The fore-runners of revival are the radical remnant who persevere in prayers of faith for God to save. They are following in the foot-steps of Simeon and Anna who we read of in Luke 2:25-38.
The Holy Spirit is stirring and leading a remnant within church to join him and Jesus in their intercession for his church. They pray to be sanctified in truth, alive and fired up in the Spirit, and to be living on earth as sent from heaven. As this remnant increases they become the revived church, the sound of heaven on earth that draws people to faith in Jesus Christ; and the roar in the heavens that sends devils fleeing.
The remnant are those who are in the world but not of the world. They learn to enjoy the blessings of creation while feeling out of place, because, this world is not their home. Some stand-out amongst us, many are unknown, but all are significant.
Is the missing piece in the illusive strategy of success in serving God and saving a lost world, pursuing pure hearts and persistent prayer?
A pure heart is simply a heart full of one thing, and our one thing is Jesus. When creation gets into our heart it chokes our hearts faith in our Creator. Will you ask God to purify your heart by the Holy Spirit? (Acts 15:8-9) He will use the blood of Jesus and the word of God to wash our hearts clean from our attachments to created things. This is mercy doing it’s glorious work.
The Holy Spirit purifies our hearts, this is sanctification as in John 17:17 and 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. And purity if heart causes our understanding to clear. Then we realise the only way the gospel will be the power of God for salvation is when all our effort is birthed and saturated in prayer. We can be busy doing mission without prayer, but we can’t grow deeper in prayer without it becoming mission.
God is looking for those who will join Jesus and the Holy Spirit in intercession for salvation to come on earth. He is walking through earth asking, who will join me in prayer, who will stand in the gap with me.
The radical remnant are simply those who hear and obey his call, they become chosen because of their radical obedience. This remnant lead in the spiritual realm, and the church only goes where they go first.
Years ago a little while after we began to see new life coming into the church I led in Nelson. I was with a number of elderly ladies at morning tea. While several were complaining of the change to the flow and style of our Sunday morning service, Daphne simply said, these are the days I have been praying for. I was blessed and humbled in the same moment. Was I simply God’s answer to Daphne’s prayer? What if there hadn’t been a Daphne praying? Would that church have aged and declined until it closed? Who else was praying? Because it was praying saints like Daphne who led that church into its new future. These saints are the radical remnant.
Are you willing to be ruined for ordinary comfortable living more concerned with a good retirement than eternity? If so, Will you pause and ask God to reveal his heart to your heart? And then begin to pray what God reveals to your heart. This is becoming one his radical remnant who pray according to 2 Chronicles 7:14.
Come on lets be those who turn our faces to Jesus in heaven, humble our hearts and repent of our self-oriented sin, and pray.
Discover a Best Friend in the Holy Spirit.