Hi there. Happy Friday – hope you have had a great week and are ready for the weekend.
So last week, I wrote about the coming of revival and how excited I was – and really how excited we all should be. My wonderful mother, who will read but not post many comments, text me after she’d read the last Friday excerpt and said, “Can’t wait for part two.” My response was something like “I have an idea of what’s to come, but not sure how it will turn out” and to be completely honest I figured the continuation may not be the very next post because….”oh ye of little faith”. All of this being said, I was ECSTATIC when the first beginnings of revival showed up in my Sunday School class (youth ages 14-19) on Sunday morning. And when I say revival – I don’t even mean guests this time around….
Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures…
Luke 24:45
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Colossians 2:9
If you’ve been around my blog for any time at all, you know how much I love to tell a story with my words and set the stage before exposing the big picture – so bear with me… (Or just scroll down to the ** and start there.)
Every Sunday morning, unless we have a visiting minister, myself and Sis Courtney Butler teach Sunday School and do our best to encourage our kids to study (2 Tim 2:15) and draw close to the Lord everyday (Romans 12:1). About two months ago, we agreed to begin taking our class “Back 2 Basics”. We thought it would be good to go through foundational doctrine as many children/teens growing up in Christian homes can seem to miss basic truths as they go through the shuffle of life. So, I had the first lesson – “The 3 R’s of Revival: Repentance, Remission, Receiving the Holy Ghost”. Of course, we get these kids once a week for maybe 1.5 hours if the preacher goes a little longer, but neither of us anticipated that one lesson being stretched out into 3. As we dove into the 3 R’s, our young people began to ask questions that they’d had for years – seemingly simple ones, yet the understanding had been missed on them. Consequently, our plan of introducing a topic and running through it quickly went out the window. We ended out spending three weeks on the plan of initial salvation and decided to have them come back the next week ready to teach another student about “The 3 R’s of Revival”.
Sunday, 6/6, rolls around and the class is a mix of nerves and excitement; the class would be spilt into pairs – one student to teach and the other to ask questions. (Essentially everyone would either give or receive a mini Bible Study.) One young man had walked up to me before class started, upset with himself, he told me that he’d studied and forgotten his notes at home. This was different. We all know young people, they often don’t wish to do their homework, but yet here we were with one forgetting notes and, I found out later, most had taken hours to prepare questions and their mini-lesson. Well, we made it through class with students reaching deep into the Old Testament for prophecy of the promise of the Holy Ghost and many diving deeper into the gospels and epistles to answer the questions of their classmates. Sis Butler and myself were both very pleased with each student and Godly proud of them all for really putting in the effort – yet I don’t think either of us were expecting them to enjoy it as much as we did. They did! So, continuing with our “Back 2 Basics” theme, the next week’s lesson would be on “The Oneness of the Godhead” and again they would be the Bible Study teachers and students to each other. This time though they had 3 questions they must answer in order to complete their study and did they ever come prepared to learn.
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Matthew 28:19
**Sunday, 6/13. Our Godhead lesson. This week several had verses planned out and some extra difficult questions for each other. After about fifteen minutes, they were split up into their pairs and beginning their lessons – except for one, our Pastor’s son. We realised that he would need to paired with one of us teachers, but didn’t say a word to him and simply wrote Isaac – Teacher paired with Sis Butler – student. He was suddenly very nervous and did not want to teach, but boy did he step up to the plate. Sis Butler spared him no difficult question and together they studied the Oneness of God and need for the revelation of the Mighty God in Christ Jesus.
I, of course, was available for any questions one of our kids may have that they weren’t able to answer or just for encouragement (teaching Bible studies to people who know truth can be hard, who knew?). As I walked around our small classroom, I would stop from time to time to help or just listen in on the studies being given. Our kids were doing great.
I had just left one of our girl-boy teams (girl teaching boy) when I heard the girl gasp, then call my name and excitedly ask if I could come over. Now, this girl generally participates a little bit, but is not animated or very excited in class. Quickly I came to her side and she pointed to a scripture that her partner had directed her to read while saying “I didn’t see that before, it’s right there. I know I’ve read it but look!” I leaned forward to see that she was pointing at Matthew 28:19, so I asked her what she meant, what stuck out. Still excited she pointed to the word “name” and said, “It says in the NAME of…, that means there’s only ONE! Only one name, it doesn’t say names.” And there on a bright Sunday morning, teaching about Oneness, a little third generation Pentecostal girl received the revelation of the Mighty God in Christ Jesus. THERE’S ONLY ONE GOD. This is revival.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:
Deuteronomy 6:4
A Texans Journey 