First Day of Revival in Cool Casual

Hey y'all! How have you been? I'm finally getting around to doing a post on some sermon notes, so I thought I would start with a Revival series my church did this past week!

We had a guest preacher by the name of Dr. Don Anderson come preach our Fall Revival. Dr. Don Anderson has travelled millions of miles spreading the Gospel, leading churches in Revivals, and preaching God's Word. He's a no-nonsense, fiery preacher with a tremendous passion for serving God and a great burden for the unsaved. I definitely enjoyed his preaching and look forward to seeing him again!

The verse that I will be focusing on is Psalm 119:83.
"For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes." 
-Psalm 119:83

In this text, the bottle that is being referred to is made out of leather and is likely stored by being hung on a string by the ceiling. Now, for a bottle to be covered in smoke, it had to be in the dwelling place of an impoverished family, since those families lacked adequate ventilation within the homes. In this text, smoke is referring to the sinful, immoral things of the world that we often find ourselves wrapped up in.

Now to the main points of the sermon!

• Darkness and Dirty Effect: When the outside is covered in smoke and some dirt, it often turns everybody off to what's on the inside. So, even if the inside contains amazing substance, people are tempted to overlook it if the outside is dirty! Whenever the world looks at us, if our lives are filled with smoke and dirt (sin), we cannot expect others to see us as born-again believers! They need to see change in our own lives and see Christ within us to help them see the incredible change that God can make in people's lives.

• The Oil of the Holy Spirit: In order to condition us, we need the oil of the Holy Spirit to condition us through His conviction and direction in our lives.

• Dryness Effect: Leather is animal hide, and when leather hide is constantly covered in smoke, it gets dried up. Having unrepented sin in our lives will lead us to become Spiritually "dried up": We will eventually not feel as close to the Lord as we once did and we may feel removed from God. Now, the only thing that can combat this dryness is water! The Bible is our source of water that has an incredible quenching effect and cleansing power. It can restore our faith and get us back on the right track! Regularly being in our Bibles and studying the Word of God will keep us healthy- just as we'd die without water, we will suffer tremendously Spiritually without the Word of God.

•  When smoke is covering our vessels and our lives, we need to be able to honestly assess ourselves. If we don't get honest with ourselves and admit when there's sin in our lives that needs to be addressed, how are we ever going to be able to fix it? We should be continually assessing ourselves, giving the things in our lives we need help with to God and repenting, and making a commitment to be more like Him!

• The challenge: Get honest with yourself! Is there smoke covering your life that you need to work on? Give it to God and let yourself be transformed through His living Word and through the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

Now for the outfit pictures!

While I did not wear this outfit on for the first night of Revival, I did wear it for fellowshipping at pastor's house last Saturday as it started to get chilly outside :P I love that it is finally beginning to get cool enough where I can regularly wear cardigans and my long denim skirt again! Eeek!

This is an easy, no-fuss, casual outfit I would wear just about anywhere. I wasn't really able to wear long denim skirts in the summer because of the blazing Southern heat, but now that it's finally starting to get cool out, I will be taking full advantage of my long denim skirts! :)

Huge thank you to my pastor's wife for taking my blog pictures! Isn't she awesome?

                                              

Skirt: The Skirt Outlet from last fall

Top: Uniqlo Women Drape Crewneck Short-Sleeve T-Shirt, $14.95

Cardigan: The Loft Outlet, $11 (with my employee discount)

Shoes: The Day Glove by Everlane in Tan, $115

Necklace: Walmart, $28 

Let me know if you like the formatting of the sermon notes points! I was on the fence about doing it this way, but I figured I would experiment with it a little bit just to see what works for everyone. 

Blessings, 

Tiffany