As I reflect on the forever memorable year of 2020, one thing that stands out to me was an
overwhelming need for each other. Many people found themselves completely isolated and alone and
struggling with feelings of anxiety, fear, worry, and depression.

It may surprise some of you to hear that there may be people who sit next to you in church every week that struggle with mental health needs, maybe leaders in your church and perhaps even you.

As a social worker I talk with people on a daily basis that struggle with these feelings and reach out looking for help and answers. The first thing to remember is you are not alone, and God did not intend for any of us to travel this journey alone.

First, we must seek the Lord, be in His word, and spend time in prayer. We hear through-out the scripture do not be afraid, don’t worry, and you are not alone which tells me that God knew we would need those words of encouragement.

Isaiah 41:10 tells us, “There is no reason to fear; you are not alone”.

Psalms 34:18 says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted”.

God knows our needs and wants us to know He is right by our side. God also wants us to seek each other when we are in need. Remember that story in Exodus 17 when Moses held the staff while Joshua and the men fought Amalek. As long as Moses held up his hands Joshua and the men would prevail, but when his arms grew weak, they would begin to fall and the enemy would gain ground. God provided Moses with Aaron and Hur in his time of need. When Moses was too weak to do it on his own, his friends literally supported his hands through the battle.

We must have Christian friends and mentors in our lives to do just that; hold us up and support us in our times of weakness. Statistics from a recent study with Lifeway Research found that 1 in 4 pastors acknowledge they have struggled with mental illness. Too often we believe as Christians and especially ministry leaders that it is our job to be the strength and support for everyone else. When in fact, reaching out for help is necessary to have the strength and mindset needed to be able to minster to others. We need each other to pray, listen, support, understand, and care.

There are also times when it takes more than a friend to listen and support, and it is necessary to seek
professionally trained help. If you know someone struggling encourage them to talk with their doctor or
seek out a sound Christian counselor to talk with. If you need support, don’t wait to reach out. There
are some sites listed below that have some great resources for mental wellness.
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/get-help/mental-health-resources/
https://mentalhealthgracealliance.org/
https://www.nami.org/Get-Involved/NAMI-FaithNe

You can also reach out to the General Baptist team for additional resources.

About the Author: Julie Mathias has been a pastor’s wife for 21 years. She is currently serving with her husband Andy at Salmons General Baptist Church. They have 2 boys; Caleb and Drew. Julie is a social worker and has worked in the behavioral health field for 23 years.

Psalm 85:6 “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”

Revivals and awakenings have been interwoven into the history of our country. From the 1730’s with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield, to the 18 and 1900’s with people like D.L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Billy Graham. Even recently we have seen revival starting at Asbury University and spreading across the country.

To define “revival” I’ll go back to what observers said about Jonathan Edward’s Northampton, Massachusetts church in 1734.

They said, “It pleased God… to display his free and sovereign mercy in the conversion of a great multitude of souls in a short space of time, turning them from a formal, cold, and careless profession of Christianity, to the lively exercise of every Christian grace, and the powerful practice of our holy religion.”

That’s about as clear a definition as we’ll ever get! During a revival, the Lord revived the hearts of men and women. He supernaturally transforms believers and non-believers in a church, region, nation and they are taken hold by a sudden, intense enthusiasm for Christ. People sense the presence of God powerfully and from that flow conviction, confession, and a contrite heart that leads to repentance. These revived people become difference makers in their world.

They desire prayer, they thirst for God’s Word, and they enthusiastically share the Gospel. They are a people focused on giving glory to and receiving glory from God. They live for His glory alone.

Do you believe we need revival?

In our movement? Country? World? What I mean is this, do you believe we have adopted a formal, cold, and careless profession of Christianity that needs to be transformed by the Holy Spirit into a lively exercise of every Christian grace, passion for Christ and a desire to see lost souls won to His kingdom? Today Christianity is prevalent, but not powerful. I believe we need to be revived.

G. Campbell Morgan said, “Revival cannot be organized, but we can set our sails to catch the wind from heaven when God chooses to blow upon His people once again.”

We can’t force or manufacture revival, but we can pray and prepare for it. J. Edwin Orr said, “Whenever God is ready to do something new with His people, He always sets them to praying.” If we desire revival, we must first be a people of prayer. We must become a movement of prayers. Praying that God would do what we cannot. That He would awaken men, women, boys & girls to their need for Him.

But we also must prepare. We must be ready. Those who God uses to spark revival are those people who hunger for His glory above all else. I believe that if we want to see revival break out in our hearts and an awakening happen in our communities we must be a people who live to give God glory and seek to receive God’s glory.

Will we seek the glory of God above all else?

When our greatest desires become: pointing people to Jesus, living to seek and save the lost, sharing what God’s given us to show people His love. When our greatest fears become: people going to hell, not being good stewards of what God’s given us, dying before we make a difference.

When that happens a revival will have taken place in your life and an awakening will come in our community.

D.L Moody was an evangelist in the mid to late 1800’s. He preached to over 100,000,000 people in the days before tv and live stream. He also founded Moody Church, Moody Bible Institute, and Moody Publishers.

Henry Varley, who was a British revivalist and good friend of Moody, once said to him: “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.” When Mr. Varley said that, Moody took it as a challenge and said to himself: “Well, I will be that man.”

What stood out to Moody was the qualifier in Varley’s statement. It wasn’t, “The world is yet to see what God will do through an amazing speaker, top notch leader, organizational guru or theological genius.” The qualifier is this, that a person would be fully and wholly consecrated to God. Maybe you’re like Moody and right now you’re thinking, “I’m not the speaker, leader, genius, but I can be he one who fully gives them self to God.”

When I look at what God accomplished through Moody, I am invigorated to think about what He could do if each person reading this became bound and determined on being that fully consecrated person. Will you be that man? Will you be that woman? Will you make a decision today to quit holding out on God and to seek His glory above all else? Your community, your church, your neighbors and family, our world needs you to be all in living for the glory of God alone. Young or old. Man or woman. Pastor or farmer. Banker or homemaker.

You can decide today that you will be that person so the world may see what God will do with and for and through the person who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.

About the Author: Jeff Roth is the Senior Pastor at Skyline Church in O’Fallon, IL and GB Regional Coordinator for the Midwest and California.  At 17 years old Jeff felt God leading him into vocational ministry. Since then his goal has been to point people to Jesus by helping them understand the Word of God and apply it to their life. Jeff has been married for 16 years to his wife Alicia. They have four kids: Addie (14), Boyd (9), Judah (4), and Ellie (2). They also have a sweet goldendoodle named Honey. In his free time, Jeff enjoys sports, running, coffee, and movies.

There are times in our desire to get to the “what does that mean to me” of Bible interpretation that we miss out on the big picture of what God is doing.

A story is told of a preacher who was given an opportunity to preach to 120,000 people – not at a large Christian event or conference but to truly lost people. Most preachers would give anything for that opportunity. As Global vice president I have had opportunities to preach to truly large numbers of people who are far from God – but nothing like this! On the day of the event,, as the story goes, the preacher was a no show. He just didn’t show up. No actually it was worse than that – he ran away from the opportunity.

This preacher not only was a no show – he attempted to bypass the responsibility by going thousands of miles in the opposite direction. No he didn’t take a plane, but he did take a ship and try to go as far away as he could – unimaginable. Who would think to leave 120,000 people without hope in a God who loves them?

As the story goes the ship gets caught up in a big storm and the preacher is tossed overboard and then – and this is amazing – he is swallowed by a big fish! Wait a minute, maybe you know this story already!

We often look at the story of Jonah and focus on the prophets’ disobedience. We apply the story in our sermons and small groups to the importance of obedience to the call of God – and rightfully so. But in our desire to ask what the story means for me, we sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. There was a city of 120,000 people that were far from God. A city that God wanted to have the opportunity to repent. A city loved by God in spite of their wickedness. The big picture is about them and God’s desire to save them.

In this article we want to step back and see the big picture – the view from 32,000 feet (cruising altitude on most of my global trips), if you will.

I believe many would agree that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are eventful to say the least. In those few chapters we see creation and people as the climax of God’s creative activity. We observe God’s desire to be with people as he walks with them in the garden made especially for them – then we see sin or as others have put it paradise lost.

It is unimaginable how quickly people dissolve into a chaotic life of sin and rebellion. The first family produces the first murder, and life quickly becomes defined by the word wickedness (Genesis 6:5). God is so repulsed by His own creation that He decides to destroy what had been the very pinnacle of creation. But plan A is still to have fellowship with people so God preserves one family to continue the blessing of creation.

The world is destroyed by a flood and life begins again with one family – the amazing thing is how quickly life once again dissolves into wickedness. But God’s desire is still to bless people and to be a blessing to people. He gives Noah and his family blessing once again (Genesis 9:1) just as He had done with Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28).

In many Bibles you will find Genesis 10 called the “table of nations.” An interesting refrain found in the table is this: “peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.” Indeed it is said of each of Noah’s three children. But we don’t yet, at least as far as the narrative goes, how this came to be. Then we reach Genesis 11 and learn of people’s desire to once again refuse the creative blessing of God – to multiply and fill the earth. They decide to not scatter but rather stay together and build a great city – another in a series of acts of disobedience.

But do not forget, God has always had a plan A – fellowship with people! Genesis 12 becomes the revelatory moment of how God intends to stem the tide of wickedness, defeat it, and restore fellowship with people – or once again, as others have put it, paradise restored.

God calls a man named Abram and his family to one of the most pivotal moments in all of revelatory history. To this man Abram God makes a series of promises in Genesis 12:1-3:

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” (NLT)

There are personal blessings given to Abram – I will bless you and make you famous. There is a blessing to his progeny – I will bless you and make you a great nation and I will give you a land I will show you.

But don’t become so fixated on the family that you miss the greatest blessing of all – through you all families on earth will be blessed! That is the point! That is what God has been building up to through the previous 11 chapters of Genesis – there is still a plan to defeat the wickedness and once again bless people.

Blessing is a marvelous thing – it has its revelatory moment in creation and has God as its source. It is focused on what God wants to do in people, but now we see also that it is what God wants to do through people. And then, in what is an utter mystery, that which began with God and passes through His people to others can and ought to be returned once again to Him – “bless the Lord, O my soul…” (Psalm 103).

There it is, an insight into the intimacy of the fellowship God desires with each of us. To both receive His blessing, be a blessing, and together return blessing to Him. The Hebrew word is the same, but many translations use the word “praise” in Psalms 103. This blessing, or praise is an act of adoration to the God of creation. The creator of all! The One who desires, as He always has, to have fellowship with us.

In this pivotal moment God sets in action a redemptive plan to bless a family, a nation, and ultimately all peoples. He continues to invite us to be part of that plan – to pass on the blessing of redemption which will ultimately end in victory over wickedness.

That is the big picture – that is what God is trying to accomplish in the world – through us. The great commission is not new at all – it has always been God’s passions and should be ours as well. To be a blessing – in my home, my family, my workplace, my community, and wherever God may lead – so that all people may return that blessing and praise His name.

About the Author: Mark Powell is the Vice-President for Global Missions at General Baptist Ministries and is the senior pastor of Pleasant View General Baptist Church in Risco, Missouri.