Parashat Noach-Haftarah: Stewards of Revival

Parashat Noach

Haftarah: Isa 54:1-55:5

Stewards of Revival

In Is 55:1 God emphatically calls ”Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.”

When God's people pray revival begins to change our communities and the nation. Revival can happen anywhere and God can intervene in any life. He calls those he wishes to save into our congregations and we need to be ready to work in the harvest. If your congregation is revival-oriented, in any given service anything can happen and anyone can walk through the back door. At first, they may not seem like God will do great things with them. They may not look stable, they may smell bad, they may be drunk, high, spiritually afflicted or possessed. Their language and ways may be worldly. Yeshua desires to make us fishers of men, but too many times we judge prematurely and are placed in a hurtful position of trying to accept what fish we are willing to accept, and who we will count out or throw away as unredeemable.

When I first responded to God I was clueless. I was in a metaphysical religion. There was no hell, no heaven, no sin, and no savior. I did not believe there was a personal God, if one even existed, and the thought of having a conversation with that God was unthinkable. One night I picked my Great Grandmother up from church and brought her home. She was only 80 years old at the time. The next thing I knew I was walking back through the front doors of the church I just left. I had no clue how I got there. I remember being puzzled and did not know what to do. God was dealing with me but I was clueless it was him. I sat down on the back pew then the Spirit of God fell. I began to weep uncontrollably (something I never did) and did not even know why. An evangelist sat down beside me and asked what I needed from God. I responded that I felt like I was losing my mind. I did not know how to pray. I did not understand what was going on and could not even respond. I was absolutely lost in every sense. Then God did something amazing. Everything I needed at the moment suddenly came. I was crushed, then I felt strong. I felt lost, but for some reason, I felt that I was found. I felt confused but suddenly felt confident, alert, and in control. I knew that everything was going to be okay but I still did not know why. I did have the idea that God did it, whoever that was. I wanted to find out more about Him so I kept coming back.

I was not the clean harvest with polished fruit people were hoping to see. I did not understand the faith and stumbled over simple things. It took a year and a half of being mentored for me to get to that place of really understanding things and being able to grasp the Gospel. I prayed, read, and developed a walk with God, then God called me to the ministry. No one would have guessed that early on. I was just too undone. I would have been too far out for some congregations to deal with.

Who is God calling you to reach? Who is God calling to your congregation? God is calling laborers. He is calling souls to respond to his voice and he sends them to congregations so that people can know him. These precious souls are in the infancy of God's process and God commits them to us to care for. Like a baby, they make mistakes, require a lot of attention, patience, and care. They may be homeless, a stressed-out single mom, a wayward prodigal, or an occultist. They may not have stability in any part of life, but God sent them to you to care for. We will see revival in our day, but it will be a dirty harvest and we must be committed and equipped to work with those God sends to us. We don't control revival. God controls revival and he makes us stewards of his work. God is calling for everyone to come to the waters. It is our job to prepare them to meet the King.

My prayer is that God make us a spiritual hospital. A soul-saving station. A place where disciples make disciples, and congregations birth congregations.

Rav Calev

Apostolic Messianic International- Gulf Coast

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