Recap: Revival 2005
This has probably been the best revival I’ve had in my years here at CFC. Sure, John Teter was an awesome speaker last year, but I was having a tough year and it was a struggle during revival to get blessed. I missed revival the year before due to working. And maybe the messages weren’t as good as Dr. Zimmerman’s Faith in the Furnace or Rev Paul Kim’s Do you believe that God is Good? (If you’ve never heard these sermons, listen to them on the CFC website). What made this revival great was the convictions. Just meditating on the sermons and how they apply to my life convicted me. I just wish I had more time to think about the sermons during revival so that I could respond during the worship and prayer times.
The underlying point that hit me was Surrender. Thursday’s message was about surrendering my ladders of success and achievement to climb down the ladder and join Jesus at the bottom where he finds glory. Friday was about surrendering decisions. I used to blame Adam for eating the fruit. If he didn’t screw up, we’d all be good. But if I were in his position, I’d also eat the fruit because I want to decide. I want to decide my future, my life. I want to be in control but we need to surrender ourselves to Christ. Saturdays was about being the never-ridden before donkey. He knew who was in control and allowed Jesus to direct him. Surrender.
Then I went to Marketplace BibleStudy and the topic was stewardship. And this all works together because the big question mark in my life right now is my future. What am I going to do? My desire for success and achievement tell me to find the highest paying job to show myself and everyone else how well I’ve done for myself and how I ‘made’ in college and climbed the ladder. Not only is this wrong on so many levels of pride, selfishness, self-dependence, and self-glorification, but it also leads down the road to greed, materialism, and the love of money. The pull of money is so great. I need to learn to surrender these decisions and follow Christ. This soul still needs to do a lot of repenting, surrendering and focusing. Revival was great. It opened my eyes to issues I have that need to be resolved that were hidden and clouded before. Let the blessings and convictions continue as I seek Christ.