Monday, May 4, 2009

Why the Next Revolution?

I find generational transfers fascinating. Nothing could be more important to a family, a parent, a child, a community or a people and yet nothing has been more troublesome throughout the history of mankind than the process of living a life as a follower of Jesus and then raising up a next generation who will follow Him even more deeply.

In the Bible as you get into I & II Samuel or I & II Kings, you find the repeated cycle of one good king handing the throne to a son who goes on to be a bad king. Instead of one generation setting up the next which sets up the next which sets up the next to know and follow Jesus with greater and greater depth, one generation's life of faith and obedience is washed away by a next generation which forgets Him.

The enemy wins in this situation because while there are so few examples of great men and women handing off their faith to greater sons and daughters who then pass on their faith to even greater sons and daughters, there are millions and millions of stories of the opposite.

The world's most common occurrence these days is faithless individuals rejecting Jesus and having babies outside of committed relationships who then grow up without the necessary ingredients of a healthy, loving family and a vibrant relationship with Jesus. These children grow up with a hole in their heart and even more desperate in their lack of faith and love. This lack of love and faith propels them into even more high-risk behaviors and into producing their own unloved children who receive even less and less selfless love and who, as a result, grow up emptier and in pain and increasingly likely to turn and use another human to fill the void.

This vicious cycle accomplishes the exact opposite of a successful faith transfer. Instead of one generation setting the other up for a deeper level of life in Him, one generations sets the other up for deeper and deeper levels of dysfunction and, as a result, communities are distorted.

It is time now to turn the tide.

The word "repent" is commonly defined these days as "to make a turn." Another word for turning is the word "revolution." A "turning" has begun in which this cycle of bad generational transfers outnumbering godly generational transfers will be broken. The impact across the earth will be dramatic.

Communities will be developed and changed. Families will flourish. The Kingdom of God will be displayed in beautiful clarity. Young people will be saved from death and will live lives that see not only their dreams come true but they will learn to turn and help others do the same.

This is the Next Revolution

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