This week we are having a set of meetings every night, and we call them revival meetings. Before I attended Grace, I didn't really understand what was meant by this term. Did these people think they could schedule an outpouring of God's Spirit? Wasn't that a bit presumptuous?
Well, now that I have been through several revival weeks during the last four years that I have been here in Logan, I understand what is meant. It is simply a special set of services, set aside for the purpose of making ourselves available to God in a corporate way, meeting together as the local church, and petitioning the Lord to do His wonderful work in our lives.
Most assuredly, no one can schedule revival. Revival and an outpouring of God's Spirit are based entirely on His grace and sovereignty. There is nothing we can do to merit it or earn it. It is solely, utterly and entirely God.
Yet, there is an attitude, a spiritual position, that is found in God's people prior to most any revival that you can think of. That attitude seems to be twofold. It is first an understanding of the absolute holiness and goodness of God. Secondly, it is the understanding that we as God's people, (and yes I said as God's people), fall so far short of where God would truly like us to be.
Growing up, while I always affirmed in my head that revival was for God's people, my real desire in praying for revival was that it affect the community. In other words, that the effect that the Welsh revival had on the bars, the drunkeness, the immorality, the cursing and swearing...that all of that would take place in the town I lived in.
I do not want to diminish this point, for it is a wonderful fruit of the outpouring of God's Spirit...but let us never, ever, forget, that revival is primarily for those who call themselves Christians.
Why is this? Because we as Christians need reviving, plain and simple. We need to move beyond the pathetic state of apathy and laziness that so dominates so-called Christianity in America today. I don't speak this in condemnation, but rather in self-evaluation. As I have stated several times here on this blog, I mourn my little appetite for the things of God, and most especially, for God Himself.
We must come to the understanding, that being a Christian in our own strength is, as far as righteousness is concerned, absolutely useless. Let me ask you something, are you going to walk tomorrow as a saved person, living the Christian life by your best efforts? If so, you, as I, will fail miserably. No, we may not disgrace the name of Christ. No, we may not slip up and say something we shouldn't. No, we may actually be quite cheerful and happy, yet in the eyes of God it is useless.
Let me say this...the only way that we can be a successful Christian in our homes, the workplace and in our hearts is by complete and utter surrender to Christ in us. It is by God's power that we can live victoriously. It is by God's enabling that we will stand in the face of temptation, speak out when God opens that door, and will not succumb to the speech and lifestyle of the world around us.
Lamentations 3:23 says that God's mercies
"...are new every morning" Why do we need new mercies? Why do we need them on a daily basis...every morning? Because there are certain things that God desires to accomplish in and through us each day, and only by His mercies will we be able to accomplish them.
Let us never forget that we are here with a purpose. David says that this is the day that the Lord hath made. It's not just another part of the week, it is a day that the Lord has fashioned and planned. If we are to be victorious and a spiritual success, we must rely on God's mercies and His strength to enable us to live that "abundant life" that Jesus came to give.
Revival, my friends, is the desperate need of God's people. The world WILL be changed when God's people are revived. No, I am not saying that I think there will be a worldwide revival that sweeps our globe. We know we are in the last days and that Jesus said wickedness would abound. Paul tells Timothy that there will be "terrible times" in the last days. Yet, I believe that God is still the same God He has ever been, that His desire for man is still that "whosoever would" would accept Christ's atoning work on Calvary and be saved. I believe that God will pour out water on Him that is thirsty. I believe that we can truly say "oh the happiness" of the one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, for he shall be filled.
My friends, do we hunger after God? Do we understand, even as Christians, that unless God is allowed to have is way in our lives, we will be absolute failures as Christians? Christ is the One who brought salvation, let Him also be the One who carries that good work on to completion until His day, the day of Christ Jesus.
Oh that God would raise up a remnant of people in these last days that would hunger and thirst for nothing less than Christ Himself. Oh that God would raise up a people whose sole purpose, sole desire, and sole passion is Christ. Oh that God would do that work in these days. Oh that God would do that work in me!
