Revival?

Over the next three weeks, Trinity Church is preparing to host Life Action Ministries and participate with one of their ministry teams in a revival summit. Revival is an old school term that carries some pretty heavy baggage with it. So over the next three weeks, I am going to be making postings here on my blog to talk about what revival is and why we might need it in our lives.

I want to start by describing what revival is, by describing what revival is not. First of all, revival is not a meeting or an event. Many people with church backgrounds grew up going to “revival meetings.” While those events were likely significant, they may or may not have brought a fresh touch from God.

Revival is also not a mass evangelistic event. Revival is for God’s people. To “revive” means to “come back to life” or “full strength.” In order to return to life, there must have been life to begin with. There comes a time in our lives where we simply get comfortable with the status quo. We get comfortable living from day to day, seeing little power and little kingdom impact.We get so used to it that we end up thinking that it is normal. We lower our expectations of what it means to follow Jesus in a loving, devoted relationship.

I personally ascribe to Richard Owen Roberts’ view of what revival is. Roberts’ writes, “…revival is an extraordinary movement of the Holy Spirit producing extra ordinary results.” (Roberts, Revival! p. 16) Revival is an extraordinary movement of God whereby we should be able to observe extraordinary results. Revival is something that God does. We cannot schedule it on our calendar. What we can do is seek God for it.

When it comes to praying for revival, we must follow the model of prayer found in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “…if my people who are called by name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Revival is all about falling in love with the Reviver all over again. Falling in love to the point that all we long for is His presence to be made real in our lives.

Over the next few weeks we are going to take a look at some indications that show we need to fall in love with Jesus again…. that we need the Spirit to come and wash over us anew so that we can give Him the glory He is due.