Just 9 Days Until Shake The City In Kermit

We are only nine days away from the Shake The City meetings in Kermit. The tent will be pitched one week from today.

There are many things I cannot control about this. I cannot control who will show up. I cannot control the weather. I cannot control whether a true revival sweeps across Kermit nor can I control how many people get saved.

What I can control is my spiritual preparation. What I can control is how dedicated I am to being an instrument of revival in the hands of God.

Only 9 days. What started out as a dream four years ago is now about to be reality.The first service will be held on July 23 at 7:00 p.m. at 1101 S. Poplar St in Kermit, TX 79745.

Kermit, you have my heart and my continued prayers. See you soon.

Will You Pray For Me?

God has taken away our guilt. Hallelujah. We are all sinners. Guilty. No question. No excuses. Some who appear to be the most righteous could be hiding secret sins. Other sins are flaunted publicly. They are proudly put on display without shame or remorse. Lost people sin. Saved people sin. That includes everyone of us reading this.

God has made provision to take away our sin and guilty sentence through Jesus. We are undeserving. God displayed pure mercy and grace in the sacrifice of Jesus to pay the ransom sin held over us. An amazing truth that still grips my heart. Not just the guilt of the past. I praise Him for the removal of guilt of the present and the guilt that awaits me in the future.

This is the essence of what I preached. I prayed and preached with everything in me. I felt the truth down to my toes it seemed. I lost track of time. My heart, mind, and mouth were totally absorbed in the text from Is 6:1-8. When I finished the worship guys came back up and I went to the side to sit down and pray.

My prayers were interrupted by a gentle touch on my shoulder. The touch proved so gentle I nearly dismissed it but opened my eyes to see a teenaged girl on her knees in front of me. He request was simple,"Will you pray for me?' I could see her distraught condition. That was all she gave. I asked for her name and silently asked the Holy Spirit to show me how to pray for this young lady.

Suddenly the words came along with scriptures. As my prayer flowed so did her tears. When I finished I looked her in the eye and told her, "God has taken away your guilt." With that she brushed away her tears, smiled slightly and returned to her seat. I retuned to praying for her and the other students in the room.

After the service she found me and hugged me. She thanked me for praying for her and told me a little of the sins God had brought conviction to her today. Once again I reminded her God took away her guilt.

When I left that service I thanked God for using me. I thanked Him for opening the door for me to do this. At 50 I am not hip nor do I care to be. I preach as hard to students as to any other group and they keep listening. I get to keep hearing some of their stories. Heart wrenching stories of pain, sin, deception of the enemy, abuse, and on and on. There is a lot of pain out there. Much of sitting right before our eyes in worship services week after week. Ones floundering and drowning in pools of sin they feel like they can never get free from. I see the light of hope as God's truth penetrates them from camp to camp and church to church.I I renewed a vow a made to God many years ago at another camp. I vowed to God as long as He keeps opening the doors I will keep preaching to students.

 What an honor, a sacred privilege, and a weighty responsibility to preach truth. To still get to do it to students is a blessing. Most services, during the worship, I spend in prayer crying out to God to anoint me and use me again. The older I get the less worthy I feel to preach. There are so many others more gifted and qualified to do it than me. Yet, nobody preaches with anymore of their entire being, heart, soul, mind, and body, than I do. Maybe as much but not more. I put my whole life into those messages no matter the size of the crowd. They get no fluff. No comedy routine wrapped around a devotional thought. They get Jesus, the gospel, and the Bible. I have nothing else to offer but those. I never tire of telling students and adults God made a way for their guilt to be gone.

Will You Follow Me?

The Dallas Baptist University is beautiful built on several high hills. One of the many impressive things about this place is all the scripture references engraved in the sidewalks and in monuments. Overlooking the building we worship in this week is a statue of Jesus with the "Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men," reference.

Below that statue engraved in a red brick outlined monument in large letters is the question, "Will you follow Me?" I have passed that sign several times in the past couple of days. Each time I say a silent, "Yes."I finally had to stop and take a picture of it.

Will I follow Jesus? I love the fact that the question is open ended. Will I followJesus? I stood before that sign this morning and silently prayed, ""Jesus you know I will. You already have my yes."

More than ever I am unsure of the future. I don't know what the next steps are other than to preach at this camp and go to Kermit later this month to preach a revival meeting.

Am I willing to give Jesus my open ended yes. Yes to sacrifice. Yes to follow Him in a new direction. To share Jesus with people from the cashier at Whataburger last night to the cafeteria worker here at DBU? Am I willing to follow Him into the prayer closet in the wee hours of the morning? Am I willing to go and preach in both big city and backwoods churches? Am I willing to write what He inspires? Am I willing to love the unlovely and neglected? Am I willing to serve when nobody but God is watching and I will not get human approval? Am I willing to keep packing my suitcase and to keep preaching camps as many as He will open the doors? Am I willing to sit still His presence with no crowds wanting to hear me preach? Am I willing to follow?

May my answer be today, tonight, tomorrow, all week, next week, and each week for the remainder of my life, "Yes and a thousand times yes. Jesus I will follow with Your strength and help."

The Hard Step Of Obedience

Not every step a follower of Jesus takes is an easy one. Sometimes the steps are hard and require great courage. A stout heart is needed to follow Jesus wherever He leads.

Joshua knew this. Maybe that is why God spoke Joshua 1:9 to him. In fact that same message God repeated to make sure Joshua got it. Joshua 1:9 (ESV) 
⁹  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

Strength to take the hard steps of obedience does not originate from within yourself. No it is a supernatural strength, might, and power God supplies. 

Likewise, God gives the courage, or literally the steadfast mind, to walk those hard steps of obedience. So the courage God supplies overrules fear. Faith triumphs cowardice. 

The assurance that keeps us walking the hard steps of obedience is the truth that God is with us wherever He leads us to go. If He is with us what do we have to fear. Why would we live weak and like cowards. 

Not every step is easy but God does not always lead down the path paved with nothing but easy steps. So we step in faith. We press forward in strength and courage and trust He is with us. 

Who Am I?

Who am I to be a child of God? Just a guy from deep east Texas rowing up with a great deal of baggage. A victim of sexual abuse and physical abuse on one occasion but who found victory in Jesus. Who am I to be a recipient of God's amazing grace. A sullen angry sinner. A teenager slow to trust others and quick to sever relationships. A shy insecure teenager God chose to preach with no great intellect, charisma, or eloquence. I am sure my public surrender to ministry raised a few eye brows around Denman Avenue Baptist Church back in the summer of 1985.

Who am I to be given a wife who has took with me through thick and thin over the past 26 years? Whom am I that she should choose to love me and stay with me though I have seldom given her much provision or a life of ease and comfort. No. My life has been filled with as many sorrows as joys. Our faith has been tested and tested. More severely tested now than ever before.  She still stays. She could have packed up and left for an easier life years ago. She has demonstrated she is in this for the long haul come what may. She has loved me for better or worse and in sickness and in health.

Who am I that God would choose me to take His truth to Kermit? There are dozens of other preachers who have devoted years of their lives to that city. They are faithful shepherds. They have plowed the hard ground. They have proclaimed God's word. Who am I to go into their territory and labor for revival? I am a nobody. I have no great string of successes. No long list of accomplishments to impress others. I have failed multiple times in ministry. I fight my own demons. Who am I to go to Kermit? I am no revival expert. I am no celebrity to draw a crowd.

I am just Matt. A flawed follower of Jesus. I have committed my life to His service wherever that takes me and in just over two weeks that will take me west to the oil field town of Kermit, TX. No man invited me to go but God commanded it. I have no large bankroll to fall back on. I only have the call of God and the assurance He is my provider. I also go with the full knowledge, if God does not show up and move powerfully, the entire meetings will flop. My personality, skills, and experience are not sufficient to usher in days of true revival.

I am more painfully aware of my shortcomings than ever. Like Moses, I question who I am that I should be chosen to go. [Ex 3:11]I wish this great burden for Kermit fell on someone else. Someone more likable, more gregarious, more warm, less intense, and more connected. Many times I tried to pull back. Each time God pushed me back into this adventure and intensified the burden. So I am resolved to go. But I cannot help but ask, "Who am I?"

I have nothing to offer Kermit but Jesus, His word, and prayer. I have nothing else to contribute to that town. I am not wealthy. I am not well connected. I am nothing more than one of the sheep in His pasture. [Ps 100:3] I am His. [I Cor 6:19-20] [II Cor 5:14-15] He owns me. My life is forever laid on His altar. [Rom 12:1] He can do with me as He pleases and send me where He pleases. My motivation is to please Him and obey Him. If that means I please and help people along the way I glorify Him. Should my obeying God offend others I must bear the criticism and march on in the midst of their disapproval and opposition.

Who am I? He created me. He put passion in me. He gives me insight into His truth. He has kept His hand on me all these decades. He has heard and answered my prayers. He has forgiven my sin. Out of many other more qualified sheep He chose me for the grand work of preaching. I have not earned the right. I do not deserve to stand before a crowd of any size to share His word.

It will be a privilege to stand before students next week for Mission 58 Camp on the campus of Dallas Baptist University. I am not the main camp speaker. I am the morning Bible teacher. It is so much more than I deserve. I take that invitation seriously. Once camp ends I will have just a week before I make my pilgrimage west to Kermit.

More and more I am wrestling with God's call on my life and what the future looks like. Many close to me, in fact the majority of trusted friends, all think I'm most equipped and gifted to travel and preach. With Faith Community Church facing an uncertain future and the constant financial challenge to keep the doors open I really wonder if this Kermit revival is a transition to a whole new ministry. A traveling revival ministry? Again who am I that God should choose to use me. I lay my life, my family, and my ministry before Him.

Who am I? I am His. Chosen by God. Called by Him. Devoted to Him. Surrendered to Him. Let Him lead and take me where He pleases. That is who I am.

The Pursuit Of God For Revival.

Do we rally want revival? Do you really want the God of revival. Two very different questions. You hear a great deal of talk about the subject of revival. Most of the talk centers on the signs and wonders of revival. Preachers preach on it. Churches host revival meetings. Books are authored on steps to revival. How much true prayer takes place consistently for revival? How much of that prayer is crying out for more of God? How much of that prayer centers on the desire, the longing, and the fainting after more of Him and not just the cool effects of revival. WE NEED MORE OF HIM. WE NEED MORE OF HIM THAN COOL REVIVAL STORIES. HE TRANSFORMS. HE SAVES. HE AWAKENS THE SPIRITUALLY DEAD AND APATHETIC.

For over four years I have carried a burden for a revival meeting in Kermit, TX. I have borne the weight of that burden that interrupts my sleep routinely for intercession. I have made multiple trips to this small west Texas town praying, teaching, and preparing for a Shake The City Revival Meeting in a little over two and a half weeks. I know they need more than meetings. They need Jehovah Himself to come in power like days of old to encounter people.

I know to some degree what I am praying for. REVIVAL IS COSTLY! To pursue God can totally wreck a person's normal comfortable life. I know this from first hand experience. When the Lord God Yahweh really breaks loose and ushers in a wave of His Spirit, we have to catch the wave and ride it for as long as we can. While these upcoming revival meetings have a starting date the ending date is loose. It all depends on how powerfully He moves and for how long He wants to extend the meetings.

I have no interest in trying to extend the meetings if true encounters with God are not happening. If these meetings are just that, good meetings, we will meet about a week. If God wants to do more I am preparing myself for an extended stay. I am preparing for life in a hotel room for weeks on end. I am preparing for an extended time away from my family. I am preparing for extended meetings, sermon preparation, intercessions, personal evangelism, and late nights of ministry. I am preparing for meals in local cafes and giving myself emotionally, spiritually, mentally, and physically to the pursuit of God for revival.

While I cannot speak for others in Kermit I can truthfully say I want real revival and spiritual awakening to come to Winkler County. I know there is a remnant who have prayed for this longer than me. May the Lord give me and others the strength to pursue Him. May He answer all the prayers.

I am not in the pursuit of revival. I am in the pursuit of God for revival. While many focus on the effects of revival I focus on the God of revival. I want more of Him. I want more of Him in my own life. I want more of Him in the lives of Kermit residents. I want more of Him for the local churches. I want more of Him for the surroundings areas. God, we want more of You. Not more religion, tradition, rules, and dead routines. We want more of You filling our hearts with wonder and worship.

The pursuit of God drives me. The pursuit for more of Jehovah fuels the fire raging in my soul. This is not about me notching another meeting under my belt. This is not about me making a name for myself. This is about my God. This is about the fame of His name spreading. This is about trusting the masses to come into life changing encounters with Him.

Once the dust has all settled and the meetings come to an end my sights are already set on other towns. Crane. Brownwood, Lufkin. and Weatherford. These are just a start. I am willing to give the rest of my days to the pursuit of God for revival. Let Him take me where He wants without regard to financial compensation. He has my yes. He has my life surrendered and offered on His altar.

Whatever time I have left I devote to the pursuit of God for revival. Whatever gifts and talents He has given me I leverage in the pursuit of God for revival. Whether the crowds are big or small I commit myself to labor in the pursuit of God for revival wherever He leads and plants me.

Only 19 Days

At the tine of this writing we are only 19 days from the first service at the Kermit Shake The City Revival meetings.

Services will begin at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday July 23rd on the vacant lot next to Belvue Baptist Church.

Subsequent services will be held nightly at 7:00 p.m.

We are scheduled to meet through Friday night July 28. If the Lord wants to do more I stand ready to heed  His call.

Each night this week the Lord has awakened me to stand in the gap for Kermit. I am counting down the days in anticipation of what Jehovah will do in Winkler County. I do not come with a bag of tricks or gimmicks to make these meetings successful. I come with a deep burden and conviction God has set Kermit in His sights.

I only have 19 more days to pray and prepare. This is the culmination of a four year long odyssey. In that time the burden has remained. I trust God for a special visitation to Kermit and beyond.