The call to awakening is the call to "come home."
Come home from our impossible schedules that have left us out of breath and out of touch with God. Come home from the trivial diversions that have robbed us of time with the Lord. Come home from loud radio commercials, loud television shows, and other mindless chatter that keep us from hearing God's still, small voice.
"'Like a flock of birds, they will come...trembling like doves, they will return...and I will bring them home again,' says the Lord." Hosea 11:11, NLT
When knowing Him is our personal prayer, awakening stops being theoretical and starts becoming deeply personal.
"Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him." Philippians 3:8-9, NLT
The call to awakening means coming to God daily just as we are. Jesus invites, "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28, NKJV
We come to Him with all our baggage, knowing that He already knows what we are carrying inside. This means coming to Him as one who has been "damaged in shipment." It means coming as a broken vessel in need of repair, a vessel that needs to be reshaped. Our Savior decrees, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." Matthew 5:3-4, NKJV
The call to spiritual awakening is a call for us to come to God as children who have wandered from a loving parent. "But to all who believed Jesus and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God." John 1:12, NLT
The call to spiritual awakening is to all of us who want to know we are forgiven, accepted, and loved again-as if for the first time.
"God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love-not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins." 1 John 4:9-10, NLT
Today, many of us have heard this call to a Jesus-Now Awakening, the ones who have been gripped by conviction, confession, and repentance. "Who, then, ascends into the presence of the Lord? And who has the privilege of entering into God's Holy Place? Those who are clean - whose works and ways are pure, whose hearts are true and sealed by the truth, those who never deceive, whose words are sure." Psalm 24:3-4, TPT
The called are the men and women coming home to the Father we had once forgotten, ignored, or for whom we've simply been too busy. We are like a remnant in a dry season crying, "Oh God, move. Move in me!"
We pray for God's children today as Hezekiah prayed for Israel's delivery millennia ago, "O Lord of Heaven's Armies, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth. Bend down, O Lord, and listen! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see!... Now, O Lord our God, rescue us...then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God." Isaiah 37:16-17, 20, NLT
Is this your voice? Is this your prayer? Do you want to know what it feels like to be alive again? Would you like to come home?
Come home to Jesus. He is waiting.
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and [fellowship] with him, and he with Me." Revelation 3:20, NKJV
Phillips, Tom (2016-11-01). Jesus Now: God Is Up to Something Big (Chapter 7 p. 167-171). BroadStreet Publishing Group LLC.
