fear that America is headed for the dust bin of history along with other great world powers of the past that have seen their day and lost their power. Does this sound overly pessimistic? I hope it’s just that.

For a long time I have been convinced that a major revival in America was just around the corner and now I am really concerned that we may miss it at the very time when we need it the most. I am still convinced that revival will come to some areas, some churches, and some communities in our nation regardless. But it is a Third Great Awakening from coast to coast that is really needed to bring our nation back from the brink.              

-What I’m Looking For: A ‘Red Letter’ Awakening

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What I’m looking for is a new ‘red letter’ awakening to spread across our land.

In the 70’s we had the ‘Jesus people’ move out here in California that spread across the whole country particularly among the young people. The emphasis was on salvation and Jesus coming back soon for his church.

In the 90’s in Toronto and at Brownsville in Florida it was the ‘Fathers Love’ which flowed into the churches and touched the lives of millions.

For nearly the entire 20th century beginning with Azusa Street in LA the emphasis was on reviving the work of the Holy Spirit and brings back all of the gifts and offices to the church. That one is still ongoing.

Nearly 500 years ago the Reformation began with Luther posting 95 Theses on a church door. That move was directed towards getting back to the Bible and making it available to everyone. There was an emphasis on Salvation by Grace, right theology, and the Letters of Paul.

Each one of these revivals brought back something that was missing in the church at the time.

Now I believe that we are soon going to experience a new ‘Jesus’ revival.

The Holy Spirit, the Father, and The Word has been brought back to the church. Even an expectation for Jesus coming back for his church is alive and well.

Now it is time for the Church to stand up and be the ‘Body of Christ’ to the world.

I believe that a new awakening is coming when the very words and teachings of Jesus in the Bible will be enlivened in a special way and leap right off of the page into the lives of Millions across our land. A move when Jesus will come to his church in a special intimate way and cause the church to stand up and be the representative of Christ and His Kingdom in the world.

The prophets said that The Messiah would bring justice and good news for the sick, the poor, the oppressed, and the enslaved in this life. That is the calling of the church also—to be the Body of the Messiah in the world.

For too long the church has relegated the good news of the Kingdom to the hereafter and the future. Now it is time for the church to stand up and bring The Kingdom to bare in this world just as Jesus taught us to pray: ”Thy Kingdom come thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven”.

The Church is called to be agents of justice in this world and ambassadors or practitioners of the Kingdom of God in this life and the life to come.