Scriptures and Key Points:
We need to be ready when the shakings come.
“Let others live on the raw edge of the cutting edge. You and I shall live on the edge of eternity.” – Leonard Ravenhill
- We need to keep our eyes on our first love, the Lord.
- Carry the presence of God and have a heart for the harvest.
- There’s a battle for the soul of a generation.
1 John 4:6 NKJV We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 NKJV The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
2 Timothy 4:5 NKJV But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
John 18:40 NKJV Then they all cried again, saying, “Not this Man, but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a robber.
John 19:6 NKJV …“Crucify Him, crucify Him!”…
Are you ready?
- We need to identify the choices we’re making that contradict the love of truth and authentic righteousness and justice that cloud our discernment and judgment.
2 Timothy 4:3-4 NKJV For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
Daniel 11:32-35 NKJV … but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits. And those of the people who understand shall instruct many; yet for many days they shall fall by sword and flame, by captivity and plundering. Now when they fall, they shall be aided with a little help; but many shall join with them by intrigue. And some of those of understanding shall fall, to refine them, purify them, and make them white, until the time of the end; because it is still for the appointed time.
- Choose the path of humility.
- “Yāḏaʿ” to know God.
- No leader sets out to fail.
- To be ready it’s important to be honest with God and with ourselves.
- Set righteous perimeters.
2 Samuel 12:1-14 NKJV Nathan confronts David
Psalm 19:12-13 NKJV Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins; Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Acts 13:22 NKJV …‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.’
Stay Tethered to the Lord
- Get back to our first love and stay tethered to the Lord, so that when the church quakes and the shakings come, we can be prepared and ready in our hearts for the harvest.
Hebrews 12:27-29 NKJV Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.
- God is shaking us, taking us out of our Egypt, into our journey to get the world out of us and into that place where we can possess the land God intends for us.
- If we accept, rather than reject, the truth, we can expedite God’s plans.
Psalm 112:1-6 NKJV Praise the Lord! Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments…Surely he will never be shaken;
The righteous will be in everlasting remembrance.
“While men reach for thrones to build their own kingdoms, Jesus reached for a towel to wash men’s feet.” -Doug Stringer
Matthew 25:28-29 NKJV So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away.
Philippians 3:10 NKJV That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death
- “Ginōskō” means “to learn to know, come to know, get a knowledge of, perceive, feel.”
- “Sufferings” is “pathēma” meaning “passion.”
- When we truly know God, we are passionate about the same things that He is passionate about.
We are ready when we please God by loving people and showing them Jesus.
Hebrews 12:2 NKJV Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…
- As Christians, we must speak the truth in love seasoned with grace, but we must speak the truth nonetheless.
Ephesians 4:27 NKJV Nor give place to the devil.
Hebrews 12:5-11 NKJV The Discipline of God
- Dig deeper in consecration, higher in expectation in the Lord, and clinging to the truth.
Zephaniah 1:12 NKJV “And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart, ‘The Lord will not do good, Nor will He do evil.’
Ezekiel 9:4 NKJV And the Lord said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done within it.”
God wants us to walk in humility and in reverence of Him.
“I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.” – William Booth
“What God says to His church at any given period depends altogether upon her moral and spiritual condition and upon the spiritual need of the hour. Religious leaders who continue mechanically to expound the Scriptures without regard to the current religious situation are no better than the scribes and lawyers of Jesus’ day who faithfully parroted the Law without the remotest notion of what was going on around them spiritually. They fed the same diet to all and seemed wholly unaware that there was such a thing as meat in due season. The prophets never made that mistake nor wasted their efforts in that manner. They invariably spoke to the condition of the people of their times.” – A.W. Tozer, “The Gift of Prophetic Insight”
- Be those who love God and the people He’s called us to serve more than ourselves.
1 Corinthians 9:16-18 NKJV For if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast of, for necessity is laid upon me; yes, woe is me if I do not preach the gospel! For if I do this willingly, I have a reward; but if against my will, I have been entrusted with a stewardship. What is my reward then? That when I preach the gospel, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge, that I may not abuse my authority in the gospel.
We need a leadership awakening to fill the vacuum of godly and courageous leaders.
- Revival will come by choice or by consequence.
“Transformation of an enterprise begins with a sense of crisis, or urgency. No institution will go through fundamental change unless it believes it is in deep trouble and needs to do something different to survive” — Louis V. Gerstner, Jr
- There needs to be an individual heart awakening that becomes a corporate church awakening if we’re to see lasting healing.
- We, the Church, need to get back to our spiritual moorings and biblical principles.
Psalm 11:3 NKJV If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
“Revival is neither more nor less than the impact of the personality of Jesus Christ upon a church or a community.” – Duncan Campbell
Acts 4:31 NKJV And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.
Psalm 110:2-3 NKJV The Lord shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion.
Rule in the midst of Your enemies! Your people shall be volunteers in the day of Your power; In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, You have the dew of Your youth.
Links to help you be ready:
Book:
- Leadership Awakening by Doug Stringer
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