Be with Jesus, Be like Jesus, Be for Jesus

This book is about the characteristics of the next Great Awakening and about the ingredients we need for it to happen.
As with past times of spiritual revival, there will be divine surprises, but the main characteristics of the next Great Awakening are predictable. There is a pattern to our past times of spiritual revival. Scripture reveals how the Lord plans for the pattern to progress.
The Lord wants us to understand these characteristics in advance so we can know what to seek and find. Our hunger for, prayers for, and pursuit of these characteristics are the ingredients we supply in preparation for this Great Awakening. Everything else, including the holy fire and the increasing desperation of the world, will be supplied by Him.
We start with an overview. The next Great Awakening will be both a national and an international move of God – a biblically grounded, Father-glorifying, Christ-led, Holy Spirit-empowered awakening that is rooted in agape love. This will not be love as the world and much of the church presently see it. This will be scripturally described and Spirit-imparted agape love that focuses on three things: intimacy, sanctification, and mission.
Intimacy is first and foremost an increasingly intimate, loving relationship with Jesus Christ that seeks nothing less than the “oneness” He prayed we would have with Him in John 17:20-23. Intimacy with Jesus through the Holy Spirit will bring about an increasingly close, loving relationship with the heavenly Father as His beloved children. It will also greatly increase our ability to love our sisters and brothers in Christ and everyone else God loves.
Because we need an easy-to-remember goal, and because some people are gun-shy about the word intimacy, we call this to be with Jesus.
Sanctification is a theological word for the process of being made holy. God is holy and calls upon His people to be holy. (1 Peter 1:14-16)
To be holy is to be set apart from the broken world and its evil so we can be joined to God and His goodness. This is righteousness, not legalism. It is the “obedience of faith” that harmonizes our lives with God’s declarations of what is good and what is not. (Romans 1:5)
Sanctification is the process of becoming Christlike - restored into the image and likeness of God we were designed to have. As such, we call this goal to be like Jesus.
We will never achieve our goals of intimacy without sanctification. And without intimacy and sanctification, we will never succeed in our divine mission.
Mission is our purpose on this earth. In an institutional Church preoccupied with finding compatible church fellowship, being spiritually entertained, choosing your personal religious philosophy, or a “just get ‘em saved” mentality, our true mission are the good works prepared by the Lord for us to do even before we became new creations in Christ. (Ephesians 2:8-10) Mission is an integral part of the hope, future, and abundant life God has for us. (Jeremiah 29:11; John 10:10)
We will never become fully intimate with Jesus without accepting the mission He assigns to us as Lord. We will never become Christlike unless, like Jesus, we deny ourselves and take up our cross daily. (Luke 9:23; Philippians 2:4-8) To be with Jesus and to be like Jesus, we must be for Jesus.