Verity Christian Fellowship

A couple of weeks ago in church, someone prayed for revival. The challenge and the passion of that prayer made a big impression on me.

What is revival? It is when God moves powerfully first in His church to bring people closer to Him and serve Him wholeheartedly and then also showing His power to those outside the church. It follows heartfelt and persistent prayer from people who are absolutely determined to put God first in their lives and are desperate to see God move. The timing and power of revival is always down to God; taking the “loaves and fishes” of people’s prayers and making something truly awesome happen.

Some of us at Verity have been reading through the Bible in a year and recently the Old Testament book has been Chronicles, which, quite frankly, I have found hard going!

The book gives a run down of the kings of Israel and Judah, principally recording whether they served God wholeheartedly or not and then also listing some of the things that they did.

A few days ago, it was about Hezekiah who was one of the good ones and he was an agent of revival in his day. What I mean by is that his heart’s desire was also to see God glorified and he did something about it. He did not make it happen – only God can do that – but he did all he could to obey God and encourage others to do so too.

What did he do? He went and tore down all the places where people worshipped idols and did all he could to ensure that he and those around him did the things that God had commanded them to do. He put God first in his life and did what he could to encourage others to put Him first also.

He invited people from all over Israel to come and celebrate and worship God and gave gifts to those who came. In short, as the Bible says, he served God “wholeheartedly” and commends him for that. It was God, of course, who did the miracle and turned the hearts of the people back to God.

What does this mean for us? Can we be agents of revival like Hezekiah? Things are different now – or are they? Outwardly, they are very much so, but deeper down, not really.

We are not kings like Hezekiah and have none of the same influence. We can do the same things, though. We can remove any idols from our lives. I’m sure that none of us worship statues – that would be bizarre behaviour indeed for people in 21st century Maidstone! We can deal with and, in God’s strength, overcome things in our thoughts that stop us trusting God alone and putting Him first (as we have gone through in the ‘Freedom in Christ’ books).

We can encourage one another, love one another, pray for one another and help each other. We can seek His kingdom first and trust Him. We can encourage others also to come to God.

In short, we can serve God wholeheartedly, as Hezekiah did. If we do so, we will not make God love us any more, neither do we need to in order to be forgiven by Him – these He has graciously given us already. However, we will receive His great commendation – “well done, you good and faithful servant!” – we will have been agents of revival.

So, “let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish.” (Hebrews 12:1-2).

You may have missed the following article which was published on the Sky News website and also in some papers this week. We reproduce it here to encourage you:

Police are planning to harness the power of prayer to beat burglars and vandals.

Churchgoers are being asked to focus their prayers on particular crimes blighting their communities.

It is hoped this will help solve the crime or prevent further offences.

Prayer Watch – a spiritual version of Neighbourhood Watch – has been proposed by members of the Lincolnshire branch of the Christian Police Association (CPA).

Under the scheme, which is being considered by Lincolnshire Police, churches and Christian groups will receive emails from officers alerting them to specific crimes.

Lincolnshire Police spokesman Dick Holmes said: “In one sense it is similar to the conventional watch schemes like Neighbourhood Watch and Farm Watch in that it encourages congregations to keep an eye on church buildings.

“They are prime targets for thieves and vandals and recently there have been well-publicised spates of trouble across the county.

“Obviously there is the spiritual element which lets communities know about specific incidents in their area so they can focus their prayers on them if they wish.”

Retired police officer Don Axcell, head of the national CPA, said: “I’m aware of the scheme and think it’s a brilliant idea.

“If there’s a spate of burglaries in an area – let’s get people praying for a result.

“I’m a great believer in the power of prayer and all I’d say to the sceptics is that I’ve seen it work too many times for it to be a coincidence.”

So get out there praying!

(Ephesians 6:18 – And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this is mind be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.)

The following is from an e-mail I received from a friend:

We all know or knew someone like this!

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class was walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books.

I thought to myself, “Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday?

He must really be a nerd.”

I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.

As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt.

His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him.

He looked up and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes. My heart went out to him. So, I jogged over to him and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, I saw a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said, “Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives.”

He looked at me and said, “Hey thanks!” There was a big smile on his face.

It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude. I helped him pick up his books, and asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to private school before now. I would have never hung out with a private school kid before. He turned out to be a pretty cool kid.

I asked him if he wanted to play a little football with my friends He said yes. We hung out all weekend and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him, and my friends thought the same of him.

Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said, “Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!”

He just laughed and handed me half the books. Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends.

When we were seniors, we began to think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business on a football scholarship.

Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I was so glad it wasn’t me having to get up there and speak.

Graduation day, I saw Kyle. He looked great. He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses. He had more dates than I had and all the girls loved him. Boy, sometimes I was jealous. Today was one of those days.

I could see that he was nervous about his speech. So, I smacked him on the back and said, “you’ll be great!”

He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled.

“Thanks,” he said.

As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and began. “Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach…but mostly your friends…I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am going to tell you a story….”

I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the story of the first day we met. He had planned to kill himself over the weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his Mom wouldn’t have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home. He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile.

“Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable.”

I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment. I saw his Mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile. Not until that moment did I realise its depth.

Never underestimate the power of your actions. With one small gesture you can change a person’s life for better or for worse.

God puts us all in each other’s lives to impact one another in some way.

Look for God in others.

Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly.

Ever wondered why this country is in such a mess and seems to be getting worse? Ever considered that we may be living under a curse?

God said to Abraham:

“I will make you into a great nation and will bless you;

I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Genesis 12:2-3
God has kept his word. For three and a half thousand years the nation of Israel has existed. Sometimes they have been a great nation and sometimes they have been poor. But God has always had his hand on them and they still have a role to play in the destiny of the world. All the peoples on the earth have been blessed through Israel because Jesus, our beloved saviour was born a Jew and was an Israeli.

But what of Britain? Well I am sorry to say that our actions through history cannot always be said to have blessed Israel. Because of this some people consider we are currently living under Gods curse. Is there anything we can do about this? The answer to that is yes, we can repent.
We recently received news of a National Day of Repentance being organised in London.
The details are as below:
Saturday September 16th 2006 11.00 am – 5.00pm (Doors open at 10.15)

Venue: Emmanuel Centre,

9 – 23 Marsham St,

London,

SW1P 3DW

Come and be a part of God’s exciting plan. Laying aside all other agendas, a call to humble ourselves, fast and pray. We believe Britain’s offences against Israel have brought this nation under judgment and therefore corporate repentance on this issue is a vital key in God’s strategy to turn back the tide of evil and heal our land. The essence of the day is to be in the unity of the Spirit as we lay aside OUR agendas and we lift up a corporate repentance to the Lord as in Joel 2 and 2 Chronicles 7 v 14.

Web site: www.nationaldayofrepentance.co.uk/
If we have done nothing wrong then saying sorry cannot hurt. God will just say ‘don’t be silly, get up’. But if we have done something wrong and are not prepared to say sorry then we just invite Gods wrath.

Think about it.

Anyone interested in going, let me know and we can make arrangements.