The Great Experiment - Day 2 (day)

The Great Experiment, Day 2 (morning)

Here are this morning's video devotional, Scripture passage, prayer points, and guide for Day 2 of The Great Experiment.

Blessings,

Matt Bennett
Founder and CEO, Christian Union

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Transcript:

Hi. I'm Chuck Hetzler with Christian Union Day & Night. I'm also the Lead Pastor of Bethesda Grace Church here in Manhattan. I'm so glad that we are doing The Great Experiment together. Praise God for these first ten days of June to press into the Lord, to take bold steps of action for our Lord Jesus Christ. We need that here today in our country. I know we need it here in this city, and I'm sure in your cities you would say the same thing. I want to encourage us today, as I read from Judges chapter five a few verses, to be bold and courageous in seeking God because this is exactly what we need in our time. If you know the Book of Judges, it's a time where there was a cycle where the people of God would sin and they'd walk away from following God totally, and God would send oppressors from around them in order to bring them back as well as just as a consequence of their sin.

But then they would cry out to God and pray and say, "Lord, forgive us," and God would send a deliverer and rescue them from their enemies and restore them to Him, to Himself, and to the place of blessing that they were supposed to have. One of these episodes I want to read from is Judges chapter five. It's actually the song of Barak and Deborah after they had this great deliverance from God through them. Here's what verse two says. "That the leaders took the lead in Israel, that the people offered themselves willingly, bless the Lord."

Now, she starts with this. They start with this part in the song and they say the first and most important thing, if God's going to do a work for His people, is that the leaders in the Church, we would say today, the leaders of God's people need to step forward and say, "It's time for us to get back right with God. It's time for us to engage in the enemy and call upon God so that he'll restore us to the place where we're supposed to be," and that the people, the followers, the rest of us as disciples of Jesus Christ would follow along willingly, offer ourselves and say, "Yes, we need to fully seek God once again. We need to turn away from all these other things that have compromised our faith and engage in the spiritual warfare that's upon us."

Because of that, if that happens, "Praise God, bless the Lord," they say, because God's going to do something. If we will just engage with God and we will follow Him according to His principles, willingly, fully, then God will come and God will work. That's exactly what we're doing here with The Great Experiment. Whether it's our five Rs, whether it's the Joshua Faith Challenges, it's my prayer and my encouragement to all of us today to say, "Let's offer ourselves willingly. Let's give ourselves all the way into this. Let's not hold back because what's at stake is greater than we can realize." For them, it was a physical enemy that was oppressing them. But for us, it's spiritual.

We are being oppressed spiritually here. The work of God is being oppressed in our nation. The Church is crumbling. The "nones" are rising. We've got to say, "Lord, it's time for You to come in and deliver us." But the Lord is looking back at us and He's saying, "Will the leaders lead? Will the followers offer themselves willingly?" Here with The Great Experiment, we're saying, "Yes to all of that, Lord. Yes." And it does take sacrifice. It does take risking some things out of our lives. I want to read one other verse in this song from Judges 5 and it's skipping down to verse 18, where it says, "Zebulun," which was one of the tribes of Israel, "is a people who risked their lives to death. Nephthali," another tribe, "too, on the heights of the field."

You know, for these people of God, it meant to engage in the battle that was going on in their days for the purposes of God. It meant leaving your family to go engage on the battlefronts where you may actually lose your life. Now, obviously, we're not fighting a physical war today. But we're fighting spiritual battles and it does mean we have to sacrifice things out of our lives. It does mean we have to say no to other recreational things or other leisure things to seek the Lord day and night, morning and night, to fast. We have to sacrifice to spend more time in prayer. We have to sacrifice to witness when we feel like we're an outsider. We've got to potentially sacrifice our reputation.

So we, in the same way that they had to risk their lives, we have to do that again today. But we're doing that together. It's so encouraging to do it together. So I just encourage you and thank God for you. I bless the Lord for the people of God who are leaning, for the people of God who are offering themselves willingly. The Lord will come to us, just as He did to them, as we continue to seek Him with all of our hearts, with all of our lives, holding nothing back. So thanks and be encouraged as you partake in these ten days together. God bless.

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Here is today’s guide for the “Five Rs” of The Great Experiment, June 1-10, 2019.

1. Read and Pray

Lamentations 3:25 – The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.

Read Lamentations 3:19-33 for more context.

Today’s Prayer Points

• In this age of immediate gratification, pray that we would have patient endurance as we seek God for His Kingdom to come.
• Thank God that He will be good to you as you wait on Him.

2. Repent.
What sins do I need to repent of today? What hindrances to my devotion to Christ can I remove today?

3. Respond to the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit, what is the one thing you most want me to do today? (Write it down, and do it today).

4. Represent Christ. 
How will I bear witness to Christ today? With whom shall I share the Gospel today?

5. Raise Your Faith.
Be bold and courageous in living out your faith (Joshua 1:8,9). Choose from one of the following options for a “Joshua Faith Challenge”:

1. Host an all-night prayer meeting. Set a date during June 1-10 and invite friends to come and pray with you for revival in America.
2. Every day, pray for ten friends and family members to come to faith in Christ and look for opportunities to share the gospel with them.
3. Share an evangelistic post on social media every day from June 1-10.
4. Anything else the Lord burdens you to take on that will require courageous faith.