Prepared

 I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’ Hosea 10:12...."Only weeds and thorns grow in fallow (unbroken) ground....His rain will only fall on plowed and broken heart ground. Prepared ground." Vance Havner

There is much crying out for a move of God in the church these days. How likely are we to see that? The condition of the ground that is our hearts will determine the answer. If we're truly honest, we can't be too encouraged about the answer.

Preparation, our preparation is key to what the Lord does next, in our lives and in His church, and then through both, what He does in the world. The people of Israel desired greatly that the Father would move on their behalf, but the Lord required that they break up the hard ground of their hearts, through confession of their sin and their repentance concerning it. When that happened, He would rain His righteousness, His Spirit, upon them. He would make His streams of life flow through the desert that had been their life. Likewise, in the NT, Jesus spoke much of the need for His followers to be prepared not only for the outpouring of His Holy Spirit at Pentecost, as well as for His coming return. Indeed, preparation was required for any real move of His Spirit. It is not that we can "make" Him move, but that we would be ready for His move when it came. Hardened ground doesn't receive the rain. It just runs off and is wasted. It is when the hardened ground is broken up, turned up, that it is in a condition by which the rains may fall upon it and bring life.

As Havner says, unbroken ground yields only weeds and thorns. Only plowed ground produces a fruitful crop. Can we stop long enough to examine our hearts as to which we've been producing? This goes well beyond the amount of church work or activity we're involved in. It goes right to our hearts and what is flowing out of them. Our words, thoughts, attitudes and actions. Are they yielding weeds and thorns, or Kingdom fruit? We can be very active in Christianity and yet be very far from the heart of Christ. The Israelites that God was speaking to through Hosea never ceased believing in Him or in being religious, yet their hearts were given over to everything but Him. They had hardened hearts, and He was calling them to confession and repentance. Only then could that hard ground be made fruitful. Where is He calling us to the same?

We can talk about revival, seeing the Spirit move, winning the lost, and looking for His return. If we persist in living with unbroken hearts, we will not see any of them, or miss them if they should happen. It will be so because the ground of our hearts is not prepared. Whatever "rain" falls, be it during the week or in our corporate worship, will simply fail to penetrate the hard surface that covers our hearts. I do believe that even now a move of God is taking place, and it will only grow stronger. Will you and I be swept up in it, or swept aside? The preparation of our hearts will determine the answer. How prepared is yours....and mine?

Blessings,

Pastor O