Revival

Hello, Friends. I respectfully have to say that the Holy Spirit is absolutely wild. There is a group of people, a remnant, that God is calling out and upwards. Recently, I have been in conversations and received messages from people all over the country who feel stirred similarly to the way I am being shaken. It reminds me a lot of the story of Amos. (No, I didn’t remember these details about Amos. The Holy Spirit took me to this book in the secret place recently.)

In the book of Amos, the people had sinned again and again. Their wealth led to apathy and complacency which resulted in injustice and neglect of the poor. Their relationships were broken due to their sin. So, God gave Amos a vision and called him to go prophesy in Bethel where the Temple and the people of Israel were. The Isrealites were chosen by God. They had a great calling that resulted in a great responsibility which is why their rebellion required great consequences.

In chapters 3-6, Amos exposes their religious hypocrisy and idolatry and calls them to repent. Their hearts have not been changed by God’s law or His love. One of his harshest rebukes of the Lord is in chapter 5 where He says,

I hate all your show and pretense— the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.
I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead,
I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living.
Amos 5:21-24

God is telling the people that He isn’t interested in the show they’re putting on at church until there is absolute alignment in their lives and worship. God’s law for His people has always been about loving God and loving others. He wants to see consistent justice and righteousness out of them. He wants to see them caring for the poor and bringing restoration to those around them.

As Jacob’s son Joseph knew (Genesis 37) and Amos was about to find out, when you share the vision and the truths that God reveals to you, there will often be people who get upset. In Amos 7:12-13, the priest (yes, the pastor) of the Temple in Bethel told Amos,

Get out of here, you prophet!
Go on back to the land of Judah and earn your living by prophesying there!
Don’t bother us with your prophecies here in Bethel.
This is the king’s sanctuary and the national place of worship!

Wait! What? Amos had a vision from God, was called by God and sent by God to Bethel to share what had clearly been told by God. Yet this priest tried to silence his message of repentance and returning to righteousness because of the conflict it was stirring with both religious and political leaders. Amos then replies in verses 14-15,

I’m not a professional prophet and I was never trained to be one.
I’m just a shepherd, and I take care of sycamore-fig trees.
But the Lord called me away from my flock and told me,
‘Go and prophesy to my people in Israel.’

I absolutely love this response. Amos is basically like, “I was minding my own business being a shepherd and gardener when God asked me to do this. I’m not trying to make money. I’m just being obedient.” We can all learn from Amos standing firm in his calling and the truth of God’s Word even when it challenges norms and confronts authority.

If you’ve found this blog and you’re still reading, I believe there is a reason. Perhaps you’ve felt like Amos before. You were content in a church or job and suddenly, God started stirring you. As you sit in solitude with Him, He begins revealing His heart and refining your convictions. You begin to discern false worship and spiritual compromise. You likely wish you could have continued minding your own business blissfully unaware as a simple shepherd and gardener. 

But… You and I both know, we can’t go back, and we can’t be silent. Once the Spirit makes something known, we must have the prophetic courage to confront false religious activity first in our own lives and wherever God asks us to speak up. It is our duty to speak truth to power and uphold pure worship and righteousness. Why? Because Jesus is worthy. He is the Beginning and the End. If it’s even slightly about us rather than about Him, we’re missing the mark, and the results are nowhere near what God has for us. (For more on this, see the last blog titled Undoing.)

God has shown me that there are many feeling called like Amos to challenge norms and confront authority in this season. We are:

• being drawn by Him to Him uniquely,
• experiencing Holy Spirit fire,
• walking through the pain of the undoing,
• recognizing how far off course we’ve gotten just a few degrees at a time,
• yearning for more Jesus to be taught,
• choosing not to sing songs in church that aren’t to Him or about Him,
• understanding more about Jesus being the Son of Suffering,
• longing to know Him more and go deeper into His presence,
• begging for spiritual gifts and power from the Holy Spirit,
• learning to worship, pray and intercede in the Spirit and/or
• waiting for others and our churches to embrace the change of the coming move of God.

There is a reason for this. I believe fresh fire is coming. We’re on the edge of pioneering a new movement. We don’t have a map, but we have a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. The Holy Spirit will lead us into what’s next, but we must stay on our faces before the Lord daily to seek His strength and guidance. Stay connected in the secret place. Handle yourselves well with grace and truth.

MAKE ROOM for Him. He is the treasure. He is the prize.