There is a good old song about it, but actually we have no business standing on Jordan’s stormy banks, casting a wishful eye toward Canaan’s fair and happy land where our possessions lie. Canaan is not heaven and we do not have to go through a graveyard to get there. It is the land of a victorious Christian life, open to all who will follow the Joshua of their salvation and possess their possessions in Christ. We can cross over Jordan now and live in the promised land long before we get to heaven.
Devotion of the Day
LET IT BEGIN IN ME
If my people…shall humble themselves…then will I…
II Chronicles 7:14
In revival God begins with His own people, and His people begin with themselves… “humble themselves”… “turn from their wicked ways.” It is subjective: they humble themselves and turn from sin. It is objective: they pray and seek God’s face. After David has his joy restored, then he teaches transgressors God’s ways, and sinners are converted. David does not go out visiting prospects and canvassing sinners until he has dealt with himself.
Getting church members busy with other duties in a revival before they themselves have repented defeats the whole purpose of revival. “Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” “Lord, send a revival and let it begin in me” – well, that is where it must begin. Not in absentee church members but in us who are present on Sunday morning and assume that we are all right and so merely make plans to get someone else revived.