Spread the Fire - January 2008 - (Page 9)

heart only through the cleft in Jesus’ side. We have access to salvation only through blood and water. Today’s outpouring of the Father’s blessing proceeds from the same fountainhead as has every visitation of God, Jesus Christ. It starts there, and it is there we must wait between visitations. Are you asking to see His glory without wanting to see His glory filtered through the risen Lord Jesus Christ? THE RAVENS, THE CROSS While Elijah waited by the brook Cherith, God spoke to him again in a disturbing symbol, ‘I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.’ (I K 17:4 KJV) Seekers of divine visitation seek life, not death; the dove, not the raven; but God was about to sustain Elijah’s life by means of a creature that symbolized death. The Christian’s secret of spiritual sustenance is that the life of Christ within them comes out through death, by taking up His cross. While they accept and rejoice in the secondary phenomena of signs, gifts, and visions; they know that during the times of drought, it is the raven, not the dove that will bring them the first course. A careful read of the history of revival in the Church reveals this: Without accepting the ravens’ food which is the cross, the use of the dove’s gifts may turn out to be superficial and passing. A profound work of the cross is an essential precursor for revival, especially for the leaders and pastors who guide the flock and are responsible to steward the visitation. Every revival leader in Church history paid a heavy, secret price. They dined with the ravens before the dove arrived to bless the multitudes. How many of them suffered humiliation, rejection, weakness, loneliness, sickness and other meager meats before God spread a table for the multitudes? So often the multitudes that rejoice in the days of visitation have no idea of the price others have paid for their table of more pleasant fare. as well as unites the body of Christ. TO ZAREPHATH AND RESURRECTION God loves us and knows our frame. He will not spend more time than necessary threshing the wheat. I Kings 17 says, ‘And it came to pass after awhile that the brook dried up’. God won’t leave us at the brook forever. We are not called to perpetual death and suffering, but to the resurrection that follows. Some of the Christian mystics of the Middle Ages made this mistake. They over-emphasized the cross and wound up taking a morbid pleasure in death. God spoke to Elijah and said, ‘Arise, Get thee to Zarephath…and there I have commanded a widow woman to sustain thee.’ Here is a third element that will sustain us between revivals. The widow of Zarephath represents the life of faith and costly sacrifice that must precede as well as follow visitation. The mercies of God are new every morning, but so are His demands of love and sacrifice. I see a close parallel here between the Samaritan woman at the well and the widow of Zarephath. Both were asked to give something to God and His representative: one, a drink; the other, a cake. God supernaturally provided them with an abundant return on their investments: to the one, living water; to the other, a living barrel of meal and an overflowing cruse of oil. ” But what finally brought an end to the drought and the great outpouring of God’s Spirit upon the land? S TF - 9 ‘The barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail’.

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Spread the Fire - January 2008 Contents In the River Thriving Between Times of Revival How the River Changed Our Church Taking Our Revival Temperature Therefore, Go... International Itinerary Resource Center Catalogue Upcoming Events Visitor Information

Spread the Fire - January 2008

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