roniya“Live for the glory of God and the good of many.”

Hello everyone,

I’m going to attempt to catch up on blogging our trip….even if it is over.  I am going to do three sections, Ireland, Wales and London.  I’ve pretty much blogged everything on our Ireland trip but I’ll share my notes from the revival conference in Dublin and how the Lord worked there.

~Joy

Dublin Revival Conference:

I managed to listen to three messages at the first revival conference.  Here are my notes from two of them:

“What is Revival” – David Legge

Our God is holy – unique, there is none like Him nor will there ever be anyone like Him.  We cannot define God! If you want to know what God looks like look at Jesus Christ because He is the incarnate God.

Isaiah 57:15 – Revival often begins with a dissatisfaction with the status quo.  For the fallow ground to be broken there must be a seeking for God.  When revival comes, God comes.  The authenticity  of our desire for revival is measured and is relevant to our desire for God. We must long for God more than anything else!

Do we want God?

Revival is reaching higher for a greater knowledge of God. My goal is God Himself.

Little children, keep yourselves from idols, from ‘its’.  From the things that take the place of God.

[Bro David’s message contained some things that the Lord had taught me only a few weeks previously.  In His mercy the Lord revealed an idol in my life, an ‘it’ that I was seeking more than the knowledge of Jesus Christ.  I didn’t even realize it was in my heart.  It’s shocking how blind and deceived we can be to the idols in our lives.  Truly our cry should be to the Lord to open our eyes and help us to see!]

If you want a deeper knowledge of God you must bend low.  You must be broken. We have been sold the lie that broken things are useless but God uses broken things.  God resists the proud but He cannot resist the humble.  Dying to self and to selfishness will bring brokenness into your life.

You have been crucified with Christ and you’re just playing catch-up with your mind and heart.  You are dead to sin!

If you’re not right with God then you know you’re not right with your brother (and vice-versa).  Embrace the brokenness!  We have the choice of being broken or unbroken. Stay at the cross!

Confession – Keeping in the light and confess your sins when you fall.  Don’t struggle with your sins.  Confess them.

Filling – God will not fill a dirty cup. But if you’re broken and clean then you will be filled

The only life that pleases God is the life of His only begotten Son.

Revival is reaching high for the high and lofty One, bending low, keeping short accounts with God and continuously being filled with the Holy Ghost. And this will be a continual happening in the life of the revived believer.

The illustration of the little girl in bed with the picture of Jesus above her bed and the mirror in front of her bed.  If she remained laying down in the bed than she could see the picture of Jesus reflected on the mirror, but when she set up all she could see was herself. “When I can’t see myself I see Jesus, but every time I see myself I can’t see Him.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Busyness vs. Spiritual Discipline– Paul Washer [I highly recommend this message]

Mark 1

One of the greatest tactics of the devil is to make you busy, noisy, to keep you away from times of quiet.

Every Christian who is filled with the Holy Spirit, walking in the will of God and working as one has been gifted, virtue will go out of them.

Jesus knew that He needed to be with His Father.  He didn’t take care of all of the needs of the people before going to be with the Father.  He left the people.  He met alone with God before the day began.

Do you know the night watches?  The Christian life is communion with Him!  When was the last time you just sat quietly and just thought great thoughts about God and delighted in Who He is? And just listened?

Prayer life is thanksgiving, remembering, confession, communion.  One of our greatest needs is to delight in Him and spend time with God.

The most astounding thing about Jesus Christ was His praying.  And that is why His disciples asked Him, “Lord teach us to pray.”  They knew it was His area of expertise.  NO one could pray like Him!  There is no man who has exhausted the powerful resource of prayer.

1 Tim. 4:1 –

1. You must be nourished constantly on the Word of God.  If you want to be used of God it is most important that you realize  that you need to be nourished by the Word of God daily!

2. Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.  You are called to have a plan to grow yourself in godliness. Matt. 5:13 – Salt has certain characteristics.  A true disciple of Jesus that has an impact on the world will have certain characteristics.

Matt. 5:3-12 – These are the characteristics of a true disciple. We have an impact on the world by having Christ-like Character! Train yourself in godliness.  What we need are young men with character, with integrity, with depth!  The message we share, do we live it ourselves?  Do you want to impress the world? Live like Jesus Christ, live sacrificially as He did.  Have you studied the Scriptures about speech? Godly conduct? Have you studied love?

3. The Holy Spirit

The empowering of the church.  You must cry out for the outpouring of the Spirit of God on your life.

Long, pray, pant for the Spirit of Christ!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Sunday evening in Dublin we went to hear bro Paul Washer preach and he preached on 2 Cor. 5:21.  It is the same message that he gave in Wales at the conference.  At the end of this message the first time I heard it I wanted to go on my face and worship the Lord.  I wasn’t able to due to the circumstances of the evening but in Wales….I was able to worship and I saw the Lord high and lifted up and all I could cry was ‘I am undone’.  In His mercy the Lord revealed His holy, holy holy character to me and also the depravity and exceeding sinfulness of man apart from Christ. Oh! How great is the mercy of God towards the most undeserving, wretched, and desperately needy creature – mankind.

Paul Washer (Dublin)

1 Cor. 5:21 – Jesus walked on this earth as a perfect man.  There has never been one moment when you have loved God as He deserves – with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Never. But Jesus Christ has never had one moment when He has not loved God as God deserves.  He has always loved God with ALL of His heart, mind, soul and strength.

One of our problems is that we do not see how wicked our sin is.  The great problem of man IS that God is just.  It’s not a problem to have a just judge unless you’re a criminal.  God cannot turn and pretend He doesn’t see your sin.  Hell is filled with the justness of God.  How can God forgive wicked men? His Son took on the perfect form of man and voluntarily took on our sins.  God Himself absorbed His wrath in Himself in His Son.  Christ was always the perfect Man.

At the moment when a person believes on Jesus Christ unto salvation they are justified.  The sins of God’s people were imputed to Jesus Christ.  On the cross Jesus took on our sins and God treated Him as the guilty One.

We do not understand that we ought to be condemned.  Because we have broken God’s law, you’re under a curse.  A curse is when God withdraws all favor from a man and pours out His wrath on him.  Matthew 5 – If you’re blessed, it’s only because Jesus Christ was cursed.

God hates evil – this is good news for us.  God is love thus He must hate evil.

The writings of John Flavel on ‘The Father’s Bargain’.

“Use 6. Hence judge, How reasonable it is that believers should embrace the hardest terms of obedience unto Christ, who complied with such hard terms for their salvation: they were hard and difficult terms indeed, on which Christ received you from the Father’s hand: it was, as you have heard, to pour out his soul unto death, or not to enjoy a soul of you. Here you may suppose the Father to say, when driving his bargain with Christ for you

Father. My Son, here is a company of poor miserable souls, that have utterly undone themselves, and now lie open to my justice! Justice demands satisfaction for them, or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them: What shall be done for these souls? And thus Christ returns.

Son. O my Father, such is my love to, and pity for them, that rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their Surety; bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe thee; Lord, bring them all in, that there may be no after-reckonings with them; at my hand shalt thou require it. I will rather choose to suffer thy wrath than they should suffer it: upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt.

Father. But, my Son, if thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite, expect no abatements; if I spare them, I will not spare thee.

Son. Content, Father, let it be so; charge it all upon me, I am able to discharge it: and though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures, (for so indeed it did, 2 Cor. viii. 9. “Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor”) yet I am content to undertake it. Blush, ungrateful believers, O let shame cover your faces; judge in yourselves now, hath Christ deserved that you should stand with him for trifles, that you should shrink at a few petty difficulties, and complain, this is hard, and that is harsh? O if you knew the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in this his wonderful condescension for you, you could not do it.”

Hell is absolute perfect justice.  Hell is when you receive from God’s eternity exactly what you deserve.

The Son: “I am able to discharge it.”

Saving faith – you fall upon Christ with a desperation and nothing can persuade you to let go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Notes from Wales message (The Lost Gospel):

The discipline of God on the church are the men God has given to her pulpits.  What we need most is the Word of God preached through the power of God.

Revival is pursuing Jesus Christ.  Heaven will be tracking down the glory of Christ and the Gospel of Christ.

2 Cor. 5:21 – one goal: to know Christ.

Everything the Father has ever done He has done for His Son.

“Be made righteous” – the moment that a person places their faith in Jesus Christ, they are declared right with God and when declared with with God, God treats them as right with Him.  When I stand before God I stand having the righteousness of Christ imputed to me and God can treat me as being right with God.

Do you want to know what it is to be under a curse? The very last thing that a man will hear who is under a curse as he takes his first step into hell will be all creation standing and applauding God for ridding the earth of such a creature as him.

[my thoughts on Isa 53 – ‘Surely He hath born our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.”  Imagine seeing the vilest man on earth who has committed atrocious crimes and God smites him with every curse and affliction possible, we would declare God just in doing that….this is what Christ took on for me.  He was cursed of God in my place!]

You are saved because of what God the Father did to God the Son on that tree.  The wrath of God was in that cup.  Justice will have it’s day with you.  It will either be one Calvary for you or an eternal day of judgment in hell.

Jesus Christ loves men.

Christians need to repent of the Gospel they are propagating.

God saved you from Himself, for Himself, and by Himself.

That one Man on that tree was worth more than them all.