Renhetens Elv (Jesus kom til Jordan for å dø)

Norwegian. Translation = River of Grace, Jesus came to earth to die.

Given to mankind for all to believe.
Sacrifice of life for all to receive.
-Øle Borud

Right now there is a Danish revival happening, led by a man named Mikael Thomsen. He is young, but he is wise and passionate about the things of God. In a culture where anti-religion is the best a Christian can afford, but paganism is the norm, the message that Mikael gives is in direct contradiction to his society. In almost all of the traditional Scandinavian countries paganism and very specifically anti-Christian sentiment is a cultural norm, can and is punishable by law if you preach outside a church. It’s considered a hate crime. It’s considered “anti-family.”

Look around at other countries around the world and their policies and laws. Look at our own Country and the way it has been going for the past century. The majority of legal actions have been taken in the name of morality! The entire world as we know is trying to undergo a change of how we define morality.

Justification is all the rage, perceptionism and popularism is abundant in our own America. Baseless existentialism is the best we can expect of any decent apologia (Ancient Greek = reasoned response) to the rest of our Country. We can’t define, we can’t explain, we can’t give an intelligent reasoned response for what we believe and why it is God who gives us the moral framework in which to live. We just “feel” it to be true.

Paul Washer in some of his recent messages has made this declaration,

“If the Church in America is to survive it either needs to undergo a massive revival or horrible persecution.”

We need to grow from the inside out. Teach each other, extol one another, keep each accountable and grow in the Lord to His glory. Let our hearts be put aflame with His truth with an unquenchable passion which a power that knows no chains of hell! Or we will undergo a persecution in our own ‘godly nation’ that will teach us the hard way.

Many people will renounce their faith in either situation. It is quite possible that a revival will happen and persecution will be the countries answer to it. People will see consequence to their actions and follow the dictates of their hearts – deceitfully wicked God hating hearts.

“Whoever loves this life shall lose it, whoever loses this life will gain it in eternity.”

I’ve seen a lot of people, many of them my friends, place their hope in the recent Presidential election. Yes, the leader of this nation will represent us unified before God. Yes, God will bless a nation who’s leader follows the will of God. Yes, there is much at stake if this position is misused. But our hope is not in Presidents, it’s not in a conservative agenda, it’s not in historical landmarks or political representations before God, it is in Christ alone.

The One who sits at the right hand of God almighty died and became all abomination and sin, threw damnation and condemnation into hell and came back to life to save us! If you don’t understand what I mean by Jesus becoming sin understand this – you are not saved because Jesus was tortured. You are not saved because the Jews betrayed Him and the Romans beat Him, you aren’t even saved because He died on a cross. You are saved because on that cross He took all iniquity and sin, bore it upon Himself as our propitiation before God the Just and had His Father look away.

“Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

We have forgotten this in America. We have reduced following God and all of His mandates to “it’s a relationship with Christ alone.” We are weak, thin skinned and rebellious anything else that resembles God. We just want our Christ that died on a cross because He loves me.

If that’s your view on Christ you will never understand the depth of His love for you. It so much more than just He loves you and died for you…He gave up perfect and holy communion with God to take your debt so that you might have fellowship with Him again.

God has been removed from the cornerstone of our country to an option that is open to any emotionally needy citizen.

We need revival. Yea, we need persecution. We need something to take us out of our apathy and contentment with cultural norms. It’s not because Barack Obama is President, it’s because we put him there. We, the people, have created a representative democracy that can only go down the tubes as it were if we let it. And we have.

Pray for our President in earnest. Pray for our Country. Pray for revival and persecution if need be. Pray for fathers hearts to turn to their children, pray for men to be men and women to be women.

But most of all pray for brokenness. Pray for a broken, contrite heart before God. That is all He ever wants from us.