Humbled

 I recall one of our denomination's leaders saying some years back, "So many people come into our services and are stirred but not changed." That's a heart piercing truth, but not one that seems to pierce many hearts. Why is this so? How can this be?

I can't remember a time in the church when there hasn't been a great deal of talk about our desire for revival. 2 Chronicles 7:14 quotations abound; "If my people who are called by My name, humble themselves and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and will heal their land." So many pastors and churches have been pleading this promise, yet revival tarries. An awakening tarries. The heavens can seem like brass. Perhaps they are. We're praying, we're seeking His face, His forgiveness and His healing, yet it hasn't come. Not in the degree we say we hope for. The promise isn't being realized. What are we missing? The answer is before our eyes but our hearts remain blind to it. All of the power of the promise hinges on this: We're to humble ourselves before Him. We're willing to hold all night prayer vigils, to fast, to seek Him, but to humble ourselves? I'm not sure we know what that is or what it entails.

Gerald Fry says that the biblical meaning of "humbling oneself" is to be willing to be seen and known for who we really are. This is terrifying to our flesh. We're willing to pray, to seek, and for great amounts of time. But humbling ourselves to the point of being willing to see ourselves for who we really are and how we really live, think, and act, well, that's another matter isn't it? That means coming to His cross and dying to ourselves there. All the prayer and seeking in the world will never substitute for that.

I remember talking to a brother pastor and he was grieving over the loss of yet another relationship in his church and ministry. I knew all too well his pain. There'd been a disagreement, but rather than work it out, as Christ directs, they left. His pain soaked words were, "I'm so weary of one broken and lost relationship after another." Yet this is what we do. We, a people with a message of reconciliation with God, seem unable to ever reconcile with one another, and so, with Him as well. Why? Pride! Always at root its pride. So we go on, always looking for His fullness but constantly frustrated in our search and blind to the reasons for it. We want to know Him but stumble at really knowing ourselves. How can we come clean with Him if we won't come clean with ourselves? And it will continue to be so until.....we humble ourselves before Him.

Are we, you and I, among those so often stirred but never transformed? Wanderers looking for a spiritual high, either not ever finding it, or, thinking we have, soon become disenchanted and then moving on. All the while leaving a trail of broken relationships behind. James Robison has said that either the church in America will humble themselves and bow before Him or He will humiliate us and break our legs in doing so. I think the latter is taking place, in both the church and the nation. May we not wait for the breaking of our legs of pride, but be broken by His holy love and life, and in our brokenness, discover His healing and wholeness, and what He means true revival to be. He will hear from heaven. He will hear, and He will come. Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!

Blessings,
Pastor O