Day 28: The Rain of the Holy Spirit

I grew up on a farm, homesteaded by my grandfather, Joseph Whitefield Phillips, in northeastern Mississippi. This Primitive Baptist circuit rider with a revivalist middle name had built a large home out of sandstone rocks. It was perched on a bluff and looked out on rolling fields where cotton, soybeans, and corn grew. As a small boy, I could stand on the front porch and watch as combines and tractors crawled through the scorching heat with my uncles and older cousins at the wheel. I could always tell by the looks on their faces and by the conversation over dinner if it was going to be a good harvest.

In the late spring, I could see my Uncle Millard standing in a sea of dark brown earth that held our family’s future. Against an orange sky at dusk, his weather-beaten body made a striking silhouette. I would see him stoop over, pick up a handful of moist, cool soil, and let it run through his hands. Then he would look up, and I knew what he was saying, “God, we’ve done all that we can do, and now this crop is in your hands. The ground is tilled. The fertilizer is there. The seeds are in the ground. We can’t touch them until they grow. Only with the rain and sun You bring will we see new life.”

We can go no further and grow no further without outside help. In the context of today’s revival stirrings, you and I are like the farmer who admits, “I’ve done all that I possibly can, Lord. Now, you must bring the rain.” Look what is already happening! Sprinkled across our nation, God’s early rains have begun to fall. On our youth. On men. On women. On pastors, who know what true brokenness, confession, and repentance are all about— and who know God is doing something extraordinary in them and through them.

In specific areas of our country, on specific groups of broken, humbled people, God’s Holy Spirit is beginning to lightly rain. Previous revivals have known this same, refreshing Spirit. Yet what’s happening today is unique from anything our country has ever experienced and uniquely personal to every life He’s touching. Would you prayerfully consider how you might be a part of this Jesus-Now Awakening?

Isaiah 45:8 New King James Version (NKJV)
8 “Rain down, you heavens, from above,
And let the skies pour down righteousness;
Let the earth open, let them bring forth salvation,
And let righteousness spring up together.
I, the Lord, have created it.”

Titus 3:5 New King James Version (NKJV)
5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit…

1 Chronicles 29:11 New King James Version (NKJV)
11 Yours, O Lord, is the greatness,
The power and the glory,
The victory and the majesty;
For all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours;
Yours is the kingdom, O Lord,
And You are exalted as head over all.

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Phillips, Tom (2016-11-01). Jesus Now: God Is Up to Something Big (Chapter 4 p. 98-101). BroadStreet Publishing Group LLC.