We Need A Downpour, Part Two
SHINE Message for March 8, 2009 presented by Brian Beasley.
We Need A Downpour, Part Two
Feel free to right-click and select Save Target As… to download to your computer, or simply hit the small button to the left of the title to play!
Message Outline:
I. The Invitation To Revival
B. Let’s Know The Lord (v. 3)
1. Facts about the Lord
2. Heart understanding of the facts
3. Experience with God
4. Blessings from God
II. The Pathway to Revival
A. Through pain to purpose (v. 1)
B. Through death to life (vv. 1-2)
III. The Experience of Revival
A. It’s Available (v. 3)
B. It’s Abundant (v. 3)
Review by answering the following questions:
1. What is God’s typical pathway to revival?
2. What evidence in our lives, church, community, or nation indicates that we need revival?
3. Have you ever had a “wake-up” call that caused you to think more seriously about eternal things? If so, what happened and how did you respond?
Feel free to post comments to this lesson and these questions in particular. Tomorrow morning will be the first post of study materials.
See you next Sunday at SHINE!
Posted by GPC.
Subscribe To Blog
I’ll start off the comments here (and hopefully encourage a few more) by mentioning that this was a tough lesson to teach on this particular Sunday. We have just learned that someone connected to our church has cancer and may not have a very long time left to live. In this lesson, we deal with the understanding that God uses the pain and tribulation in our life many times to bring us to a “crisis,” and call us back to a more closer walk with Him. Jeana and I had an interesting discussion last night about this idea of God “bringing about” or “causing” pain in our circumstances to get our attention. This is much too complex an issue for one like me to attempt to answer (especially since I am not a theologian) but let me give you my idea on the subject as an untrained layperson.
One additional disclaimer: My opinion on this is certainly not set in stone or even written in pen – it might change dramatically tomorrow.
I believe that in eternity, we will see that although God doesn’t “cause” bad things to happen in the sense that we see cause and effect, everything that happens is woven within the great tapestry of God’s will and human history. We will see how He masterfully wove everything together, the sinful actions of man along with the most sacrificial actions of man, to accomplish all of his greater purposes and when we step back and view human life and our individual lives, we will see how glorious and perfect it is in spite of the sin of mankind. The methaphor that I’ve seen used to attempt to explain this idea is that of a cross-stitch. The front of the finished cross-stitch shows a beautiful picture, but the back of it shows knots and stray pieces, and hardly anything seems to go together or look right. Right now, that’s the side that we see as we endure troubles and hardships and see the sin in the world. But God is in control and is stitching a masterpiece.
Thoughts, comments?
I’m also interested to hear about some “wake-up” calls that some of you have gotten from God.
Comment by Brian Beasley | March 9, 2009