Thursday, September 27, 2018

Seek His Face - Sarah Young


Seek My face at the beginning of your day.

This practice enables you to "put Me on" and "wear Me" throughout the day.

Most people put on clothes soon after arising from bed. Similarly, the sooner you "put Me on" by communicating with Me, the better prepared you are for whatever comes your way.

To "wear Me" is essentially to have My mind: to think My thoughts. Ask the Holy Spirit to control your thinking; be transformed by this renewal within you.

Thus you are well-equipped to face whatever people and situations I bring your way.

Clothing your mind in Me is your best preparation for each day.

This discipline brings Joy and Peace to you and those around you. 

--From Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young

Sunday, September 9, 2018

God of Abundance - Sarah Young


As you sit quietly in My Presence, remember that I am a God of abundance.

I will never run out of resources; My capacity to bless you is unlimited.

You live in a world of supply and demand, where necessary things are often scarce.

Even if you personally have enough, you see poverty in the world around you.

It is impossible for you to comprehend the lavishness of My provisions; the fullness of My glorious riches.

Through spending time in My Presence, you gain  glimpses of My overflowing vastness.

These glimpses are tiny foretastes of what you will experience eternally in heaven.

Even now you have access to as much of Me as you have faith to receive.

Rejoice in My abundance--living by faith, not by sight.
                  --Sarah Young, Jesus Calling 

And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:19


  

Monday, September 3, 2018

An Old-Time Revival

These quotes are from The Eager Feet, Evangelical Awakenings, 1790-1830, by J.Edwin Orr. Dr. Orr is considered the foremost authority on modern  revivals. He was a popular Baptist lecturer and writer. He died in 1987.

I picked up the book because I heard Dr. Orr speak several times at Moody and loved to hear his comments on early modern revivals, not just here in the United States, but around the world.

And also because in researching my ancestors, I have found out that my great (6x) grandfather, Samuel Parker, became a Baptist around 1790. He had moved to Georgia by then and great revivals were occurring there at that time. Later (the 1820's) he and his three sons, Noah, Peter and Samuel, served as missionaries for the Baptist church, founding churches on the frontier.

They had moved to Alabama (1817) by then. They founded a number of churches, including the First Baptist of Pensacola, Florida. 

My sister and I visited one of the churches they founded, Elim Baptist Church, which is still having services today, in Escambia, Alabama, in eastern Alabama, just a few miles from the Florida state line.

Dr. Orr's writing is full of interesting facts and examples of faithful servants extending God's Kingdom.

Chapter 8, On the Western Frontier, 1790

Because of the great need on the western frontier, there were covenants to spend the third Saturday of each month in prayer and fasting, and it was agreed to pray half an hour after sunset on Saturdays and a like time before dawn Sundays for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

As many as fifty thousand people in some areas were without a preacher of any denomination....

In what is now West Virginia, a communion service in late September 1802 went on all night...Two weeks later, because of this interest, another communion service was celebrated, attended by ten thousand people camping for four days..


The Baptists gained hugely from the South Carolina back-country awakening. In the revivals of 1802-1803, the little frontier church of Padgett's Creek gained 287 members, Bethel 247, Fairmont 216, Bush River 149, Big Creek 124 and thirty-five new churches came into existence with ten thousand whites and blacks as members; in all a gain of 80% in three years.

The awakening in North Carolina attracted huge crowds across the State throughout 1802 and 1803 and continued into 1804 and 1805. The vast crowds gathered in the open fields, and ministers of all denominations served their needs.

In May of 1802 a pioneer Presbyterian Church in Waxhaw, South Carolina, saw a memorable revival of religion. A score of ministers of the various denominations attended, among them four Baptists, three Methodists and eleven Presbyterians. The lay people came in twenty carts and a hundred twenty wagons, to a total of 3500, a great crowd for a sparsely populated area.

In 1801, the awakening had reached Tennessee. Some indication of the impact upon the Baptists is noted in the records of the Elkhorn Association, the oldest organization. In 1799, its twenty-nine churches reported twenty-nine conversions, but in 1801 the churches of the association reported 3011 received baptism and testimony, organizing 9 more churches. A year later, twelve more churches were organized. The Presbyterians and Methodists gained likewise from the revival.

The Baptists went as farmer-preachers, to start new congregations; the Methodists sent, as circuit riders, to do the same. The Presbyterians waited for a call. 

 [Note from Glorya: that last sentence makes me laugh. Apparently I don't understand it enough - others were going - why didn't they just go? Is it a doctrine thing? Somebody tell me, please]

(My ancestors, Samuel Parker and his three sons, would have been among those "farmer-preachers."  They spent a lot of time organizing frontier churches and often working with them was a Methodist circuit-rider named Alexander Travis. Two interesting facts about him: (1) he was a direct ancestor of  Darlyne Ward and (2) he was the uncle of Texas' own William Travis who died at the Alamo.

Here's another example of God's mysterious hand at work in history - here I am in Brazoria, Texas, researching family history and I discover that my ancestors were Baptist missionaries in Alabama in the 1820's. Then I find out that the preacher for their new churches was the uncle of William Travis, who was an attorney, living in Brazoria, Texas in the 1820's.... is this amazing or what?)