Pour Your Spirit Out
Joel 2:28-29

In this time of prayer and fasting, one of the things we are seeking and believing for is that God will bring revival to our lives, to our cities, to our country, and throughout the world. We desire to see salvation flood the streets as families and communities are completely transformed.  And for this to happen, we not only need to desire and pray for revival, but we also need the Spirit of God to be poured out on us.

The book of Joel tells us that some of the signs of the Spirit of God being poured out on us will be dreams, visions, and words from God for people.

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.” Joel 2:28-29

These verses promise that no one has to be excluded from this when it happens.

It doesn’t matter your age, your gender, your demographic, your spiritual upbringing, or education – everyone is a candidate for God to pour His Spirit out.

YOU are a candidate for God to pour His Spirit out!

As you fast, part of your prayer should be asking God to pour out His Spirit on you, that He would speak to you and use you. And through the spiritual disciplines of prayer and fasting, you are denying yourself and your desires in order to hear God more clearly. You can know that God is going to speak to you as you continue to speak to Him through this fast. Whether it is through a dream or a vision, or giving you a word for someone, God will speak.

It is up to us to be obedient to what God is telling us. And when we are obedient, when we step out in faith and speak up with boldness, we get to play a vital role in the revival that is coming.

Be encouraged by the fact that God is true to His word – if we pray, He will pour out His spirit.

Are you ready?

Ready to see it?

Ready to receive it?

Ready to be used by God?

Ready for revival?

God is hearing our prayers and has promised to pour out His Spirit.

We will see revival! We will be a part of it!

The Power of Remembering
Psalm 103:1-5

We have all had this experience: you are sitting peacefully on your couch when the urge to get something from your bedroom hits you. So, you jump up and march into your room full of purpose and meaning. However, somewhere between your living room and your room, your thoughts get distracted. Your body keeps going on the original purpose, but your mind has moved on. Suddenly, you find yourself staring into your closet. Your body has reached the intended destination, but your mind is desperately searching for the reason you are standing there.

We have all had this sudden lapse in memory, it can be incredibly frustrating! And one lapse in concentration can completely derail our sense of purpose. We had a mission when we started marching down the hall towards our room, but now we don’t even know what we were doing or why we were doing it. 

This same thing can happen to us spiritually if we are not careful. We can start off with purpose and meaning, only to get distracted along the way. As we continue this fast, it can be easy to let the discomfort of fasting distract our minds from what we are going towards. 

The key to making sure this kind of spiritual drifting does not happen lies in the power of remembering. When we keep our focus on who God is and what He has done, it will fortify our sense of purpose and meaning.

That is why in Psalm 103 King David tells us, “Let all that I am praise the LORD” (v. 1). There is power in praising Him and remembering His goodness; it has a clarifying and stabilizing effect on us. Praising God allows us to keep His character in front of us and His presence around us.

But the Psalm doesn’t stop at just praise; David closes out verse two with this profound statement: “May I never forget the good things He does for me”.  From that declaration, the psalmist launches into a list of the wonderful blessings that are available for all who believe. There is power in remembering who God is and declaring what He has done. As we testify of what He has already done, we simultaneously proclaim what He will do!

If we want to see God do greater things in our lives, we have to remember to always keep God’s praise on our lips and His goodness in our minds!

The Light of the World
John 8:12, Matthew 5:14-5:16

Has this ever happened to you? It’s 2:00 a.m., and suddenly, you are wide awake. You try falling back asleep, but it’s not working. You head to the kitchen and grab a drink of water, hoping that will help. You don’t want to wake anybody, so you decide to go covert and not turn on any of the lights. It becomes quite the journey of feeling for walls, quietly tiptoeing, and making sure you don’t step on any Legos. You make it to the kitchen, get your drink, and head back to bed. You completed your midnight mission, and the water was just what you needed to get back to sleep.

It’s funny that turning on the lights in this scenario would make everything easier. You choose not to turn on the lights because you don’t want to disturb anyone. Light can’t help but impact its environment. When a light is turned on in the dark, it gets people’s attention. That being the reality, it is very fitting that Jesus is the “light of the world.” Jesus came into a broken world and revolutionized it with his teachings and miracles.

What’s interesting about Jesus saying he is the light of the world is that it can seem to come in opposition with what he says in Matthew that “we are the light of the world.” So, which is it? Is Jesus the light of the world, or are we the light of the world? The answer is yes. We are the light of the world because Jesus, who is the light of the world, lives in us.

This means we can live in a way that radically impacts our environment, just like Jesus did. So how do we do that? We do it by letting His power operate through us. We take time to stop and pray for someone to be healed. We share an encouraging word with the person God places on our hearts. We step out in boldness to share the Gospel with a stranger. As we walk in obedience, we see God do the extraordinary in us and through us.

During this season of prayer and fasting, God will give you opportunities to shine His light. Be bold, step out in faith, and watch God do the supernatural through you!