Revival in 4 Steps

In continuation of his post on Revival, Pastor Rajiv today outlines the steps we could take to experience our own revival.

Remember, God has designed revival to begin with his own people who are called by his name, people like you and me who have called on the name of Jesus. 

As a revival process, God’s first call for his people is to humble themselves. 

How? Firstly, by recognizing and confessing our need to seek God in all things – spiritual and material. Our independence to be overcome by Dependence. We need humility to constantly guard against spiritual pride because spiritual pride results in self-centeredness, according to Hawkins. (Note: In Colossians 3:12, the word humility in Greek means “humbleness of mind or lowliness of mind”, and it’s the same word used in Ephesians 4:2, Philippians 2:3, and 1 Peter 5:5. It is in this attitude of the heart that we came before the Lord, admitting that we were wrong; we are sinners, repenting, and asking Him to be our Savior because being so crushed by the turmoil of sin and darkness of the world, we recognize there is no place to turn but to God, in other words with a broken spirit). Therefore, in order to be truly humble we need to bring a broken spirit before God.

Secondly, we are to pray and call out to God earnestly. If we are to see true revival, we need earnest and fervent prayer. In fact, every true revival has been the result of fervent and earnest prayer. We have seen what happened when the early church prayed 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. Prayer invokes the Holy Spirit and for any revival to take place we must be filled with the Holy Spirit who will give us the courage to speak the word of God with boldness.

Thirdly God demands that we seek his face. Hawkins holds that if we spend as much time in our prayers seeking God’s face as we do to seek His hand to help us, we would be much nearer to our own personal revival. (Note: To seek God's face is to turn from any wicked ways, to look to his presence, strength, and precepts and NOT LOOK BACK.)

And finally, we must turn from our wicked ways. Unconfessed sin is unforgiven sin, and this is the greatest obstacle to revival. Just confessing our sins and feeling sorry for them is not enough. We need to forsake them altogether, (In thought, word and deed) because that is true repentance.

The final step in God’s recipe for revival is God’s delight. God’s delight is forgiving the sins of his people if they are truly repentant and turn from their wicked ways. His promise is that He will hear from Heaven he will forgive our sin and He will heal our land.

God delights in healing our hearts, healing our homes and everything around us because it appropriates his sacrifice on the cross and does not render His death in vain. He is willing; He is waiting, and He is longing for us to call on His name in prayer and seek his face (get to know Him) through his word and turn from our wicked ways so that he can fulfil his promise.

The big point for us to remember here is that that prayer and revival go hand in hand. 

There can be no revival without fervent and earnest prayer.