Monday, January 10, 2005

A Week of Consecration

Our pastor has challenged us to observe, in the coming week, a time of personal consecration. As he put it in his message this Sunday, Canada is in a time of moral crisis and it has happened on our watch. We need to prepare ourselves to meet with God. We need to spend time in intercession for family, community, our land, the world. But perhaps more than anything else, we need a time of personal revival. In the words of the prophet Joel.

vs.12 - Therefore also now, says the Lord, turn and keep on coming to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning [until every hindrance is removed and the broken fellowship is restored.]

vs. 13 - Rend your hearts and not your garments, and return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in loving-kindness, and He revokes His sentence of evil [when his conditions are met].

vs. 16 - Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elderly people, gather the children and the nursing infants; let the bridegroom [who is legally exempt from attending] go forth from his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. [None is exempt from the humiliation.]

vs. 17 - Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Have pity and spare Your people, O Lord, and give not Your heritage to reproach, that the [heathen] nations should rule over them or use a byword against them. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is your God? (Joel 2:12, 13, 16, 17 - Amplified Bible)

As part of my response to this challenge, I will be cutting back on my web activities this week, including making entries to this blog. I will be doing a personal study on consecration, which I will post here.

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