If you need revival, something is terribly wrong with you.
You are aware that things needing revival are either dead or close to it, no? If revival means what I think it means (and it does), then you won’t survive much longer without dramatic intervention. Your time is up. Your clock is already striking midnight.
There is no badge of honor associated with a great need for revival. And recognizing one’s need is tantamount to a near dead man mustering a petty ounce of breath to mutter a tortured and raspy cry, “Helllp.”
Really? You need help? Next week? Or when your schedule allows? Or is this really an urgent matter that requires desperate, spare-no-expense emergency attention? Shall we delay and excuse a bit longer, or shall we take action RIGHT NOW?
Charles Spurgeon wrote in 1866:
It is a sorrowful fact that many who are spiritually alive greatly need reviving… A man in sound health with every part of his body in a vigorous condition does not need reviving. He requires daily sustenance, but reviving would be quite out of place…. [Christians] should be asking for growth in grace, for increase of strength, for greater success; they should have out-climbed and out-soared the period in which they need to be constantly crying, “Wilt thou not revive us again?” For a church to be constantly needing revival is the indication of much sin…A church should be a camp of soldiers, not an hospital of invalids. But there is exceedingly much difference between what ought be and what is, and consequently many of God’s people are in so sad a state that the very fittest prayer for them is for revival. Some Christians are…barely alive.
I sincerely hope that isn’t you. A breath away from death, collapse and demise. Revival is your last chance.
- Your church: “We’re surviving as an organization but we don’t have God’s power! Our Great Commission fervor is anemic and programmatic, our passion for Christ is rote and ritual.”
- Your family: “We go to church, but that’s about it. We have no real mission in the world.”
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Yourself: “Yes, I believe in Christ, but I’m not honestly following Him. My life is still really about me, and my faith probably is too.”
Dying friend: don’t let this heartbeat be your last.
Ask God to revive you. Set your heart upon obeying Him. With whatever power He gives you in this moment, yell out loudly for a new charge of faith in your heart. A new jolt of love. A new passion for the gospel. A new hunger to read and obey what Jesus taught.
I work full-time in revival ministry. Like an ambulance driver or an emergency room doctor, I hope you never need the services of my ministry. Your spiritual life is too important, to let dangle so precariously at the edge of death.
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START HERE for individuals: revive magazine, draw near
START HERE for churches/pastors: events.lifeaction.org