"Search me, O God, and know my heart..." ~Psalm 139:23
There are many times when Christians will pray for revival, and it never comes. And we know it's sin, and we keep on confessing those sins, but it just doesn't seem to do any good. God has been dealing with me personally with this particular issue. God wants to send revival! He will send revival; but he won't do it without a thorough investigation.
I like to refer to this procedure as CSI Revival. I've never seen the show CSI, but I love a good mystery, and a good investigation.
Take an investigation involving a serial killer. The police find the body, it's a mess, the victim is declared dead, Forensics analyzes the body and discovers that the killing involved strangulation with the use of a piano wire. All of this was determined; but I want to ask you an important question. If forensics determines how the victim was killed, is that going to prevent the serial killer from doing it again? Of course not.
Likewise, when it comes to sin; we often see the big bad sins. I mean the body is laying there in a pool of blood for all to see. Sin is ugly! And we mourn over it, and we know why the sin took place, but in order for us to do away with sin, the very thing that hinders revival, a thorough Crime Scene Investigation needs to take place. I think it's appropriate that the initials for Holy Spirit is HS; because when you flip that to SH, it's the initials for Sherlock Holmes! The Holy Spirit must do the searching in our lives.
Many times we look at the obvious. There's a dead body that's been strangled to death. But we often fail to recognize the motive. We often fail to recognize the footprint next to the body, or the tire tracks. We fail to notice the blood in the nails of the victim belonging to the killer during a struggle—perfect for DNA testing. We fail to notice the security cameras witnessing the whole thing, or the location, in the victim's home with no sign of a break-in which suggests that the victim knew the murderer and trusted him based on the way the victim was murdered, and the size of the footprint.
The Holy Spirit does not need to show the Christian that watching pornographic movies is wrong; that's the body in a pool of blood! No, the Christian's own regenerated spirit can determine that. Rather, the Spirit investigates thoroughly the root of such sin. We always think of drugs, alcohol, pornography, murder, lying, theft, covetousness as the big sins, when in fact, they are the obvious sins. We need the Holy Spirit to investigate and find the hidden sins...the roots if you will. Then, and only then will we find the serial killer—the roots that bring forth the apparent crime scene.
So Search me, O God, and know my heart.
I will continue to the next part, Try me—in the next post.
"Search me, O God, and know my heart..." ~Psalm 139:23
There are many times when Christians will pray for revival, and it never comes. And we know it's sin, and we keep on confessing those sins, but it just doesn't seem to do any good. God has been dealing with me personally with this particular issue. God wants to send revival! He will send revival; but he won't do it without a thorough investigation.
I like to refer to this procedure as CSI Revival. I've never seen the show CSI, but I love a good mystery, and a good investigation.
Take an investigation involving a serial killer. The police find the body, it's a mess, the victim is declared dead, Forensics analyzes the body and discovers that the killing involved strangulation with the use of a piano wire. All of this was determined; but I want to ask you an important question. If forensics determines how the victim was killed, is that going to prevent the serial killer from doing it again? Of course not.
Likewise, when it comes to sin; we often see the big bad sins. I mean the body is laying there in a pool of blood for all to see. Sin is ugly! And we mourn over it, and we know why the sin took place, but in order for us to do away with sin, the very thing that hinders revival, a thorough Crime Scene Investigation needs to take place. I think it's appropriate that the initials for Holy Spirit is HS; because when you flip that to SH, it's the initials for Sherlock Holmes! The Holy Spirit must do the searching in our lives.
Many times we look at the obvious. There's a dead body that's been strangled to death. But we often fail to recognize the motive. We often fail to recognize the footprint next to the body, or the tire tracks. We fail to notice the blood in the nails of the victim belonging to the killer during a struggle—perfect for DNA testing. We fail to notice the security cameras witnessing the whole thing, or the location, in the victim's home with no sign of a break-in which suggests that the victim knew the murderer and trusted him based on the way the victim was murdered, and the size of the footprint.
The Holy Spirit does not need to show the Christian that watching pornographic movies is wrong; that's the body in a pool of blood! No, the Christian's own regenerated spirit can determine that. Rather, the Spirit investigates thoroughly the root of such sin. We always think of drugs, alcohol, pornography, murder, lying, theft, covetousness as the big sins, when in fact, they are the obvious sins. We need the Holy Spirit to investigate and find the hidden sins...the roots if you will. Then, and only then will we find the serial killer—the roots that bring forth the apparent crime scene.
So Search me, O God, and know my heart.
I will continue to the next part, Try me—in the next post.