Reverence

When I hear similar messages from several writers or speakers, I begin to think God is leading them to say something He especially wants His people to hear. If so, I desperately want to listen. I’ve been reading and hearing about revival in several different places in the last few days, and I’m growing more and more aware of how needy we are in this respect. Nancy Leigh DeMoss has been talking this week about revival and she’s been sharing about some of the great movements of God that have been seen in fairly recent history – like the Great Awakening and the Welsh revival. She was talking today about how when the Spirit of God moves, people begin to be broken over their sin. Oh, how we need that again today. Oh, how I need that today.

In all the talk about prayer recently, I want to be sure that in my zeal to be doctrinally correct that I never lose sight of a right passion for worship. I want to worship my Lord by believing correctly, yes, indeed. And I want to worship Him with all my being, as well. By how I pray, how often I pray, for what I ask when I pray – I want to be worshipping Him. I have heard the people who tend toward the contemplative prayer methods ask what we are afraid of; they say there isn’t anything wrong with reading the Bible then sitting quietly and pondering what we’ve read. And that is true. But only so long as we approach the Bible as God’s Word, His complete revelation to us, through His Son. Nothing that we ponder in that quiet must contradict the settled Word. And we must be thinking intelligently on what we’ve read and what it means and how to apply it correctly, not just vainly repeating a phrase and waiting for a mystical revelation.

I do think that we who are doctrinally conservative need to put into practice what we know to be true. We need to be on our faces in repentance before our holy God. I need to be on my face in repentance before our holy God. When Isaiah was given a vision of God on His throne in all His holiness, he recognized his sinfulness, his total unworthiness to be there. We need to be praying that God would instill us with such a sense of awe for His holiness, and such a passion to obey Him at any cost, that our lives will be transformed. I am talking to myself here. I know that I stand on God’s Word as my sure foundation. Where I falter, however, is that, though I know the truth, far too often I allow the distractions of the everyday to encroach. I do not spend the time praying and meditating on the Word (and I mean that in the plainest meaning of the word – thinking deeply upon what I’ve read and pondering what it means) that would transform the way I relate first to God and then to those around me. And for me, to know the right thing to do, and to do it not, is sin.

I am beginning to cry out to God to show me any wicked way in me that is hindering me from living the Spirit-filled life I so want to live. I am beginning to cry out to God to grant me not just a desire, but a passion to obey His Word. I do not want to just be a hearer of the Word, I want to obey it! I am beginning to cry out to God that He would grant me the kind of longing for revival that I would weep and pray with dedication that my heart would be filled with a passion for His holiness and glory. Only through His power will we see the change we so desperately want to see. When He brings conviction of sin, then people will begin to come to the Savior.

Before those great revivals, God moved in the hearts of His people to pray. Some of those believers sowed prayers in tears for years before they ever saw fruit. May I be faithful to pray and seek His face, and seek to live a holy life before His face day by day. May I not be distracted by the tyranny of the day to day things, but may I do those day to day things to His glory.

When Moses saw the burning bush, and God spoke to him, he hid his face when he realized that it was Yahweh who spoke to him. When Solomon finished the temple, and the Ark was brought in, when the priests came out of the holy place, “…the cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.” (1 Kings 8:11) When Isaiah saw the LORD, he said, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5) After God revealed Himself to Job and spoke, Job said, “Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my mouth. Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will proceed no further.” (Job 40:4-5) John the Baptist said of Jesus, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) And when John the beloved apostle saw the risen, glorified Lord Jesus in Revelation, he fell at His feet as though dead. (Revelation 1:17)

When we recognize Who God really is, we cease striving, and know that He is God. Our pride is brought low to that poverty of spirit that Jesus spoke of. Our vain arguments are silenced before His supreme holiness. I pray that we will begin to hunger and yearn for that kind of understanding of our King, our Savior, and our Lord. He is not our buddy, boyfriend, homeboy, copilot or any of that. He is LORD. I pray that He will bring the conviction to our hearts to fall on our faces before Him, confess our sin, and passionately obey out of a heart of reverent fear, love and worship.