Mary, the mother of Jesus, was expecting. Here is how it happened: The angel said to her, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Our church sent a man to ministry training school for two years. He graduated and is to hold his first “revival” meeting the first week end in June, here in his home church. A lot of churches hold revivals in June, July, and August. Our pastor has exhorted us to “come expecting” God to move in our lives and in the lives of the visitors who come. How do we “come expecting”? When a woman is expecting, what has happened? A male and a female have gotten together and a seed was planted. That seed has been nurtured and grown until the time of birth has drawn near. When the contractions start and continue and the water breaks, it is time to get to the place of birth. In a hospital, that is the maternity ward, which is a place where women get together to give birth to their babies under medical supervision. New life is brought into the world from the maternity ward. One function of the church is to be like a maternity ward. Each person, in daily life, is to spend time with God in prayer and the Word, walking in fellowship with the Spirit and each other, living in harmony with each other. The seed of God is planted in each of our hearts. Word life begins to grow, influencing our life. Then when the church meets together, each person has a “holy thing”, the life of God in each of our lives, to bring into the church and share. This awesome plan is the way it is done in the Bible (1 Corinthians 14:26). So it is not a matter of just coming to the meetings to watch the preacher perform. If we “come expecting”, we have already made a vital contribution to the meeting by spending time with God in prayer, in hearing from God, and then coming together with a mind to be a yielded vessel to simply move with the Holy Spirit. This is important because God desires to have his way in the church, the salt of the earth. Without this salt, the world goes its way with no spiritual influence to preserve it and bring out the best flavor. It putrefies. It goes from bad to worse. We see this happening. It is time for revival in every church. We are to “come expecting” God to move in each of our lives, our faith uniting, yielding to him to turn from sin, receive a fresh infilling of his Spirit, and walk in total obedience to him. God, in his abundant life, has given us this wonderful mercy and salvation for the whole world! Church! Come together expecting!
Come Expecting
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