We Need Revival!
Some local churches are experiencing God’s fiery presence. On the whole, however, we cannot deny the need for the illuminating, cleansing warmth of heavenly fire in the church today. Despite God’s loving faithfulness, the sad, consistent testimony of both scripture and church history is that God’s people fall into a lukewarm state – even apostasy – with alarming regularity. Christians need times of radical recommitment and refreshing. We have a tendency to establish religious traditions that must be challenged and sometimes dismantled. We can harbor pharisaical, prideful attitudes, and many are bound by ungodly strongholds of habit. Worldliness in the form of greed, bitterness, rebellion, and sexual sin are common in the Lord’s house. Who can deny the obvious need for revival?
The blessings of spiritual renewal are much to be desired. Scriptural and historical accounts offer proof that times of revival bring change to the church evidenced by heightened spiritual life and power. When revival fire falls, the Word of God is preached with powerful anointing. Love becomes the watchword. The power and gifts of the Holy Spirit flow like a river and supernatural healings regularly confirm the Word. Repentance wells up in hearts exposed to the life-giving message of the gospel and many are converted. When spiritual opposition assails the revived church it is met with divine intervention just as God stayed the moon in the Valley of Aijalon for Joshua, and struck down attacking armies as He did for Asa and Jehoshaphat.
Most Christians do not doubt the need for revival; nor do we question God’s promise to renew His people. The question is how can a needy church enter into that promise? Therein lies a difficulty – many of those in the pulpit have been taught or have come to believe that revival is totally beyond our control. Consequently, most in the pew believe this also. Most view revival as exclusively God’s choice. In other words, the church believes that the Lord pours out times of refreshing in what seems to be a rather haphazard manner without much regard to what is happening in the local church or region. If this is true it means we can only hope and pray that revival will come our way.
While God is sovereign and certainly acts as He chooses, the thought that God behaves capriciously or with partiality is inconsistent with what we know of His nature and desire. He wants to revive lukewarm, dying, and worldly churches more than these churches desire his reviving fire. God is neither capricious nor inconsistent. He is a God of purpose and plan. He simply waits for his conditions to be met; when they are, He manifests His presence in undeniable power and blessing – what we call revival.
We cannot engineer what the Lord will do; yet, relegating ourselves to pleading and waiting for a move of God is not the sole option. The premise of this blog and the new book I have written The Power of Return is that instead of simply hoping and praying that God will sprinkle revival in our area or that accidental revival will develop in our churches, we can proactively prepare an explosive spiritual atmosphere ready to be ignited by the spark of God’s presence. When a favorable environment exists the Lord willingly kindles a flame. A study of the great revivals recorded in God’s Word confirms that the Lord’s people have a necessary part to play in ushering in times of awakening.
revival and have spent years in the study of the subject. Please check out my new book "The Power of Return" published by Destiny Image.
Brillantemente