I'm wondering why yuo all want revival! What is the prayer yout pray? hopes? dreams? what is your desire for revival? I'm just wondering because I believe that it is a good thing, but I'm also puzzled by different perspectives on revival. I talk about it and pray for it to come, but what is it even supposed to look like? What does revival look like?- student of suffering
does anyone here want to answer this question?
To me, revival is complete surrender to Christ by a group of people. It is important to me because He deserves nothing less. I pray for it because I want to see Him glorified.What does revival look like? It looks like heaven on earth.
In the sermon "Ten Shekels and a Shirt", Paris Reidhead talks about how God spoke to him while he was in Africa and said, "Do I not deserve the reward of my suffering?" This is why I desire revival. I want to see God's fame and glory proclaimed and delighted in by all men, because they are the reward of his suffering.As far as the look of revival, I guess you will get many different answers, but I desire revival around truth. Much of modern day revivalism is centered on man and hysteria rather than the glory of God. I think revival will be an increase in "normal" Christianity, i.e. worship, prayer, study of the word, delight in the Sacraments, delight in the Church, etc. I'm not looking for convulsions, etc., but an increase in love and the fruit of the Spirit.openairboy
what is your desire for revival?I think God has burdened me with a desire for revival. Am I am saddened by much of the uses of the term revival these days and the things that are associated with them. I think that it is something that has been a desire and burden of many men of God throughout the ages and I think the best way to share what revival really is, is to share excerpts from the past:To me, revival is complete surrender to Christ by a group of people. It is important to me because He deserves nothing less. I pray for it because I want to see Him glorified. What does revival look like? It looks like heaven on earth.Mary, that is awesome! Christ glorfied and becoming the ALL to us and a fortaste of Heaven, that is a pretty God summation of what revival is.The Ulster Awakening of 1859 may be traced back, so far as such things can be traced on the human side, to the reading by a young man of George Muller's Narrative. Faith was quickened in his heart, and when news reached him of the Great Awakening (1858) he said to himself: 'Why may we not have such a blessed work here, seeing God did such things for Mr. Muller simply in answer to prayer?' Thus began the revival prayer-meeting at Kells where the movement commenced. Similary, one of the springs of the 1904 Awakening in Wales may be traced to the reading of Andrew Murray's book, With Christ in the School of Prayer, by hungry minister, and the subsequent transformation of his spiritual life. It would be to estimate the influnce exerted on revival movements all over the world during the past hundred years by Charles Finney's lectures on prayer in his Revivals of Religion. At the heart of every revival is the spirit of prayer." - In The Day Of Thy Power by Arthur WallisThis excerpt shows how God started some revivals by people being inspired about the possiblities in God and by prayer seeking His face for a special showing of His grace on mankind. Also notice the 3 books that God used to inspire the people.I'm just wondering because I believe that it is a good thing, but I'm also puzzled by different perspectives on revival.I know its a good thing and I desire for it daily in my own life and the life of my church, nation and world. I think this below excerpt will help much in clearing up the different perspectives brother. :)"There was never a day in which the term 'revival' needed to be more carefully definind. It has come to be used in relation to spiritual things so widely and so loosely that many are perplexed to know what it does mean. To some prejudiced or misinformed people the term is synonymous with exvessive emotionalism and mass hyteria. It is to be hoped that the following pages will be a sufficient answer to such a slander on the work of the Holy Spirit. Others use the word to describe a successful evangelistic mission. When they tell us that their church is 'having a revival', we understand them to mean that a gospel campaign is being conducted there. This use is possibly a relic of days when the Spirit was working widely, and the one had only to arrange such a mission to witness a quickening amongst the believers and an ingathering of the lost . Today it is otherwise, but in any case to use the term thus is misleading.We cannot go to the Bible to see how the word 'Revival' is used, for it is not found there, although it contains many examples and types of revival, and unfolds all its principles. The nearest Scriptural equivalents are 'revive' (or quicken), and 'reviving'.Revival is more than big meetings. It is more than religious excitement. It is more than the quickening of the saints, or their being filled with the Holy Spirit. It is more than a great ingathering of souls. One may have any one of these without revival, and yet revival includes them all." - In The Day Of Thy Power by Arthur WallisThis really clears up alot of misconceptions of Revival and how people use the word to classify it in different situations of Christian life. But the below quote really tells what Revival is!"It is God revealing Himself to man in awful holiness and irresistible power. It is such a manifest working of God that human personalities are overshadowed, and human programmes abandoned. It is man retiring into the background because God has taken the field. It is the Lord making bare His holy arm, and working in extraordinary power on saint and sinner. Revival is essentially a manifestation of God; it has the stamp of Deity upon it, which even the unregerate and uninitiated are quick to reconize. Revival must of neccessity make an impact upon the community, and this is one means by which we may distinguish it from the more usual operations of the Holy Spirit." - - In The Day Of Thy Power by Arthur Wallis
I don't know if I can wholly agree with Paris reidhead at this point. I don't know that revival can directly be attributed as a promised reward of Jesus suffering. I think that salvation and the Holy Spirit are promises, but I don't quite see the correlation directly between Jesus suffering and revival. I think that His suffering has given us some more immediate and specific gifts which when truly recieved spark movings of the Holy Spirit...but I don't know. I'm more persuaded by your own argument Openairboy! from what I've read what you said rings more true personally than Reidhead
It is man retiring into the background because God has taken the fieldExactely.Somewhere in my reading/listening I recall something to the effect of "It will not have the stench of man's tampering".Surely the Lord would use 'us' in it, but it would be unmistakebly God initiated, though brought about in response to the prayers of the faithful.It would begin and end in Him, brought about for Him, in Him and through Him and for His glory alone.For a change, it would be God's program that we follow instead of our program that we want God to bless.The proof's would be obvious, not vauge.If the past is any indication it seems that it is an upheaval of soul's, converted and unconverted alike.There would be only one explanation;God
Revival is all about people finding out who God is . It will be centered around truth, and there will be no explanation except for God. I too desire it for Christ's Glory, but also for the people who have never know the fullness of Christ. There is no greater tragedy for a christian than to go through their whole life never knowing the awesome reality of Christ. As for what it will look like, I think Jesus said it best in His prayer. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."What goes on in heaven? People praise Him forever, people worship in the beauty of his Holiness, and He is know for who He really is.
Personally, I am so blessed to hear all of these responses. It is so nice to hear others speak so graciously of the Lord (I know it sounds corny, sorry)and not wanting anything for "themselves". I am certain the Lord is honored and glorified from just the responses from your hearts. :-D Even if there never is a "revival" like that of the past- I am certain that there will be a real, personal revival in each of us who truly desires "more of Him and less of ourselves".
(I know it sounds corny, sorry)doesn't sound corny to me at all ;-) I am certain that there will be a real, personal revival in each of us who truly desires "more of Him and less of ourselves".AMEN!
Revival is a matter of re-inventing obedience to the command of the Lord to be holy as He is holy.Revival begins by invitation, by allowing Him to express lordship.Revival has its beginning in an eager pursuit for veracity.Revival is all a matter of conviction, a matter of the presence and work of the Holy Spirit.Revival is an alert, a battle cry to be responded to, to take up arms and do warfare in the realm of personal morals for the sake of the Glory of the Lord.Revival is the Cross of Christ at work.Lars W.
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