Building Alters

Hey readers!

Today I wanna talk about alters. There are a lot of alters in the bible and a lot of sacrifices that the people of Israel made. The alter that I want to talk about though is found in 1 kings 18. 

I'm not going to quote the whole chapter(waaay too long) but it's a really cool part of scripture. Elijah has just challenged the king, the prophets of Baal and half the nation to a showdown on Mount Carmel. Elijah builds an alter to The Lord and he rains down fire from heaven proving once and for all that God is the one true God. A nation turns to God in a day because one man built an alter. The heart cry of Elijah was enough to stir the heart of God to move in a powerful way. 

The interesting thing that Elijah did was pour water over the sacrifice. Elijah didn't do this just to be difficult. Nothing is hard for God. If God had just made a flame appear under the sacrifice then Elijah's prayer would have been answered. The reason he poured on water is because he couldn't be satisfied with anything other than the full fire of God raining down from heaven. 

Some times we pray sparky prayers. Prayers like "oh God! Just give us a few sparks. Nothing too special in our church, we want to keep you contained inside our comfort zone ok? A few sparks should keep the nutters on the front row happy. Then we can just get back to 'doing church' and feeling good about ourselves..."

I believe God is raising up a generation of intercessors and revivalists who will not be satisfied with 'a few sparks'. This generation needs to encounter a God worth living for! The fiery rain of heaven is the answer! This is how revival is born. The age old story of man's desperation for God and God's pursuit of his beloved bride is being relived and retold on a grand scale that creation has never encountered before! However, this grand new scale of awakening demands a grand new scale of fire raining down into the hearts of a generation. This is God's passionate response to our heart cry: "Somebody! Build me an alter!"

Spiritual alters are the foundation on which Revival is built and prayer and intersession are the process by which they are built. They are symbols of mans dependence on and desperation for God's presence. Without him we are just a pile of dirt but with him we are a royal priesthood. Alters are the embodiment of this idea and a landing pad for the angels of heaven. As we humbly and constantly lay our lives on these alters God answers us and opens the floodgates of heaven over us.

I recently heard a story in a sermon told by Cindy Jacobs about a group of kids who spent hours interceding and asking God to move. One meeting in a mall (Not a typo by the way. This group was praying in a mall, not a hall.) resulted in people nearby falling onto the pavement and being unable to stand up until someone told them about Jesus. It was like they were literally glued to the pavement! Healings and salvations were taking place and Gods glory was manifested! The secret behind this amazing miracle? They had been praying for five hours. No wonder God was moving! These guys spent five hours at a time, building alters!

The challenge: (I should hope it's pretty obvious!) let's pray! Lets interceed! Lets live hard for Him. Come on Church! Lets build an alter!

Jack the church kid

The mission... Should we choose to accept it...?

Hey guys and gals!

Philippians 3:18-21 says:

18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Sharing the heart of God means that we weep over a generation of lost souls. But in the midst of destructive living, perversion, guilt, and shame we are called to bring the hope of Jesus to the hopeless.

Perversion means the wrong version. People are following their stomachs because they are looking for fulfilment. Looking for the love of God. Humanity was destined, designed for relationship with Daddy God. This is the reason we are alive. The secret longing of every human heart. The world has a wrong definition of love because they don't know that God is the origin of love. They delve deeper into sin looking, hoping to stumble across love, fulfilment, acceptance. These are the things that we receive through intimacy with Daddy God and the world's substitute will not satisfy.

God is longing to fulfil the dreams and desires of the lost. He wants desperately to pour himself into the hole in our hearts that nothing else could quite fill. This is our generation. Not the world's generation, ours, and therefore, God's. God has sent his army of revival warriors to redeem his people and bring them home to their Father's house.

Satan tries to use shame and hopelessness to separate humanity from God but there is an answer. You're it.

We are the ones called to actively (not passively) participate in the writing of history. The requirements of a world changer are not much. You don't need a theological degree or to be one of the "special people". Jesus gave us commandments and a commission. I'm beginning to understand that they aren't separate things. In order to change the world, to make disciples of all nations and advance the kingdom of heaven you just need to follow the simple procedure as Jesus instructed us to.

Step 1. Love God

Step 2. Love people

The challenge: love requires action. Love requires you to weep over the lost as Jesus does. Love requires you to love strangers,old friends, and people who hate you equally (perhaps that last one even more so). The two commandments that Jesus gave us to live by are not just nice words to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, they are a formula for revival. They are the answer to the desperate pleas of a generation on the brink of self destruction.

The requirements of a world changer are simply that we are capable of love and we keep hope, no matter what. We live in a paradox where we are actually incapable of changing the world and yet that is the destiny that God has set before us. The breakthrough comes when God works through us to make what was previously impossible inevitable. Standing on the shoulders of Daddy God there is nothing that can keep us from achieving the ultimate goal which is revival!!!

Jack the church kid.

Gone fishing

Hello again readers!

Ok, fishing for men. This is why Jesus was born and what the heart of God longs to do! Often when we think of fishing we think of sitting beside a stream, our line dangling in the water and peacefully sitting, waiting for a bite. We forget sometimes that we are called to fish, Jesus style.

Luke 5:6-9 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken.

Jesus didn't do things in half measures. If he's going fishing he might sink a few boats. In Reinhard Bonnke's book "Evangelism by fire" he said "If ten thousand people live around a church, according to statistics, four of them die every week. It is hardly satisfying, then, if only one is saved every month, or even every week." This is worrying! We don't have time for halfhearted fishing! We can, and must, fish for men Jesus style! Jesus is desperately searching for people who will rise up to save and disciple a generation.

Sometimes we think that it's too big a task and we settle for the small gathering that comes to our Sunday service. We need to remember the thousands of people who remain oblivious to the overpowering love of the Father that is being offered to them. David was a midget compared to Goliath but compared to David's God Goliath was the midget. When we understand how big our God is we realise that shaking a nation with the grace of God is no big deal! There are only 5 million people in Scotland... lets go get 'em already! If God can make 'em, God can save 'em. The question is, are you ready to fight and die for these souls?

Jack the church kid.

An apology...

Sorry readers!

This holiday has been hectic and I haven't found the time to put up another post! It has been fun to see what God did in our annual youth camp and this was probably the highlight of the summer. The worship was amazing and we just didn't want to stop singing! Myself and my friend were dancing and praying hard at the back of the room and the presence was tangible!

I was going to post Isiah 62 Pt.2 but God has laid something else on my heart. So I had this Idea: Tell me and the other readers what you think! I would like to challenge you, read Isiah 62:1-7 and comment below and tell us what this verse means to you! I really love this part of scripture and can't wait to hear your heart on this verse.

Jack the church kid

Isiah 62 Pt1

Hey readers!

One of my favorite parts of scripture is found in Isiah 62. It's all about revival and God's plan for the church. Fun stuff!

Isiah 62:1-3:

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent,    for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet,till her righteousness shines out like the dawn,    her salvation like a blazing torch.The nations will see your righteousness,    and all kings your glory;you will be called by a new name    that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand,    a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

Zion was the promised land, the place where God's people called home. Jerusalem was where the ark of the covenant, the Glory of God, resided. Everywhere where Christians are, God has a divine destiny or 'default mode' called Revival for that place. The dawn is the rebirth of light and it happens everyday, wherever you are in the world. All nations know what a dawn is. That's what the church is going to be like! We are going to be the light that causes a universal awakening! Our righteousness will be so evident that all nations will experience the impact of it! Non-christian kinds will "see our glory and our inability to keep quiet will change the world! We will be God's precious treasure and he will never let us go! That's how present God is going to be in our lives.

This passage is not about 'some other guy', it's about US! We are called to make an impact on a culture and change the course of history! If You are a Christian then then your town is God's town! Your city is God's city! Your home is God's playground! What is Revival if not a mess for Jesus?

Jesus had to resort to walking on water to get away from the multitudes. He never had to go looking for the people, they would just follow him wherever he went! If we are accurately representing Jesus then we won't have to strive for Revival, Revival will follow us around! The Church is Jesus' hands and feet. When the Church is being the Church, Revival is inevitable.

Jack, the church kid.

The God Chasers

Hey peoples!

I have had a very eventful day recently and I just want to share with you guys what God did in my heart. I finally finished a book that I've been reading for a while but I haven't been able to find the time to finish it. The Book is called 'The God Chasers' by Tommy Tenney. It's a really great book but I've read great books before... This was the first book, however, that has made me cry. It's not a sappy romance novel and I am not a sappy kinda guy, but something in this book stirred me to the point of tears! It's all about a passionate pursuit of God's Glory and the revival that will follow such a mission. I wept as Tenney wrote of the lack of 'fresh bread' that haunts many churches today. The body of Christ was never meant to live off of crumbs! He spoke of past revivals and what the glory of God looks like when it becomes so present, so manifested, that it breaks out of the church building and flows out onto the streets!

When I finished the book I felt the God speak to me and tell me to fast lunch, my first fast. I had been meaning to go on a fast for a while but I wasn't really sure what to pray for... That day though, I listened to worship music for a while and sang along; and then prayed hard for God's glory to fall! I have never felt that kind of conviction before, I couldn't go on unless God showed up! He did. I was weeping and shaking and crying out to God to birth a fire in a generation. This was something I had never done before but will definitely do again! God broke me, that's the only way I can describe it.

Reinhard Bonnke said it this way:

"Intercession without evangelism is like an explosive without a detonator. Evangelism without intercession is like a detonator without an explosive."

I'm not going to pretend like I'm some bible scholar or a world class preacher. I'm just a kid who loves God and want to see his kingdom come! I don't really understand what God did in my heart that day but I did learn this: the greater the hunger that God births in your heart and the more broken you are, the more powerfully he will show up! I've never been so desperate for God's presence and he has never showed up like he did that day. I would encourage you to take the time to pray hard to God and ask him to birth a hunger in you. You won't regret it!

Jack, the church kid.

A heart issue pt 2: Jesus in, Jesus out!

Hey church kidz!

Ok, in part one of this post I talked about how what we put into our hearts is a big deal. We need to "guard our hearts" because "everything you do flows from it!" (If you didn't read my last post you can scroll back on the home page and take a look!)

One of the dilemmas that many church kids face is that we like good music but we also want to guard our hearts. So, do we listen to good music or christian music? Is it too much to ask for both? I like the R&B and Pop sound but I don't necessarily like what they're singing about (got to stress though, I really do like some popular music! Not against the Black Eyed Peas!) A good compromise is to listen to good christian artists in the same genre! Here is a list of some of my favorites along with some awesome, hardcore worship:

R&B and Hip-hop:

1. Applejaxx
2. 116 Clique
3. Viktory
4. Toby Mac
5. The Ambasador
6. DC Talk
7. Tedashii

Pop:

1. Audio Adrenaline
2. Plus One
3. Barlow Girl
4. Kerrie Roberts
5. Casting Crowns

Worship:

1. Planet Shakers
2. Jesus Culture
3. Bethel
4. Hillsong United
5. Jake Hamilton
6. Daniel Bashta
7. Passion

You can find any of these guys on spotify or itunes. This is good sounding music and it's also good 'heart food!' Hey... What's not to love?

Jack the church kid