We often regard the apostolic saints as if they are in a special class of “sainthood,” more so than the other children of God. But dear believer, please know that all whom God has called by His grace and sanctified by His Spirit are “saints.” Even so, we are apt to look upon the apostles as extraordinary beings, scarcely subject to the same weaknesses and temptations as ourselves.

What we are seeing may well be the early embers of another Great Awakening — a grassroots revival not driven by celebrity pastors or megachurch marketing, but by everyday people choosing to follow Christ and share His love in ordinary places.

Abraham Lincoln attached his signature to a Proclamation calling for a “National Day of Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer.”

On this day, Americans would be encouraged to take time from their daily pursuits and gather to pray for their country. Wrote the President:

“Let us then rest humbly in the hope. . . that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace.”

It is the most stunning promise you and I have—this promise of the resurrection. The most meaningful and the most comforting; the most secure and the most lasting. For now, this world is a cemetery in which too many seek life—its joy, satisfaction, and meaning—among the dead. Among the decaying remains of man’s misguided trust and long-lost dreams.