The Return From Exile

Yesterday was the first day of our conference here in Charlotte. It’s hard to go on with life as usual in light of the devastation and suffering going on in New Orleans and Biloxi. It’s good to hear in the news that it’s the Church down there that’s rising to the occasion. We prayed at length for the victims and scrambled some emergency support. There aren’t a ton of people here and most are young, but I think I heard we raised about $3500 to buy water to send. Who knows what the death toll will be when things are tallied. I’m sure that the results will be far beyond anything we speculated. We will absolutely mourn and consider the tremendous loss of life. But can I just point out here that 4,400 babies are murdered in the womb every day of every week of every year, and no one mourns for them. We don’t consider them because we don’t believe they’re real people. If we took a moment to ask God what He thinks about them, what do we think He would say?

Yesterday began what will be 60 hours of non-stop worship and intercession–continual incense offered up before the Lord to see a changing in our nation. Who needs just another conference? Yes, there’s great music and t-shirts, but God has ignited our hearts for the house of prayer. It must be restored in the Church. He has made us a royal priesthood to make priestly intercession and kingly decrees. God’s people rule with Him from the quiet place. How did this get lost? How did we miss it on such a massive scale? But, as always, God has preserved a remnant. Thank God for all the little old ladies that understood the real power of prayer and made war in their prayer closets through the ages. Heart were changed, kings were swayed and nations were turned because of it. Something is rumbling again, and those with ears to hear are beginning to respond.

I was thinking about Nehemiah and Ezra today. They tell the story of how the exile’s hearts were stirred to return and rebuild Jerusalem. They left their lives and everything they knew behind in Babylon simply because God had given them an inner fire to restore the house of the Lord. I can’t help but think about what my family is doing. It doesn’t make much sense on, well, any level. But God has stirred our hearts for the house of the Lord. RESTORATION! When you get something like that, you either run after it or stay in exile.