You know there has been much talk recently of how it is we as Original Free Will Baptists can do more to grow our denomination. Better yet, the question may be what is it that is hindering our denomination from growing? Is more education needed? Are more revival meetings needed in our churches? Well that all depends on why we are having them. But do we ask our ministers to become more educated because that is the way it has always been done in the Original Free Will Baptist Church? Or is it because we truly want ourselves and our ministers to fulfill 2 Timothy 2:15 where scripture says: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” To study is a hunger and Jesus said “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).
But yet perhaps the reason we may have lost that hunger and our denomination has shrunk is because of the fact that our hunger has been lost due to the traditions we have laid upon us and our churches? For instance—as I said before about revival meetings—why do we have them? Is it because our mentality might be that years ago revival was established by the church you attend to begin on the Monday night that follows the annual Homecoming service? If that is when it is scheduled that is fine, but that will not bring you revival or a spiritual awakening. For the only thing that can give us revival and bring a fire upon us is if we pray for God to send the fire from on high that we may be that shining light on a hill! If we do not pray for that fire our churches will slowly, one by one, die out as some are already doing and then eventually our denominational ministries will die because there will be no church to support it! So let me challenge us all to lay aside the traditions of men and allow the Spirit of God to give us a fire by opening up our hearts and minds while never compromising God’s Word! In Acts 2:41 scripture shares with us the fruits of the early church’s first revival where it says: “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.” Souls were saved because hearts were open to the Word of God—it’s fire and power—and 3,000 were saved that day! May we lay aside the past and march to the future until Jesus comes that God may be glorified. Never forgetting where we were, or where we have been, but go forward and “work 'til Jesus Ccomes!”
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13–14).