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Revival |
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What is it? |
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We talk about it, we hear about it but what is it? The two most common misconceptions, in my opinion, are that revival is people getting saved and that it always involves large numbers. Most have the concept that revival has to do with evangelism, that when people start getting saved it is a revival. On the contray, it is the people of God begging to function for God, by God, wherein once there was apathy now there is vibrance. Like waking up out of a stupor of a fleshly night to the reality that God has delclared that He is light "...and in Him is no darkness at all." Like a splash of the living water that we are promised, being recieved in God's power and time by faith. Revival is true repentance among the Church or as I prefer to think of it as...the Church simply begining to function as God created it to function. Crucified with Christ and filled with the Spirit, Separated unto God. It is the result of this movement that ends in the saving of souls, not the reverse. Revival is Spirituality in function. |
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Why do we need it? |
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Because the Church has become weak in it's own strength. We have been overcome by our own conquests and blinded by our own concept of light. We are comfortable, or if you prefer, complacent.
Are you satisfied with your Christian life? Have you come to a place where you are as close to Jesus Christ as you want to be? Do you feel that you are exactly where you need to be in relation to the Almighty God before whom the blood of the New Coventent was sprinkled, once for all, making atonement for your sins? I have to confess, my brothers and sisters, that I am not satisfied with my current level of spirituallity, I want more, I need more, a closer relationship to Christ and I know that it's there and that it's availible because I read about it in the Bible. I wonder, is there a longing in you for that relationship with God that has been freely given in Christ, to know Him deeply, to know fully the power of His resurection and even the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death. To continually bear in your body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus might be made manifest in your body. To be more and more identified with His death that you might say with Paul that you are crucified with Christ and yet still live, not you but Christ in you. To have experiencially, functionally all things that pertain to life and godliness. To be a partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. All these things we have (present tense) in Christ Jesus through His promises, but oh to know them more functionally and deeply and that all these things be clearly demonstrated by and in the Church of Christ, being sanctified by His blood so that we, the Church, might fulfill our end, that the Father might be glorified in the Son. Do you long for these things? Or are you satisfied with programs and Sunday worship teams and general Christian living as it is? In answering the question of "why do we need it" I guess I will turn that over to conscience and simply ask "Do you need it?" I beleive that in this time when the Word of God is set aside for our own personal preferences and personal enjoyment has taken the place of identification with the Man of Sorrows that we do need it. And so this leads to the following question.
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How do we get it? |
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Again, we must take care not to confuse the means with the end or the effect with the cause. It is not necesarrily evangelism that brings about revival it is revival that moves a person to testify of the grace that was extended to them. And as the Holy Spirit of God drives us, God is glorified in the manifestation of His Son in us, then people can see that there is a God who dwells within His Church (I mean the people not the building) and give glory to Him and Him alone. And I don't believe that this is always in masses. It may come in very small numbers but I beleive that the begining of it is always the same: Repentance. As it is written "...for God resisteth the proud; and giveth grace to the humble. Humble yourself therefore, under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you in due time" 1 Peter 5: 5, 6 for more on this see also: Revival from Revelation, Ephesus |
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When we can see that we are lacking spiritually, recognizing that we have need, then we are at a point when we can turn to God, looking for the grace that supplies all that we need. It is all to easy to be confident in the comforts around us. Things that may have once bothered our conscience soon just become something commonplace. And yet the Scriptures say of Lot "For that righteous man, dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds." 2 Peter 2: 8 Lot did not allow the sins of the society around him to become commonplace, but continually renewed his mind to be in accordance with God's standards and the scriptures say his "righteous" soul was "vexed". Is this language that accurately describes the Church today in its response to the sins of our society? Unfourtunately this does not descibe us today on a large scale. We are comfortable in this "strange" and "foreign" land and have lost sight that if we are in Christ then we are "strangers and pilgrims on the earth." Our citisenship is not of this world, it is above. "Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Peter 3: 13 I would also like to point out the next verse as well "Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, without spot, and blameless."
The effect of this knowledge should be, examination leading to reform. Let us "be diligent" that we may be found of Him in peace. Are we lacking? If so, we need revival. Lacking what? Well, those things that are freely given to us in Christ such as Holiness, Purity, Love, Power, Peace, Joy and the list could go on. If we as the body of Christ recognize that we are not living all of what God has given to us (again He has "...given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness...") then we need revival. I submit to you that we are not living it and that we need it. So, having seen the need, what next? The answer is twofold: Repent and Pray. The Scriptual pattern (Both New and Old Testaments) is always examination of heart leading to sorrow of heart as those who in repentance recognize their errors, which in turn drives the person or people to turn to God and having turned to God they call upon Him to turn again to them. Repent and Pray.
More... |
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