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Revival, according to J. I. Packer is…
Revival is God accelerating, intensifying, and extending the work of grace that goes on in every Christian’s life!
When God comes in revival, He accomplishes in a brief time what would normally take many years!
(Byron Paulus, Executive Director of Life Action Ministries, quoted in Revive magazine, Winter 2012, 3).
…During one five-year period, 10,000 churches closed their doors.
REVIVAL CHANGES EVERYTHING!
(Life Action Ministries: Revive, Summer 2011, 4)
Authentic Christianity is when Christ is the ruler and leader of the church, the Holy Spirit is manifested His power, and the presence of God is felt everywhere. Transformation is commonplace, and the deepest wounds are supernaturally healed. The impossible becomes probable, the embittered become filled thanksgiving, and the forgiveness is replaced by the irresistible love of the Savior!
(Byron Paulus in Life Action Ministries: Revive, Summer 2011, 3)
Here’s what happens when God’s Spirit comes:
Sermons are saturated with Scripture
Communities are gripped by God-consciousness.
The unexplainable become common.
Material needs are completely and joyfully met.
Daily fellowship is enjoyed.
Devotion to Christ is our motivation for living.
Worshiping Jesus becomes our pastime.
Masses of people are drawn to saving faith.
Purity becomes a collective pursuit.
(Byron Paulus in Life Action Ministries: Revive, Summer 2011, 3)
A spiritual awakening is no more than God’s people seeing God in His holiness, turning from their wicked ways, and being transformed into His likeness.
Lewis Drummond
“Despite our philosophical distinctives there was a palpable shared urgency for genuine wide-scale revival and spiritual awakening—for the church to ‘come fully alive to the glory of Christ’—that was heightened by this remarkable gathering of leaders,” says organizer Byron Paulus, executive director of Life Action Ministries in Buchanan, Michigan. For more about the vision behind this unique event, check out “An Urgent Appeal.”
Echoing these leaders sense’ that the church needs spiritual awakening, I asked several others to explain why they ask God to send revival.
Here is the fifth response…
Del Fehnsenfeld, senior editor of Revive magazine, published by Life Action Ministries in Buchanan, Michigan:
Prayer for revival is a natural overflow of resurrection hope. The logic goes like this: the Bible is the story of how God is working in history to make everything new. Jesus is the central figure in the story. He dealt decisively with what is wrong with us and with the world on the cross, and proved it by rising from the dead and then pouring out his Spirit. And since the story ends with everything being put right or “summed up” in Jesus (Eph. 1:9-10), we know that God’s plan is to move history forward from where things are to that final climax. Thus God is always working by his Spirit to manifest and extend Jesus’ presence, honor, and authority.
But that process is not always incremental. We learn from both the Bible and church history that there are seasons when God’s Spirit works with extraordinary and undeniable power to rapidly move individuals, communities and even nations toward Jesus. This is revival. Knowing God’s final agenda helps me pray with confidence for the intensific, acceleration, and multiplication of the work of the Spirit right now!
God in his sovereignty decides when and where and how long a revival can last. Wesley Duewel explains…
Sometimes God gives revival to a local church or group of people. At times a whole community is blessed and changed by revival. On a few occasions an entire region or even a whole nation has become spiritually awakened and morally transformed by a widespread outpouring of God’s Spirit in revival.
At times revival has lasted only a day or two. yet God has been so powerfully present for that brief time that more spiritual transformation has resulted than from months and years of ordinary Christian life and witness. At other times revival has lasted for months.
May the Lord send us genuine revival!
Revival Fire (16)
Revival converts tend to be lasting converts. Again and again it has been noted that the people who have been profoundly convicted of their sin in a time of revival remain faithful over the years after their conversion.
They have a permanent reverential awe of God and an abiding love for Christ!
They have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the grace of God!
Revival Fire by Wesley Duewel (13)
According to Wesley Duewel…
Many people fear revival because of these unusual manifestations
There is nothing to be feared. If occasionally someone is too retrained or overexpressive of his sorrow over sin or his joy at Christ’s forgiveness and God’s overwhelming presence, this can be understood and accepted. People are accustomed to unrestrained exuberance at sports events or upon seeing loved ones after a long absence.
Says Dr. A. T. Schofield, “One thing to be borne in mind is that since the days of Pentecost there is no record of the sudden and direct work of the Spirit of God upon the souls of men that has not been accompanied by events more or less abnormal. It is, indeed, on consideration, only natural that it should be so. we cannot expect an abnormal inrush of Divine light and power, so profoundly affecting the emotions and changing the lives of men, without remarkable results. As well expect a hurricane, an earthquake, or a flood, to leave nothing abnormal in its course, as to expect a true Revival that is not accompanied by events quite out of the ordinary experience.”
Revival Fire by Wesley Duewel (12-13)
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