Dear Reader,

You and I live in perilous times. I know you know that – if you read the news headlines, or talk to anyone about current events, or get online or turn on the television. Many times it seems like we, the children of God are fighting a losing battle. Do you ever feel like you are one of a few standing there trying to hold back the onslaught of darkness?

The world is at war, politics have been dividing our nation, our television and computer screens have been inundated with filth, our children are being lost to violence, sex, drugs, and immorality, our schools are fighting tooth and nail against God and to wipe His memory and any mention of him from this generation, and the venomous attacks against Christianity across the globe have been rising.

How do we fight the darkness? Is there even hope for revival among God’s people? Does anything that you or I do make a difference?

Yes.

How do we fight darkness? By turning on the light. Is there hope for revival? Yes, it is happening right now. Do we make a difference in this grand theater of events unfolding across the world? Yes! You and I are called by His name; our prayers, our choices, our decisions as the people of God make a difference.

If you are looking at the world right now, searching for revival in the world and a great turning away from sin by the people as a whole, then you may be looking in the wrong place. God has said, “If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 2 Chron 7:14 (emphasis added throughout)

Are you (and I) praying to our Mighty God? Are you and I seeking His face? Are we turning away from OUR wicked ways? Are we humbling ourselves before Him, acknowledging that we have sinned?

Yes, the world is full of sin. That is why there will be the great judgments outlined in Revelation, in Matthew, and elsewhere in the Bible.

God didn’t ask us to fix the world’s sin. Jesus already took care of that. God asked us, you and me, to repent of our sin. That is where revival starts, in our hearts.

Can you and I make a difference? Yes, right now. Right here is where revival starts. In our hearts the battle is won. In our prayers, God can move mightily, in our humility and repentance, God can hear and heal. By us letting the light of Jesus Christ, who IS the Light of the world, shine through in us and cast out the darkness in our hearts, God can be glorified by our works.

How do we fight darkness?

By turning on the light.

Be encouraged, we already know how this story ends. The battle – the war – was already won over 2,000 years ago by our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember,

“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out.”
John 1:5 GNT

– B. Payne