Have you ever been broken or felt the pain of the sin of others? In our recent study, we talked about Ezra. Ezra helped to usher in a revival in the people of God and it all started with a spirit of repentance that he had for the sin that he witnessed in the lives of God’s people. He had not taken part of the sin, but he bore the burden of the sin on his heart and saw the collision path that God’s people were on with the consequences of their sin that they had not repented of.

I began to think about how I have allowed these principles to work in my life. I’ve felt the burden of the guilt of my own sin, but it was not until recently that I’ve began to be sensitive to the weight and the impact of the sin of God’s people. Just like the Israelites, God’s people today have allowed sins that we have not repented of put us under captivity, humiliation and at the mercy of the enemies of God. Some of these sins are subtle but their impact is not. Some of these sins are:

*Lowering God’s standards in our lives and allowing the World’s standards to become the norm in our culture and in our churches

*Lack of prioritizing God’s Word in our daily lives. We make time for everything else but daily devotions. Just as we wouldn’t or shouldn’t go a day with washing ourselves externally, we should not go a day without checking our spiritual B.O. (Body Odor). Many of God’s people are walking around stinking on the inside and the world can smell us and are repulsed by us and therefore aren’t drawn to God because our lives stink.

*Lack of compassion toward people. We often allow how much we think it will cost us to help others to actually prevent us from actually helping others.

*Lack reverence for God. God is loving and wants to have a personal relationship with us, but He is still God. We must come humbly to him with respect for Him and who He is. We have “dumbed” down who God is and we do not approach him with fear and trembling. It’s not that we should approach God like the cowardly lion approached the Wizard of Oz, but should recognize His power and appreciate who He is.

*Lack of recognition of the stain that sin causes on our lives. Sin is serious and will stain our lives. God HATES SIN!!!! We tolerate it and make excuses for its presence in our lives.

These are just a few of the sins that we as God’s people have allowed to take root in our lives and in the church. We as God’s people need to have our hearts heavy as we recognize them and desire for a revival in our lives and in the Church. It is time to not just look in our own house but in the house of God as well. We need each other as members of the same body, so if I’m not operating at full capacity because of the sin in my life, you will suffer and the body of Christ is not acting as effectively and efficiently as it could be. My sin has a negative impact on you so just so I should be torn by your sin and you should be torn by my sin.

This is a new way of thinking for most of us, but it is the key to revival in the kingdom. We must revolutionize our way of thinking if we are going to have a spiritual revolution in the body of Christ.