Watching a video this morning, I was struck afresh by our need for God. We struggle through life. Even those who are materially blessed find themselves vulnerable in the face of physical, moral, and spiritual weakness. Our world is a “vale of tears“. Daily we find ourselves betrayed: by those in power, by those in the media, by leaders in the church, by our own hearts.

Paradise is an ideal against which we compare our reality, but who on earth in the flesh has known it beyond fleeting visions and visitations from the Lord? How earnestly do we seek God’s Jerusalem, as opposed to the fond imagining of our flesh? It is hard to strip the preconceptions and prized principles from our will, to seek afresh what God Himself would have us know.

There is a time for mourning and ashes. As someone who rejects Dominionism and the Prosperity Gospel, the version of Christianity I know and trust is one marked by grief and suffering as well as moments of rapturous joy.

Where are we now, as we wait for God and desire His correction, cleansing, and renewal? Are our eyes fixed on the coming of the Son of Man? Where do our hearts rest? They must rest in the assurance of faith, hope, and love – in Christ Himself, whose Sacred Heart burns with love for the sons of Adam, by whose blood we are redeemed, and in whose presence all those who love Him will be.

I find myself thinking, as I desire the revival and the Millennium, that these are nothing without Christ. We are nothing without Him. He is everything. The prophets of the revival rightly say that judgment will begin at the house of God: repentance precedes the blessings. John the Baptist comes before the Messiah, as it were. This is true for Israel too: Elijah comes before Christ. They will not see Him until they learn to cry, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!”

But I also find myself thinking of these words of Christ, found in His Revelation:

But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. -Revelation 2, ESV