Revival - It's Personal!

Revival comes from the reviving of something or someone. It’s a restoration back to useful state or awakening in our spirits. We cannot be effective if we are in a stagnant state. Revival requires action. The word of God says:

*He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

(John 7:38 NKJV)

*“Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness. (Acts 4:29–31 NKJV)

Revival is something that starts first in the very spirit of the believer. Holy Spirit fans the flames of excitement and rejoicing within us, and living water bubbles up out of us in the form of praise and declaration of God’s truth and testimony of His good works in our life. If we get too caught up in our own troubles and worldly drama, we will surly miss out on the powerful work Father God is doing in this season. In Matthew 9:37, Jesus said, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” And this was spoken hundreds of years ago. Our Christian walk is designed to be a labor of love unto God and people. Paul said:

*Do this, knowing the time, that now is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

(Romans 13:11-14 NKJV)

Paul also said in 1 Corinthians, “For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more” (1 Cor. 9:19). If we walk in the spirit and in love and in the truth of Father God as His ambassadors and fully representing who He is, then people can’t help but notice and be drawn to what Father offers. Things like hope, healing, freedom, peace, love, joy, and strength, which result from a personal relationship with the Most High God Himself! Never discount that you are making a difference, one person at a time. We plant seeds and God brings the increase. The word of God says:

*But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; (1 Pet. 3:15 NKJV)

*Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I, planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. (1 Cor. 3:5–7 NKJV)

Revival meetings are to fan the flames of faith, to bring life back to our spiritual hunger for the things of God, and to awaken us to the desires of Father’s heart for the people around us He wants to touch. They can refocus Christians on the purpose, or mission, of God in their own lives and rekindle the flames of inspiration to fulfill God’s will. Revivals declare the truth of God that breaks down walls of separation and breaks off chains of bondage to set captives free from lies the enemy has built up in their lives. And it doesn’t have to be a big meeting for revival. In Matthew 18:20, Jesus said, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” When we welcome Jesus into what we are doing, He is there. When we ask for the desires of His heart to be manifested, that His perfect will be done, and that He have His way in our lives, then we will see His Spirit at work in a mighty way. The word of God says:

*For the kingdom of God is not in word but in power. (1 Cor. 4:20 NKJV)

But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Cor. 2:9–14 NKJV)

*Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

(Mark 9:23 NKJV)

*But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matt. 19:26 NKJV)

*But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. (Heb. 11:6 NKJV)

Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as little child will by no means enter it. (Mark 10:15 NKJV)

We must move past the point of thinking of God in human terms and see Him for the unlimited awesome almighty God that He is! It’s when we take God out of the confining box we have imagined Him in, contained in Sunday trips to the church building, and allow Him into every moment of our day in full surrender to Him - that’s when the outpouring of His Spirit will truly be seen in our lives and be seen by those we come in contact with throughout our lives here. The living flame we carry within us will ignite more spiritual flames in people around us, and we will see great revival!

*And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. (Acts 2:18–21 NKJV)