What do I mean by 'revival'? Revival is when positive change happens in the Church and therefore in the community that the Church serves. People find faith in Christ, healing happens in bodies, minds and relationships, the community recognises that the Church and faith in Jesus is producing a positive effect. Crime and immorality reduce significantly whilst personal spirituality and Church community events increase.
Revival happens when Christians start believing that God has provided all we need for all he has asked us to do, nothing is missing. He has already made available all the resources of heaven, all the power of the Holy Spirit and all the authority of Jesus Christ, not 'for the asking' but within the Spirit-filled believer at all times. The believing I mean is not mental assent to a truth but the putting into action of that truth. Revival 'tarries' not because God has not yet decided to act or because we have not prayed enough, but because we have not decided to act.
Why not make 2010 the year in which YOU decide to make revival happen in your life. Make that decision to pray, study, witness (without fear of man), heal the sick (until they do start getting healed), operate in the gifts of the Spirit, both within the Church and in the world. It has been said, and is probably true, that most people don't see healings because they don't 'pray for' enough people! Many drugs used in medicine are only effective in a minority of cases but that minority is sufficient to make the use of the drug worthwhile. If you command healing in a thousand people this year and only 10% get healed then 100 people would be healed because you chose to operate in the authority that Jesus gave to you
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Chris and Cathy (or is it Catherine now?). First time I’ve ever ‘blogged’ or at least responded to one!
ReplyDeleteRevival? Hmmm? Can we really ‘choose’ to have revival?
Here’s a thought about revival in the manner of our beloved Dicken’s character, Bob Cratchett:
“A Merry Christmas to you! God save you! cried a cheerful voice.” ……..There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round – apart from the veneration due its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that – as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
“What right have you to be merry? What reasons have you to be merry?”
I think that we can choose to have revival in our outlook, in the manner in which we ‘look out’ on life. I think that we can choose to have a positive outlook and still remain British! If we are God’s children and He is for us then I choose to believe that His ways are the right ways and I put my trust in them. I choose to believe that doing the right thing is the way to go, even if, at the outset it seems to most (and sometimes to ourselves) that we’re living in dreamland. I chose to be positive. I chose not to dwell on the past (deal with it if needs be; then be done), I chose to forgive; I chose to be the first to say “I’m sorry!” even if I don’t believe it was my fault so start with “for the part I played in”. But can I choose to have revival? …”I may choose….but I need God to act or my choosing, well……well I think it would be powerless if my choosing to do the right thing was not empowered by God! But that’s just it, I believe that if you DO choose to do the right thing by God, then He WILL back you up!
It’ always comforting and strengthening to know that God backs up our prayers and actions with His presence amongst us and His providence in healings to body and soul. As you know I recently lost my dad to cancer. I sought my Lord in prayer and, faithfully leaning on and buoyed by scripture that I felt was Spirit derived, declared to those around my dad’s healing. Alas, he was not healed of body and died. Whilst I believe that he IS now eternally with the Lord in Heaven, it has left my non-christian family and friends angry with a God who does NOT appear to be present and angry with a son who follows, even promotes, a cruel, powerless religion. I have prayed for others and witnessed healings of cancer, physical disability, alcoholism but alas these are becoming more memory than memorable these days. So I need to see my God in action. I will choose to be more active in all things pertaining to faith but I need my God to act in Revival, for it is He who performs the miraculous. Let’s pray that, by grace, we can be allowed to be a part of it!
God bless you Chris and Cathy (P.S., thanks for the CD).
Phil, thanks for your comment. You write really well, you should do more of it. I am sorry things are not going well with your aim to be a teacher. Just maybe it is a different sort of teacher that God has in mind, not school but in Church? you said "I need my God to act in Revival, for it is He who performs the miraculous". My understanding is that it is man, operating in the authority which God gives, who performs the miraculous. See my latest blog.
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