SPRING FORWARD

One of my favorite days of the year is the day we set our clocks forward an hour. I love daylight savings time. To me, it is a call to spring. It is the springboard to a new season. I no longer have to close my home up at 4:30 in the afternoon; drapes & doors can stay open into the evening, the weather warms up just a bit, and the sun begins to show its face to melt any loitering snow.

My heart just soars! I feel a quickening in my spirit of the pre-requisite to a ‘new thing’ as it says in Isaiah.  This year is no different. It’s been a hard winter in our little town. One we aren’t used to.  But today nature is having its own revival.  Today, our grass is practically springing up in joy, our apple trees are pushing forth their little pink buds and the forsythia has become a yellow gift overnight, framing my front door.

Revival. Webster Dictionary defines it as a "renewed attention or interest in something". Synonyms: reanimation, rebirth, regeneration, rejuvenation, renewal, resurgence, resurrection, revitalization and revivification. 

Revival gets a bad rap. They go on for a few months or years changing cities, towns, countries and even the islands only to die off leaving everyone to go back to their old lifestyle. Revival ends and we allow the doors to open once again, letting the enemy swarm our gates with 7 times the demons of before. Our nation needs a rebirth right now. The whole world needs rejuvenated. We need a resurrection in the land. 

In John 11, we read about the resurrection of Lazarus. We know Jesus didn't run to His friends immediately but waited, saying "This sickness will not end in death for Lazarus, but will bring glory and praise to God. This will reveal the greatness of the Son of God by what takes place." And "for your sake, I'm glad I wasn't there, because now you have another opportunity to see who I Am so that you will learn to trust in me."  3 days later (what a beautiful shadow of what was to come) Jesus met Martha as she ran to Him. Martha said to Jesus, "My Lord, if only you had come sooner my brother wouldn't have died. But I know that if You were to ask God for anything, He would do it for You." Jesus told her, 'Your brother will rise and live.' Martha replied 'Yes, I know he will rise with everyone else on resurrection day.'" But Jesus said she didn't have to wait until then as He was the Resurrection and Life Eternal and that anyone who clings to Him in faith will live forever. Martha agreed that she believed and ran to get Mary. Jesus wept with compassion at the emotion of those around Him and "gazed into Heaven and said 'Father, thank you that you have heard my prayer, for you listen to every word I speak. ow, so that these who stand here with me will believe that you have sent me to the earth as your messenger, I will use the power You have give me.' The with a loud voice Jesus shouted with authority: 'Lazarus! Come out of the tomb!'" Lazarus hobbled out tightly wound in his grave clothes which they unbound to let him loose. "From that day forward many of those who had come to visit Mary believed in Him, for they had seen with their own eyes this amazing miracle!" (TPT)

This is such a beautiful example of revival and I believe it is time again to show the power and authority of Christ to the world. Right before this, in Chapter 10, at the Feast of Renewal, the Pharisee's tried to stone Jesus for truthfully affirming their question of whether He was the Messiah or not. As they came after Him, He told them "You stubbornly refuse to follow Me, because you are not My sheep. As I've told you before, My own sheep will hear My voice and I know each one and they will follow Me. I give to them the gift of eternal life and they will never be lost and no one has the power to snatch them out of My ads. My Father, who has given them to Me as His gift, is the mightiest of all and no one has the power to snatch them from My Father's care." (TPT) 

We are those beautifully adorned-with-the-Holy-Spirit sheep. Many have stayed in the shadows too long. Many just lost the vivre for life in His abundance. Many grew fearful of the Pharisee's responses. We may have waited, but now we have another opportunity to watch God move, to reveal the greatness of the Son of God by what takes place. No-one or nothing can snatch us from Papa's care. Even as the enemy opens the floodgates of division, hate, immortality, murder and infiltration, we are the salt!  We carry the Light of the World in our very beings. As we share the fruit of His goodness with others around us, as we bear the mandated authority to heal and deliver, as we cry out in prayer declaring freedom for the nations and decreeing God's Word over the people, we will see revival storm the globe. Beginning in the individual hearts of man and spreading across the ocean's waters the manifest presence of God will transform lives and cultures. There will be complete resurrection of life and many more will come to know the gift of the eternal and never be lost. 

Yep. I love this time of year. It brings a smile to my face as I watch the kids start playing outside again, listen to the sounds of lawn mowers and neighbors calling to each other from across the street. There is a reverberating expectancy of life as the sun frees our long-shivering winter-clad bodies. Jesus also frees. A glorification of the warmth of the Son over the Nations. It's my prayer. It's my hope. It's my Spring Forward.