What is Revival?

Revival. If we’re praying for it we should know what it is, right? This is what I've been learning recently ~Revival is Falling in Love with God, Again~

From a physical standpoint, when a person stops breathing, if someone does the whole CPR thing on them and if that person starts breathing again, then s/he has been revived. Or, when a person’s heart stops beating, if the med. staff does the whole chest compression/medicine injection thing, and if that person’s heart starts beating again, then s/he been ‘revived.’ To seriously be revived there are two conditions that must be met. The first condition is that you must have a need to be revived. The second condition should maybe actually be the first – you must have been, at one point in time, alive and active in order to be revived.

When it comes to the spiritual standpoint of revival these two conditions must also be met. As a Christian, you must have been, at one point in time, alive and active in your walk with Christ. This doesn’t just mean faithfully praying, reading your Bible, and whatever else we put into the criteria of being a Christian. Although these things are VERY important, they don’t define what a walk with Christ is all about. In Revelation 2:4 the church at Ephesus was praised for their good works, patience, and discernment, BUT they were criticized (to the point of losing their identity in their part with Christ) of leaving their first Love.

Our walk with Christ is a journey of falling in love with Love Himself. It’s a journey of learning to love Him with complete abandonment – the way He first loved us! This true, life-giving love is so deep that the more we understand it, the more we find that we can never completely comprehend it, that there is always so much more to learn about it, about Him. First John 4:7-8 says this: “My loved ones, let us have love for one another, because love is of God, and everyone who has love is a child of God and has knowledge of God. He who has no love has no knowledge of God, because God is love.” See? When you start to understand love, you start to understand God. As you get to know God, as you walk in close, intimate communion with Him, you can’t help yourself from falling in love with Him! His patience (oh, how patient He is!), His forgiveness (not just 70 x 7 but 70 times 70 x 7, and more!), and everything else that defines true love (see 1 Corinthians 13 especially verses 4-8).

If you are in need of revival then there have been those times in your life that you were walking in joy and peace with your Father. Somehow, somewhere along the way that abundant life sorta died out or cooled down. When you’ve reached the point of needing revival, you’ve reached the point of needing life again – real life. Maybe you need spiritual CPR – a breath of life to start living again; or, maybe your heart has stopped completely and you need a serious injection of the Spirit of God to get you off the bed, out of recovery, and living again.

When revival comes it brings with it a fresh life and a fresh perspective. You can look back and see how close you came to dying and were given life again. It brings with it a fire in our bones that will only burn brighter and fiercer as we let the Holy Spirit take control – if we neglect it, the flame will once again die down.

So many of our families, churches, and communities need revival. They are people who have had life but are dying and need a refreshing breath. Some are lying on beds with failing hearts, not knowing what to grab on to or who to ask for help in receiving the Spirit’s life that is so freely given to those who ask, so promisingly found for those who seek. As Christians we do have an immense responsibility to reach the lost souls with the message of Christ, but we must also be there for our fellow brothers and sisters. The weak need support, the newborns need food, the hurting need healing… Revival is for the Body of Christ!

When healing replaces the hurt, when the weak have become strong in the strength of Christ, and when we operate as a body, then, the natural outcome will be going to the street corners and dark interiors with the hope of Christ. God has given us each separate gifts (Romans 12) and when we work together, we work to our fullest potential. The reason the word picture we get of a revival sweeping across a nation as ‘crowds of sinners kneeling at the foot of the cross’ is this: when revival comes to the hearts and lives of Christians and as we walk this journey of Love with the Lifegiver, as we fall in Love with God, we find what true love is all about.

It’s about giving (and giving!), it’s about reaching out, it’s about binding the wounds of the broken, it’s about letting go and forgiving, it’s about putting others’ needs above our own, it’s about abandoning all else in a mission of living a life of love with God as our boss, and having joy and peace and contentment as our reward on earth; and living in the knowledge of spending eternity gazing into the face of, living in the presence of - Love.