Revival is not a scheduled event. It is the manifest presence of the Lord located in a particular person or group of persons—a community saturated in God. It is the presence of the Kingdom and the King come to earth through His sons and daughters. It is Immanuel—God with us.
I believe Jesus intended His Bride—the church—to be a visible representation—a fully functioning illustration of revival 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Revival is the supernatural presentation of the Father’s love, grace, and favor purchased by His Son, guided by His Spirit, and revealed through the daily life of the church—that’s you and me. It is a miraculous ongoing experience with the King manifested in His children through supernatural lifestyles and divine encounters. It is according to the record of the early church in the Book of Acts—the “normal” life of the church.
Most of what we have experienced and called “church” is an “abnormal” representation of God’s original purpose. We get excited if we have good programming, intimate lighting, rousing sermons, and well-crafted worship that can invoke a chill bump or cause the hair on the back of the neck to stand up now and then. That may offend some, but read the early accounts of the church—a “normal” day was marked by the miraculous presence of God in them and through them. They were doing the “works and greater works” that Jesus spoke of in John 14:12 on a routine basis. They possessed as a lifestyle what we are so desperately crying out for.
We have accepted far less than Jesus promised in the Holy Spirit. The Lord’s guarantee was that the Spirit would jar our memories about everything Jesus had taught (John 14:26) and He would clothe us with power to be Jesus’ witnesses (Acts 1:8). Sadly, the church as a whole is largely naked of power and ignorant (unlearned) of most everything Jesus promised. We have not listened, thus insuring and insulating our ignorance in the clothing of unbelief. Faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17).
Therefore, we have turned relationship into religion, holiness into hard work, praise and worship into a ritual of crescendos, guitar riffs, piano runs, and mind numbing repetitions of catchy lyrics with no meaning, the proclamation of the Word into three alliterated points and a poignant poem, and worst of all, a lifestyle of revival into an emotional event in the spring and fall where no lasting corporate change ever occurs.
Revival is not an event. It cannot be planned, manipulated, or constructed. It is the sovereign work of God. In the early days of the church, regular people like you and me walked the streets clothed in the power of the Holy Spirit doing all the works of Jesus and revival was the literal atmosphere of the church. It was the normal air of a supernatural lifestyle—the life’s blood of a growing, thriving organism known as the church. Today…the church has evolved into an organization, and organizations don’t need the heavenly air of revival to live. Organizations have no life, and therefore, the children they reproduce are lifeless. All they really need are well organized workers with numb spirits, selfish souls, and deep pockets.
If you long for a change—if you’re desperate for something that seems to be missing—wake up: the Holy Spirit is gently shaking you. He is calling you back to the lifestyle of the miraculous—the bondage-breaking, disciple-making, Spirit-shaking, city-taking lifestyle Jesus intended when He promised to clothe us in the Holy Spirit. Strip off those hand-me-down generational garments of unbelief you’ve been given and stand in the purifying presence of God and cry out for the mantel of revival. Once you receive it, walk in what God calls the “normal Christian life.” Walk in real revival!