The theme of revival is one that is recurring frequently at our church as God lays this topic on our hearts and moves us to pray. Dave spoke this morning from 2 Chronicles 7:6-15. The context of this passage is the dedication of the temple built by Solomon at which the glory of God was visible and God assured Solomon He would be present with them. 2 Chron 7:13-14 contain both a warning and a promise. If God’s people turned their backs on Him, the result would be consequences they would not like (no rain, locusts and plagues), but if they repented, prayed, sought His face and turned from their wicked ways, then He promised to hear and answer and heal their land.

We might feel this passage has little relevance to 21st century Britain, but God’s word is always relevant and if God is to be true to His word, there will still be consequences to our actions. Whatever we may think of local and international disasters, we need to seek God for our society and pray for revival. We are God’s people; we belong to Him and are His possession.

1. Humility

The first thing we are required to do is humble ourselves. Many shun humility, equating it with weakness, but a humble person is strong, understanding his worth and value but not boasting or puffing himself up with self-importance.

2. Pray

We need to learn to seek God and pray, not only ‘gimme prayers’ but prayers which focus on the greatness of God where we declare who He is and what He has done.

3. Seek God’s Face

We need to learn to persevere in prayer: asking, knocking and seeking (see Luke 11). We cannot afford to pay lip service to prayer, but must learn to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and seek His face for everything, including the wisdom and guidance we so desperately need in life.

4. Turn from wicked ways

Most of us do not like to think of ourselves as wicked, but Rom 3:23 reminds us that we have all sinned. We have to learn to confess our sins (Js 5:16). Evan Roberts, one of the men God used in the Welsh Revival, used to say that for God to move, the past must be cleared through confession, every doubt must be put away, our obedience must be prompt and we must be unafraid to confess Christ publicly. Only then can we be prepared to receive the revival which is heaven-sent.

If we do these things, then God promises to heal, repair and restore. He promises to hear our prayers, to forgive and to heal. God is calling us to pray for revival, and though this vision may tarry (Hab 2:3), we can be sure that God will fulfil every promise He has made.

February, although the shortest month of the year, can still seem arduous and gruelling. Winter continues its relentless hold on us with gales, rain, sleet and snow reminding us that it’s not yet spring. The barrenness of winter can be depressing, with grey skies and darkness robbing us of joy and vitality.

And yet February is pointing forward to spring. Snowdrops and daffodils are reminders that colour is coming. The mornings are lighter; dark doesn’t descend quite so early. We are moving towards spring, a season of burgeoning life and hope.

Just as there are predictable seasons of the year, set in place by God Himself, there are seasons of the soul. There are times of radiant joy, bursting faith, wide-eyed smiles and gladness of heart, but there are also times of darkness and sorrow where we cannot see fruitfulness at all.

Every week I walk past blackberry bushes with my granddaughter, who is now old enough to remember gathering fruit and eating delicious, wild blackberries on our walks last year. Every week she tells me there are no blackberries to be eaten now, but every week I remind her that blackberries are seasonal. They will return. We will have the joy of eating them again, for God is faithful.

This weekly walk has become a parable for my soul. If you are in the season of winter spiritually, if you are in a dry and barren place, hold on. Spring is coming. (Song of Songs 2:10-13) Fruitfulness actually thrives on the period of rest known as winter. Nothing may yet be visible, but God will surely bring forth fresh fruit at the appointed time.

It’s been a busy half-term week, but there are other things coming up soon.

We will be attending the Christian Life & WItness Training Course on Saturday 29th February at Maltby Full Life Church. This is part of the Franklin Graham mission to the UK and is designed to equip Christians to effectively share their faith with others. It is a free and easy three-hour session open to all people. Please do come along to this course between 9.30 a.m. and 12.30 p.m. and if you need a lift, just let us know! Even if you don’t want to be part of the actual mission in Sheffield (venue still to be announced, but the date is Saturday 6th June), the course is very useful in giving you the Scriptural assurance and skills to share the gospel with friends and family.

Please pray also for 4FrontTheatre as they return to Goldthorpe to bring their show ‘Fisherman’s Tail’ to Goldthorpe Primary School and Sacred Heart School on Tuesday 3rd March. The show was seen by Thurnscoe and Bolton-on-Dearne schools last year as well as members of the community, so we’re excited to be able to give local children the opportunity to learn about the life of Jesus through the eyes of those fishermen disciples.

The Women’s World Day of Prayer will be on Friday 6th March at 11.15 a.m. at Goldthorpe Parish Church on Lockwood Road. The service is open to all – not just women! Written by Christians from Zimbabwe, this year’s service looks at the healing of a paralysed man: ‘Rise! Take up your mat and walk.’

Looking further ahead, the next ‘Churches Together’ Day of Prayer will be on Friday 3rd April at Furlong Road Methodist Church between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. There will be many prayer stations and opportunities to pray individually, with others and in different creative forms.

Cornelius is described in Acts 10:2 as devout and God-fearing. His burgeoning belief in the God of the Jews was evidenced by his lifestyle: ‘he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly.’ (Acts 10:2) Nonetheless, he had not become a Jew and been circumcised and therefore to Jewish eyes, he was still pagan.

Many people can pinpoint the exact moment they became a Christian (and for Cornelius, this was a very precise moment!) What is not often recognised, however, is the journey to faith often involves steps on the way. Luke clearly recognised the value of the movement from paganism to ‘God-fearing’ before Christian conversion, and so should we.

C. S. Lewis is probably one of the most famous ‘gradual’ converts. At the age of seventeen, he was an atheist, declaring to his friend Arthur Greaves, ‘I believe in no religion. There is absolutely no proof for any of them, and from a philosophical standpoint Christianity is not even the best.’ In 1929 he described himself as a ‘dejected and reluctant convert’, believing in God, but not yet in Christ. It was only in 1931 that he became a Christian and subsequently became one of the most famous apologists for Christ in recent times.

Life is a journey and we may not know where on that journey to Christ an individual is. We should not despise those who, like Cornelius, still have some way to go, but we can seek to point everyone to Jesus as they travel.

God works with perfect timing in many different ways, timing that often involves years of divine preparation. We see how God’s timing was at work in the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10). He sent an angel to speak to Cornelius and tell him to send for Peter. Twenty-one hours later, with the men sent by Cornelius already en route from Caesarea to Joppa, God gave Peter a vision which would shake his Jewish principles to the core. While Peter was praying and seeing his vision, the men from Cornelius were approaching the city. While Peter was perplexed about the meaning of what he had seen, they arrived at the house. While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit told him the men were looking for him and to go with them without hesitation. When Peter went down and introduced himself to them, they explained the purpose of their visit to him. All of this was divine preparation to persuade Peter that he should not call unclean anything God had called clean (Acts 10:28) so that he would be willing to go and preach the gospel to Cornelius, a Roman centurion and a Gentile.

Often, it’s this timing and set of apparent ‘coincidences’ which help us to see God’s plan being outworked. In my own life, I see how God put different people in my path at different times to lead me to Him, preparing my heart, using my life experiences and background to bring me to faith. Circumstances and people may well seem random to us at times, but in God’s great tapestry, the strands are woven together to produce a picture that makes perfect sense. Every now and again, as in this story, the veil is lifted back so we can see how those strands are being woven together and we marvel at the intricacy and majesty involved. We who are bound by the linear progression of time sometimes find this hard to accept, but nothing is too difficult for God.

God is still working in divine preparation to bring people to Him. Could you be the next link in the chain?

It’s hard not to have personal preferences for all manner of things (colours, music, food, clothes) and most of the time, this is simply one way in which we express our own individuality. This can easily lead to having favourite things, but it becomes much more difficult when we move on to favourite people! Parents who have favourite children (and make this visible, as Jacob did, for example, with Joseph) often end up causing more problems than they solve, with the favourite being at risk of becoming spoilt and arrogant and everyone else feeling jealous, resentful and insecure.

We may feel that God has favourites: doesn’t the whole of the Old Testament imply this, in choosing to bless Abraham and through his seed calling Israel to be a holy nation? We may feel that God is the ultimate example of showing favouritism and end up either smug because we are part of His chosen people or resentful because we are not. But this is a very simplistic reading of the Scriptures.

Abraham was chosen not only to receive God’s blessing but to be a blessing: ‘all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.’ (Gen 12:3) The nation of Israel, who received God’s love and covenant, was called to be His light to the whole world. Although by the time of Jesus the religious hierarchy separated the world into ‘Jew’ and ‘Gentile’ (everyone who was not a Jew!), this did not mean that God loved one and not the other. Peter came to realise that ‘God does not show favouritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.’ (Acts 10:34-35) and part of the revolutionary truth of the gospel was that God’s invitation was extended to all people, whose response was based on repentance and faith in the saving work of Jesus Christ (‘Lord of all’) rather than on circumcision and birth.

In our multi-cultural, multi-racial society, it can be hard to grasp how revolutionary this teaching was (and still is!) Peter witnessed the Holy Spirit coming on Cornelius and those gathered as he was speaking and there was no way he could refute what God was doing. (Acts 10:44-47) Paul would go on to make explicit what happened on that day in many of his letters (see Romans 9-11, Eph 2:11-23), but this was a historic moment when so many prophecies began to be fulfilled and the liberating work of the gospel began to spread towards Rome, the centre of the civilised world at that time.