True revival cannot be scheduled on a calendar. A revival is not a series of church services that take place in a church building over a period of four or five days. Revival can come out of the meetings but are not the meetings themselves. God promises in Acts 2:18 that during the last days which I think we can all agree that we are living in now He will pour out His Spirit on all people. Our sons and daughters will prophesy, our young men will see visions, our old men will dream dreams. God tells Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37 to prophesy to the dry bones. Verse 5 says, “Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you and you shall live.” Revival has everything to do with life! When true revival comes, it comes with the force of a tsunami. It brings with it the thunder and lightning of conviction and repentance. People will fall at the altar to confess and repent of sin in their lives. Life will return to the dead, demons will be cast out, cancer will be removed and the "greater things" Jesus spoke about before ascending into Heaven will be fulfilled! People will have a hunger for the Word of God. People will want to become passionate, devoted apostles of Jesus. The change that revival brings is uncomfortable. Real revival will reach inside you and destroy everything. You will be wrecked with a deeper understanding of the gospel and a more passionate relationship with Jesus. You will be purged of known sin. Your life as you know it will change to become more conformed to the image of Christ. The very act of this change is gut wrenching. When revival punches a person in their soul, it begins to remove layers of pain, baggage, guilt, sin and whatever else it needs to bulldoze to get that person in right standing with God. According to 2 Timothy 4:3 many will be unable to handle the sound doctrine the Bible contains. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. But keep faith and you will come forth as gold (Job 23:10). Many people pray for revival. Many people pray for change. They desire to see change as long as it does not involve them. You cannot have one apart from the other. God is asking, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I say, "Here am I. Send me!" I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else to do what God has called me to do myself. What about you? Jeremiah says that the heart is deceitful above all else and desperately sick. I know that the closer I come to being conformed to Christ’s image, the more He reveals to me that is in me that needs evaluating (Romans 12:3). Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23,24) Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me (Psalm 51:10). Do you see? It is my thoughts, my heart, my plans, my desires, my actions, my relationships, my passions, my life that must undergo transformation. I need more of God’s redeeming love, grace, and mercy to wreck me. We all need to pray Romans 12:1-2 constantly that we may be both a living sacrifice and have our minds transformed by the infallible, inerrant, powerful, purging sword; God’s Holy Word. For a country to be revived, a state has to be revived. For a state to be revived, a city has to be revived. For a city to be revived, a church has to be revived. For my church to be revived, I must be revived. REVIVAL HAS BEGUN! Do you hear the sound like the blowing of a violent wind?
Posted on: Tue, 02 Jul 2013 00:10:39 +0000
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