Our Generation Needs a Fresh Revival

I have have put off finishing my Doctorate for many years. I became the senior pastor of a new church, life changes, and a truck load of writing and creating bible studies, blogs, and sermons, were my excuse for the continual movement from my "To Do" list to my "Wish List."

Of all the classes to be the last, are the "Epistles of John." These three letters may be the most important of all the work in the New Testament for the Twenty-First century Christian. It reads like today's Christian news.

I have once again began my studies, working at finishing this milestone in my education.

I have been writing a "Survey of the New Testament" for my church and this website. The very next three lessons are on the Epistles of John. Thank you Lord for directing my path and putting a fresh desire to finish.

While preparing an introduction to the "Epistles of John," I came across the work of John Phillips, "Exploring the Epistles of John."

I was so moved by his words that I wanted to share them with you.

"John wrote for the third generation. Peter and Paul, and James and Jude all wrote for the first and second generations of believers. John however as a first-generation Apostle, passed over two generations to write for an increasingly apostate third generation.

For by its third generation, every movement of God needs a fresh touch of the Holy Spirit. The first generation is motivated by conviction; great truths have been grasped and those who have espoused them have a compulsion to spread those truths abroad. They will dare all and die for them. The second generation inherits these truths, but the conviction softens into belief. They believe the truths that they've been taught; they debate them, defend them, and disseminate them, but the fire and passion have gone. By the third generation, the belief becomes an opinion. The third generation will trade first generation truth, dilute it, change it, accept counterfeits, and make room for error. And that's why John wrote for the third generation - the third generation needed a fresh revival."

Thank you Lord, that through the pen of John Phillips, you have awakened a fire in me, reminding me that the world is in desperate need of a fresh revival.

May that revival begin in my heart.