Revival: Birthed From a Place of Prayer

Church today blew my mind. Justin preached on Identity, and how to often we taken the worst part of Calvinism (God is sovereign and has a perfect plan for my life) and the worst of Armenianism (I have free will and can make choices), constructing something like this...

Worst case scenario that we tend to come up with in our minds:

God has a specific plan for your life (Reformed/Calvinism); you have to make choices (Armenian); but God hides his plan from you and if you choose wrong you miss his "best" - then you are condemned to live out a second-rate life (consequences of sin); with God and you playing out a continual adjustment of your life plan (more movie than Bible). The result is a life of regret, longing for the life that was "meant to be".

Justin encouraged us to know that we are sons and daughters of God, and that even if we sin and he has to take us to the woodshed (i.e. discipline us), he does so because he loves us very, very much, and it doesn't change the fact that he has a wonderful plan for our lives. We are not destined to lead second-rate lives.

------------Understanding our identity, and also....deeply knowing and believing in who God says he is------is KEY to living a revivalist lifestyle. If we don't know the authority and power that God has granted us, if we don't know and believe that he is a raging romantic, head-over-heels in love with us, then we're not going to be able to operate in the fullness of a revivalist lifestyle. 

------------------Phoenix-area revival update-------------------------
Emily and I got together with three other ladies....Bev, Gloria, and Kim, to share ideas/strategies for this region, and to pray together. I was really encouraged...my faith was stirred. God wants to do something in this region. He is moving key players into place. It's coming! :)

I think we are going to continue to get together to pray, although I don't know how often.

I really think that revival is birthed from a place of prayer. More thoughts on this later....but or now, that's quite a bit to chew on.

And so, I've got my pray-for-revival cap on - and I'm going to contend for his power and his manifest presence. WOOT!