Spirit of Elijah

Malachi 4:5-6 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord . And he will turn The hearts of the fathers to the children, And the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”


This is one of the primary end-time promises of God: I am going to turn the attention of the adults back to the kids, and the kids to the adults, before Jesus returns. There is an end-time generation of kids who will be uniquely anointed to follow God, because adults have invested in them in a unique way...a way we haven't seen.


Right now, parents will invest in their kids in many ways. Sports is probably the best example. Lots of families are driven by sports schedules...literally. I have nothing against sports...at all. We have done rocket football for several years. But modern-day kids sports are a life-alterer. It takes a serious commitment of time and resources to keep a kid involved in organized sports in our day and age. Many families sacrifice weekends and evenings, holidays...even vacations... for the team, or for their kid's potential future success. The vast majority of kids trucked back and forth across the state each weekend for tournaments will stop playing their sport in or after high school...from then on it will just be good memories.


The Bible says, though, that their is a generation coming where the parents don't hold a vision of a pro team contract for their kids, or an all state title, or a college scholarship. No! There is a coming generation that will teach their kids the most important thing in life with the same zeal as the travel hockey family, or the travel soccer family, or the travel baseball family...a generation that pulls out all the stops, spares no expense in time or money, to connect their kids with wholehearted love for Jesus!:


Matthew 22:36-37, 39-40 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”


I believe this generation is on the earth right now. A week of getting to hang out with 140, or so, has just solidified it in my mind again. This generation of kids coming up are HUNGRY for truth. The are fed so much paper thin "reality"...flexible truth...their hearts are hungry for solid concrete truth. The more of it they get, the more consecrated they become. They want to be different...they want to set themselves apart. But many parents have no vision for what God is doing right now. Parents, by and large, want their kids to have what they think they are SUPPOSED to give them: some kind of strange ideal of the "all-american" childhood...the same one that has resulted in an unprecedented level of bullying, violence, and school shootings...


But this is a special generation. Ask anyone who works in kids ministry and they will tell you the same thing: this generation of little kids all the way through teens wants to pray and worship Jesus in a weird way...for real! I have seen kids line up to worship and pray for more than an hour...if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed it! Many of the kids I have met are more serious about committing time and resources to chasing after Jesus than their parents are! This is a once-in-creation opportunity, but do we adults have eyes to see it? I think the sad answer is mostly no...


What if kids church was the pinnacle of service at church rather than mostly seen as babysitting? What if we hauled our kids to the worship opportunities, and the concerts, and took them seriously as future prophets, pastors, and teachers...like we imagine they might be pitchers, quarterbacks, or goalies? The world would be radically different...our country would be radically different!


The truth is, this IS going to happen with kids, but will it happen with YOUR kids? Jesus is promising a generation that will "follow the lamb wherever He goes." Revelation 14 describes a part of this consecrated generation:


144,000 young men who, in the middle of the worst perversion the earth has ever seen, choose Jesus in a radical way. They represent a generation that is singing new songs to Jesus night and day, walking in such unity with the Lamb that they are releasing His judgment with their words of authority on earth:


Revelation 14:1-5 Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. And I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps. They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth. These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God.


The hearts of the children ARE supernaturally turning to the fathers (and mothers). Are the hearts of the fathers and mothers serious about turning to the children?!

God, help me see my kids, and what you desire for them, the way you do!