Shifting Priorities

0:00:00     Hey, I heard a politician say, America needs revival. Wasn’t a pastor, wasn’t a minister, it was a politician. What does he know that you don’t know? Check out this podcast, more faith, more life, and I’m going to tell you all about it. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another more faith, more Life podcast. I heard something amazing from a politician the other day. Now take, take the point here from a politician, not from a pastor. And the politician said, we need revival.

0:00:27     We need revival in America. We need revival. Well, I don’t know what that means to this person, because if you’re not in the realm of the church world like I am, what does that mean? But the very fact that we put before revival, we put, we need, we need, we need something. And when you say revival, obviously that’s a spiritual term that it’s revive, it means somebody that’s, it means spiritually, somebody that got on the half dead side like they’re feeling half dead.

0:00:58     They’re a believer in God, they believe in Jesus, they’re doing okay, but it’s just not there. And so they need to be revived. This is not the same as being reborn. It’s not the same as being born again. Revival is for already people who believe in God follow Jesus like that, but they’ve let things into the world from the world. They’ve shifted their priorities. Their priorities have shifted away from God, and now they’re paying for it.

0:01:22     They’re paying for it. So when we say revival, what does it mean? And really the amazing part about where are the preachers, where are the pastors, where are the ministers that they’re crying out saying, we need revival. Well, let me tell you what the problem is. If you really study a move of God and revival, God always starts with his own people. First when Jesus, well, John the Baptist, and then when Jesus began his ministry, where did it begin?

0:01:46     They went to their own people. They went to the Jewish people, told them to repent because the kingdom of God is here and near. You guys repent because the kingdom is here. And basically then it’s inferred and we’re going to change the world. We’re going to change Israel, we’re going to change Judaism, change the world by this reviving ourselves in God, by us repenting and getting revival of the priorities, revive our priorities.

0:02:12     Now, a lot of people, when they talk about revival, they know that that means God does something. So you get around the more religious people, they’re going to tell you, well, it’s a sovereign move of God, which it is, but you can’t touch it. You can’t. We have nothing to do with it. It’s just all of a sudden God opens the heavens and comes down and just everybody’s overwhelmed by the presence of God, and it’s wonderful.

0:02:33     And the service is, who knows what will  happen? There may be no manifestations. There may be some crazy manifestations. Who knows what it means to that particular person? But what we’re talking about here is it’s, they say, well, you know, there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing we can do about it. God just does it where he wants to do it. And all of a sudden we have the welsh revival or we have Azusa street in the United States or whatever, and these great revivals. Okay, but that’s from experience.

0:02:59     That’s not how it works at all or it worked. And how do I know that experience? Well, I’ve been the pastor for over three years of the Smithson outpouring. Also the Kansas City revival, which is another time, but in the late nineties, the Smith and outpouring hit, and we had six services a week for a little time, and that’s because we had Sunday morning and Sunday night. But then all the visitors start coming, and they left after the Sunday morning service because they had to get back home, back to work on Monday.

0:03:29     So we dropped Sunday night because we were just running. Each service was running into each other. And so we did five services a week for over three, about three and a half years. That’s a lot. And they’re not an hour service. If you’re used to an hour service, you’d be lost in this because you had to show up early just to get in the building. So people would line up early in the day so they could get in the building that night. That’s different. That’s a sign of revival.

0:03:55     That means, yes, God is doing something, but that means there’s some people that want God to do it. They’re hungry for God. They’re hungry for a fresh revive to come back to life, to fullest measure. To the full measure of life. Okay, so then once you got in the building, you got in the building, I think six or 630. The service started at seven, six or 630, but you’re not going to get out. If you get the full impact, you’re not going to get out at 09:00 or 08:00 it’s going to be 1010, 3011.

0:04:22     You’ll probably be drifting out about then. But some people went on till 01:00 in the morning or later, some people would stay way into the night, and this went on for those number of years. So in order to do that, you have to have some personal priorities. In order for me, as the pastor, to preach five services a week plus, I traveled, Kathy and I traveled around the world in between the services and then flew back.

0:04:46     And so we were busy, busy, busy for those years, all we all were doing. And you have to have some different priorities. And people would ask me, well, how do you get a con? Because our whole congregation came. It wasn’t just we had church and show up if you want to. Everybody was there. It was packed out every time. And our own congregation was there along with visitors from all over the world. People came from all over the world, all the countries, I don’t know how many countries.

0:05:10     And you didn’t know they were coming. Busloads of people from Asian countries or, you know, Korea came, and Japan and Singapore and people from Europe would come and all over, and he didn’t know they were coming. They just show up, you know, and they’d stay the weekend with us, or Wednesdays, Thursday, Friday, Saturday into Sunday. And it was powerful, powerful, yes. God did something there. 1996, God did a powerful work. He touched me by the power of God. The whole church saw it happened and I was dramatically changed and became like a different person.

0:05:42     But then we had to do, what are we going to do with it? What are we going to do? We’re going to have to change our priorities and become hosts. See, and some people don’t realize, yes, the Holy Spirit lands in a revival. If you study revivals, it can be a revival any place, anytime, anywhere. The choice is God’s, I guess, in a way, but we can help God make that choice by having a priority that I want to be a part of a move of God.

0:06:06     I want to be right in the middle. I don’t want to visit it. I don’t want to be a visitor that goes and has a great time and comes back and says, wow, it was so powerful. You’re not going to believe how powerful it was. And then maybe six months later, nine months later, go be a visitor again. Say, it’s still going. We, I wanted to be in the thick of it, and God allowed us and people with us to do that and the way we had to do it. Then people said, well, how does a congregation. Cause we had teenagers. I had, you know, kids going to school. We had a girl in school, and how do you get their homework done? How to do this?

0:06:38     And they say, how can you go to church five days a week. And it’s easy. You don’t do anything else. You go to work, you eat, you do your laundry, mow your grass, get in the car, whatever. Drive over there, whatever. Let’s see, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Yeah, Wednesday through Sunday. Go to all the services. When you get done, you go to bed and do what you got to do. Kids would do their homework after school and be there for that.

0:07:06     And then they drop some other things. They can play soccer if they wanted to, but, or whatever sport. But our kids got so on fire for God that they didn’t want to play sports anymore. They wanted to be at church. And so you change your priorities, and that’s the battle. Then. That’s the battle for our nation. And really, our nation doesn’t need revival. Our churches need revival. And then out of the churches flow the power and presence of God to help change a nation.

0:07:34     That’s how it’s supposed to work. But so many preachers today, they say America needs revival. No, the church needs revival because America’s not. I mean, they’re just people, right? But the people who claim to be Christians, who claim the Bible in the ministry, in the pulpit, leading songs, attending church, they need to show some interest. They need to change their priorities. And so because we won’t change our priorities, which is where the battle is. The battle is there. God loves us. Yes, all that stuff.

0:08:03     But without changing priorities, then we begin to pay for it, and we begin to pay for unfulfilled lives when we don’t change our priorities. And one of the best places to study is the book of Haggai, where God’s house, God’s temple had been destroyed by enemies. And then the people came back, and some people stayed during that time, and then other people came back from exile. And when they came back, they all built their houses and started their neighborhoods and all that. But they didn’t get around to fixing up God’s temple, God’s house.

0:08:37     And God didn’t like that. And when, when it, when it was. Should have been done, then there were people saying, well, you know, we need to do it. We’ll get. We’ll get to it, but it’s just not time to, to fix up God’s house yet. Not time yet. Not time yet. And that’s the one thing you’ll realize that Christians do in America, and probably Jeremiah’s probably around the world. It’s just consequences of being this kind of religion is we always give ourselves more time.

0:09:04     We’ll talk about what God did a long time ago. We’ll talk about what he’s going to do in the future. But we don’t have a schedule for today. God doing something today. We always give ourselves more time. As Jesus said, you say four more months and then the harvest. And he said, but I say the harvest is now. He said, but they always gave themselves more time. And so when you quit giving yourselves more time and say, I’ve got to have a now time with God, I got to have a now moment.

0:09:30     I got to have a personal pursuit. I’m going to change my commitment and begin to pursue God. I’m going to shift my priorities off of myself and on to God. And you don’t, like, you don’t even know what to do. You hardly ever meet anybody that does that because now they’re going to be a weirdo and they’re going to what? Go off in the desert or something and eat weird food? No, you just, you are a citizen of your country, but you’re a citizen of heaven, too.

0:09:56     And you change your priorities so that the who yours to be comes through that priority of God’s outpouring of his spirit. And so what they did is then finally God said, well, here’s the deal. You have an unfulfilled life. You feel empty. You’re not getting out of life what you want to. It’s not working for you the way you’d like it to, and the list can go on and on. We have a much, you know, really unfulfilled people today that are just discontent. They have everything. We have all the entertainment and everything, but just discontented people.

0:10:28     And when you read this in the book of Haggai, he says, here’s the reason why. He says, God says, I’m doing that to you. I’m causing it because you’re neglecting my priorities, you’re neglecting my house, you’re taking care of yourselves, and I am showing you that’s not how it works. So life isn’t working for you. And it says, you know, it feels like you have a job, you come home with money, but it’s not enough.

0:10:51     It’s like you got a hole in your purse. You go, where’s the money? Go, oh, man. And, you know, you’re dissatisfied, you’re disappointed. This was all happening in their lives. And God says, listen, there’s one way to fix this. Set my house and set my kingdom as your priority and you get everything else. That’s why the Bible says, seek first the kingdom of God and all these things. Things will be given to you, added to you, it’s a priority check. You can run after all those things if you want, or you can run after God and set your priority on the Lord.

0:11:22     And that’s where the battle is. It’s not that hard. But people find it hard to battle their own personal desires to live for themselves, serve themselves. And then all of a sudden we’re saying, hey, let’s shift it. Let’s shift our priorities and let’s start serving the Lord with gladness, right? Serve the Lord with gladness. For we are his people. We don’t belong to ourselves. And so all of a sudden then we have to change this misplacement of priorities where we put everything about our house, our home, our job, ourselves, our feelings, our future, our vacation, our money.

0:11:58     Everything’s about us. Everything’s that. And we don’t really have God in the schedule. Maybe we go to church, maybe we give a little bit of money. But what happens is then it’s the unfulfilled lives. And that’s the symptom of needing a spiritual revival in a nation, in a town, in a family, is you have unfulfilled people today. Discontent, don’t know what to do. That’s why they’re looking to find their identity in all these different ways and stuff. Just discontented who they are. Well, maybe if I change my identity or whatever, then maybe I’ll be happy.

0:12:30     And it doesn’t work because you’re still the same person. You may have changed some outward things, but it’s not going to work. The unfulfilled is God’s calling you to set a priority and put him in your life. Give him a space. Give him some space in your life. And that’s the battle. We want to live 100% for ourselves and not for God at all. And so we pay for it then, and we’re paying for it in our country, of the most blessed country in the world, in the most unhappy people, in the most unhappy people, the most unhappy people in the world, with all we have and all that we do.

0:13:08     And so what we need then is to have what happens. So they came back to these people and they said, listen, you’ve neglected God’s house. You built your house. You take care of yourself, but you didn’t take care of God’s things. You don’t have a priority, a God priority. And so you’re unfulfilled. It’s not working for you. And so this is what they did. Then they woke up to it and amazing, they obeyed the message of them saying, we need to take care of God first.

0:13:31     Let’s make sure his house is built. Let’s make sure it’s got the house has it with me. The church is going well. The people of God are doing well. Because, listen, when you get into the New Testament, too, you have the teaching. What, that we become the people become the temple of the Holy Spirit. Now, not an individual. It has to be a group. Cause it’s plural. Okay? So you can’t be a little. You say can’t be. Well, I’m a church walking around, you know, it’s the people gathered. It’s the assembly of the people is the church. It’s not a building, but it’s the assembly of the people. And guess what? Most of the time they assemble in a building.

0:14:05     Okay? So anyway, so they did, and they got together and said, let’s listen to this. Let’s listen to this message. What would happen to. If we would start putting our priority on God? So they did. And when they did, and all the people came together and obeyed it, and the people began to worship. And my translation here says they worship the Lord in earnest. Well, I never use that. I never say in earnest.

0:14:30     It’s a great line, but I don’t say it. It means, though they put heart, soul, mind, strength, they put energy into praising God, worshiping God. That would just be great to go to any church. Like, you know, we get the message in our country, no matter what church we go to, nobody’s mumbling, everybody’s singing, everybody’s praising, everybody’s alive and excited about the things of God. That would be a sign of revival.

0:14:55     Right? And God could inhabit that. Yes. Revival is something that God does. It is a move of God. It’s supernatural, it’s powerful, but it can be incorporated by people who set the priority that they wanted. Because the Holy Spirit doesn’t just fly around, moving around and then do stuff. No, the Holy Spirit does stuff through people. So he’s always got to land on somebody. He fills a person. He doesn’t fill the air.

0:15:21     He fills a person. And so that person needs to have a priority. I want to be filled with the spirit. I want to see revival in the land. I want to see churches come back alive. I want to see the discontentment of our culture today that’s so spoiled and has so many things. I want to see us become content with who we are and who we’re married to and our kids and our job and start feeling happiness and some joy again.

0:15:45     So all you got to do is do what everybody’s been in the battle to do forever and ever and ever, right? Change your priorities. Get personal pursuit of God. Personal pursuit. It’s shifting your priorities to have a God priority. It’s hard to do it first if you’re just living for yourself and entertainment and food and all that. And you just the second you get off work, well, what am I going to do to entertain myself and make myself feel good?

0:16:09     But now, put God in big time. The bigger you put him in, the bigger you’ll get out of it and you’ll start feeling revival fire and you’ll start being content with what you have. A contented person. Right? Godliness with contentment is great. Gain godliness without being content. You don’t have any gain, you haven’t gained anything, you’re still unhappy. So we have needs, you have needs. God knows you have need. And even before you ask it says, but seek first the kingdom of God and these things will be added and you’ll get the divine blessing, productivity, and all of a sudden that discontent of that’s honest, we don’t, we just, we have enough, but we feel like we don’t.

0:16:52     We’re full but we’re empty, right? We have money, but nah. Well, what, you know, what are we going to do tonight? Just another old movie, right? So God wants to cure you of that and revival then. Yes, America needs revival, but America needs its churches to be revived in the power of God so we can have a great awakening across this nation through the salvation, the great salvation of Jesus Christ that’s been offered to us through the blood of the lamb. Right. How wonderful that is. Well, I hope you got something out of that. Go to https://morefaithmorelife.com, and get the book.

0:17:23     If You Only Knew: A Guide To The Clueless Generation. You need to hurry and get it because election time is coming and that whatever happens is going to change our world and you need to be ready for it. And you need to get all the clues you can get of what you’re supposed to be doing. And it’s just a short little booklet, it’s still free, you can download it free. https://morefaithmorelife.com, Get that, get caught up on everything.

0:17:42     Be sure and do all the things you do to follow and subscribe and all the stuff that you’re supposed to do to this podcast because people need to hear these kind of sermons because they’re not hearing them. They’re not hearing what do I do? Tell me what to do to get closer to God. Tell me what to do to connect to God. Tell me what to do to get a church on fire, to get a church, a worshiping church. What do you need to do? And so, first of all, is change our priorities. Shift our priorities to God.

0:18:07     Start putting him first, and everything else will come to you. Till next time. Bye.