Revival is a divine intervention where God breathes new life into His people. It is the highest desire of every spirit-filled, blood-bought believer. This coming alive happens when God steps into a room, a church, or a region, transforming dry land into streams of water and dry bones into a formidable army. Revival is a historical testament to God awakening His people, reminding us there is more to the Christian life than what we’ve settled for.
There are three ingredients of revival which were highlighted to me during this class, these are:
1. The importance of hunger.
2. The importance of repentance.
3. The importance of prayer.
The Importance of Hunger
Everything begins with hunger. Spiritual hunger is a desire to break through the veil and touch the divine. It is a disaffection with the status quo and how things have always been. Historically, this hunger for more has been birthed during times of great darkness when it seemed the unlikeliest that God was near. This holy dissatisfaction becomes a zealousness that leads a person or group to knock on heaven’s door. Those consumed by this hunger will not take no for an answer.
The Importance of Repentance
Once hunger is birthed, a deep stirring of the heart and conviction of sin occurs. When we hunger to see God’s glory, we only need to see a sneak preview, and our hearts are rent. Beholding God’s holiness reveals our utter brokenness, iniquity, and inability. This leads to a place of heart-searching, total surrender, where the fear of the Lord draws us into deep reverence and where our heart dreads being apart from the Lover of our souls. The deeper we fall into His grace, the greater the craving for His presence; we must have Him in His fullness.
The Importance of Prayer
Out of the revelation of the holiness of God in repentance flows a mighty stream of prayer. True prayer moves the heart of God because it moves our hearts. Prayers that do not move us do not touch God’s heart. Time and again, we see through historical accounts of past revivals that darkness, crisis, and holy dissatisfaction are the match that lights the fire in the hearts of a faithful remnant to pray. When God’s people begin to cry out, God begins to move. Whether it is an individual, a church, a region, or a nation, when God’s people begin to cry out with pure hearts, God moves in power.
The Key to Experiencing the Reviving Power of God
How can we implement these truths into our 21st-century church culture? For me, it is simple: I must awaken this hunger in me. If I don’t have it, I can’t give it. If I don’t have it, I can’t preach it. I can’t lead people into it if I don’t have it. I must develop this hunger if there is hope that I will be a catalyst for revival in the lives of those I influence. Whether God uses me to revive His people or not, I must be a carrier; I must be filled with the life-giving Spirit of God.
Awakening Hunger
How do I awaken hunger? First, I must pray that God will light this fire within me, a fire I cannot contain and that the enemy cannot put out. I also ask God to give me a burden for souls, which is God’s burden. Secondly, I read God’s Word, take its promises of personal revival as mine, and meditate on these day and night. Yet another way is to surround myself with people, fellow believers, who have the same desire. Scripture warns us to be careful about the people we surround ourselves with because we become like those we allow to influence our lives. Lastly, I believe that one major way we can awaken hunger is by reading about the great works of God in past generations. Seeing how God moved in times of great darkness and used ordinary, everyday people to change history, shake nations, and stir movements that catalyzed the church into periods of awakening, whets our palate with desire and gives us hope for our current situation.
The Results of Awakening: Missions
As you read through the accounts of revival history, beginning with the Book of Acts and onwards, you see how these awakenings have long-lasting impacts beyond the time and place in which they occur. These impacts can be seen in no better areas than missions and evangelism. When the Holy Spirit visits His people, He empowers them to reach out and witness with power and boldness. We need an awakening of God’s Spirit in this hour to bring in the harvest!
The Mandate
What is our revival mandate? To be filled with God, become consecrated vessels He can use, and become catalysts of revival through prayer and Spirit-enabled evangelism. As a leader, I want to multiply disciples who carry this DNA, this mandate. Whether we see a revival on a mass scale or not, we should all answer God’s call to walk in personal revival. God desires that we be passionate, on-fire believers in an age of compromise, selfishness, and lack of devotion.
Revival history teaches us that God is the nearest when we feel the farthest from Him. It is at our darkest when the light is about to dawn. It is at our lowest when God is exalted. This is true on an individual or group scale. May the Lord baptize us with a desire for more of Him, not only because the world and the church need it desperately but because we, individually, need it. Let us take the lessons of saints of old and continue to carry the blood-stained banner of the Gospel to our generation. Let us together declare the old Moravian missionary motto, “May the Lamb that was slain receive the full reward of his sufferings!”
