Revival and The Lord's Prayer
So as a representative of God that means you acted the proper way, you spoke the proper way, you were His emissary.
Welcome to “Asked and Answered,” the podcast series that answers all of your mission related questions. With me in the studio today are Ron and Charis Pearce.
Joy- Welcome, guys!
Ron- Hi, Joy!
Joy- Hi! Okay, I have a really great question today, well, they are always good questions but today it is “Can you tell us, is there anything in the Bible that really speaks to what we are seeing in the world today regarding revival?”
Ron- There is a whole bunch of things pointing to it, in other words, we’ve got all sorts of scripture that relates from the book of Acts as to what the early church experienced, we’ve got glimpses from Paul’s teachings a lot of times as to what to expect. I would draw you back to the Lord’s Prayer and as strange as that may seem, I’m going to read you a section from Luke 11 and when I read this it’s about when the disciples asked Jesus basically the most important question to them and their people, the Jewish people, it applies to us today. Let me read this to you, it’s from Luke 11:1, And it came about that while He was praying in a certain place, after he had finished one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.” And He said to them, “When you pray say this; Father, Hallowed be thy Name, Thy Kingdome come, give us each day our daily bread, forgive us from our sins for we ourselves want to forgive everyone who is indebted to us, and lead us not into temptation.”
All right, now the reason why I am bringing this out is because the Jewish people, as a whole, believed that God was in charge, was ruling over His Kingdom in Heaven, and what they wanted and what they were trusting is that God would bring His Kingdom to bear on earth. They had the temple, which was the seat of all Jewish religion, etcetera. That was the presence of God. But it was always the belief that God would come down, destroy evil, all those that were against Him, and He would establish His Kingdom on earth. That is what the disciples were looking for and why I’m drawing this out is this, that we are hearing reports right now from all over the world whereby, we are getting a touch of the Kingdom of God on earth today. We were talking to India recently. They were talking about the whole idea that we have a taste of the Kingdom of God right now in our services. The people were so excited, they were studying the word of God, there was an intensity, it was like the book of Acts all over again in so many ways and there was just this real emphasis upon living for God and living with God and they could sense God’s presence in their midst. Same thing, I just got off the phone with Israel and one of the leaders of the Messianic congregations over there, one up in the North, they were talking about the idea that their services and times when they get together, either for prayer or worship on Shabbat for services, anything like that they are sensing in a brand new fresh way, probably more that they have ever experienced before the presence of God in their midst and people are noticing it. And this is the same when I was over with the gypsies, they said, “Our services are really incredible!” They didn’t even know what words to use sometimes but in Serbia they were talking about that. I can tell you from China that there is an intensity level in the gathering together of believers and just the walk of believers now, they can sense God even in a greater way. So that sensing of God is very important. Now when I say that, let me go back to Luke 11 and this is Jesus being asked, Lord, how should we pray, what should we be asking for? Because the number one thing on their mind was experiencing this Kingdom of God, God in our midst in everyday life and they wanted it. And so here Jesus is saying okay, this is what you are going to be praying for, you are going to be praying for this revelation of God’s presence, manifest presence of Jesus in your midst. So he says do this, pray this way, and he says, “Father,” and the word Father there is an intimate relationship with an all-powerful, all-knowing God, this isn’t some sort of buddy that you are cozying up to, some guy that you have known for a few days who is equal to you, no, this is the God of the universe that you now have an intimate relationship with and you are talking about Him as our Father. So with incredible respect, he referred to Him as Father, Hallowed be thy Name and hallowed be Thy name means we revere, we lift up your name, but in their thinking that meant that you carried the name of God on you and you identified with that person and you represented God on earth. So as a representative of God that means you acted the proper way, you spoke the proper way, you were His emissary. Therefore, it’s more than just on Sunday you saying, “I love you, Jesus,” in a church service in a chorus, no, it’s more than that. This is day by day by day, every day, at every moment you are His representative and you are hallowing His name, you’ve got it on your forehead and that is who you are, you are one of His followers. So your respect, your commitment to follow Him and then saying this, Thy Kingdom come, in other words, please come, please establish this. That is our dream that is our hope that you would be in our midst and that we would be living without sin. No, therefore he goes on, now the first thing; give us each day our daily bread. This is a total dependence that God would supply every need that we have. Notice there that it is not our luxury? It’s our daily bread, why? Because around the world throughout all time, really until just recently, people were concerned about what am I going to feed my family today? It was a day-by-day thing. They didn’t have refrigerators or freezers. They didn’t have a lot of things so, therefore, every day was a struggle. I have been so many places in the world that is why they live, they are depending upon God every day to supply them to stay alive just with the necessities. And Jesus is saying just ask God to give you the necessities, that is all you really need. So, therefore, it would be food, is the primary one, but then there is clothing to stay warm, there is shelter, all of those things and He says pray for those things. Not only that He talks about forgive us our sins and forgiving our sins means that we want to walk in purity before you. We don’t want to sin and, therefore, God leads us in those sort of paths. And now the last one here that I’m going to emphasize is this, and it’s really the important one, and it talks about forgiving the sins of other people and everyone who we are at odds with. In other words, what is the second thing, the most important thing that people want? We want to live at peace, peace with God, peace with their neighbor, peace with their family, they want calmness and, therefore, that is what it will be when God establishes His reign on earth. There won’t be any more wars, there won’t be fighting, there won’t be controversy, there won’t be anything like that and, therefore, that is one of the signs of what you are praying for and what you can experience. When you are born again you get a taste of this, but when a revival hits or when the Kingdom of God, or just of touch of it comes down, we are getting an idea of what it will be like when God completely eradicates sin, establishes His kingdom on earth and now all of a sudden you are living at peace, all of our needs are met, we have an intimate relationship with God, we are walking and representing God all the time and the last one that is talked about, don’t lead us into temptation, in other words, teach us how to walk clean, teach us how to walk in a way whereby, we are not tempted to fall. We want to follow you. This is what Jesus was talking about, saying to his disciples, this is the goal, this is the goal of life and now we are seeing that in the revivals around the world. These are the intents of all of these people in the Indias and the Chinas and all of that, this is, what we are talking about, is normal. So Jesus is pointing back then, and this is before the Holy Spirit came to indwell people, he said basically this is what you want. You want the Kingdom on earth? Okay, this is what you pray for and this is how you will live.
Joy- To achieve the Kingdom on earth.
Ron- Exactly. That is sort of a taste of it right now before the real physical Jesus coming back to earth and the devil being vanquished and all of that sort of thing. This is what it is going to be like and we can have a taste of this even right now. That is a revival in one respect.
Charis- I find it interesting where He says to pray for our needs, so often we pray for our wants and our luxuries, which become distractions, and when you are focusing on the Kingdom and wanting to experience the Kingdom you don’t want distraction.
Ron- Something going around today and it’s a new fad in one way, it’s counter-cultural, they are called minimalists, in other words, people that boil it down, that don’t want to be distracted by all the extras in life. I met a young lady one time in Calgary and she says, “I’m a minimalist, I’m trying to rid my life of everything that would be a distraction, I want to just be a very, very simple living person.” And I thought to myself, that is perfect for this verse. That doesn’t mean to say that you don’t want to give your kids ice cream or I don’t know, all of the little things in life, I’m not trying to go to an extreme on this. But Jesus was saying, these are the important things that you should concentrate on, keep your eyes on this, your relationship and your intimate walk with God, your peace that you are trying with all the other people around you. You are looking for, and not only that but emphasizing the idea and trusting that God will supply all of your needs, therefore, you don’t have to panic and you don’t have to be worried all day, as the world is. No, you’ve got all these things and He will take care of you. When the Lord’s prayer pops up in a revival in India and all the other countries, everybody understands what those verses mean because they are saying God is in our midst, He is all that we want, just His presence will suffice. Just to be with Him.
Joy- When you focus on God meeting your needs it really makes it very simple because you don’t have a big long list of things He needs to accomplish and then you quickly realize that he is faithful to meet our basic needs. When I asked this question I definitely didn’t think you would go to the Lord’s Prayer, I thought maybe Acts. What a wonderful take on the question. Thank you.
