Revival Week...

I just got back from about 10 days with my daughter, her husband and 6 children. We're all rejoicing over the safe birth of Elisha Maclaren who weighed in at 8 lbs! During those 10 days my oldest daughter Niki and her husband Brian brought home their newly adopted son, Evan Michael. He weighed in at a mere 4 lb. and 11 oz!
I feel so blessed by the Lord. We now have 17 grandchildren! Those grandbabies are a joy all in themselves.
Alicia needed mom more than ever with this baby because of her paralysis that hit her on March 12th of this year. She ended up having a C-section with several complications. Her hospital stay was 8 days and she had to come home to a hospital bed and home health care. That wasn't what we had all hoped and prayed for but the Lord knows and we trust Him completely.
I thought I was doing pretty good with keeping up with a houseful of little ones, but when I came home the adrenalin must have cooled off and I felt like I could sleep for a week! Our revival was beginning on Sunday and my flesh was dreading the activity level of a revival week.
However, the Lord took care of that by just one day of being under some good preaching. This morning was especially good and Brother Donnie was preaching on "I Remember" and going over things that Christians need to take back that we have given up.
One of his points was "I Remember when the Lord's Day was the Lord's. He talked about how at one time in America Sunday belonged to the Lord and it was a holy-day in our lives not a holiday. He mentioned the "blue law" being in place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law
My mind went back to when I was a girl and nothing was open on a Sunday. If you'd forgotten something at the grocery or hadn't filled the gas tank you were just out of luck. Everything was closed. I even remember in the small towns of Indiana when I was a girl every business closed on Wednesday at noon so the people who worked could be in prayer meeting on Wednesday night.
We've come a long, long way from that. Instead of Sunday being the day we put on our best and go to the house of the Lord we find people at WalMart or sporting events or eating at their favorite restaurant/bar.
I think we need to ask ourselves what we want our children to remember. At our house we have a large Sunday dinner. I want my children to remember coming home from church and walking into a house with the wonderful smell of a delicious meal. I want them to remember a table full of people talking about the message and what happened at church that morning. I want them to remember having preachers and missionaries around our Sunday dinner table.
I want our children to remember that Sunday was a day that we were in the house of God at the appointed times and that it was a joy to be there--not a burden to complain about. As more and more churches are making it "convenient" and "comfortable" for the people by shifting times and schedules so that people can serve other "gods" it only makes sense that the professing Christian appears more and more worldly and shallow.
I want our children to remember that Christ had the preeminince in our household and that everything on the schedule was pushed out of the way to see to it that we never forsook the assembling of ourselves together outside of a real emergency.
This week we took our children to the Creation Museum in Cincinnati as we came home from our daughter's house. There is a quote there on the wall that says this: "If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." -Martin Luther
From the first time I read that quote it has made a great impact on me. If we're going to have revival we must take back what we've given away and we must take a stand on the issues of our day without apology or intimidation.
For myself, today was a day of renewed commitment to the Lord to not lower the flag on keeping Sunday a day totally set aside for the Lord. It's the least I can do after what He's done for me.