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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman In
Need Of Revival I understand a Christian
revival to be a restoring of spiritual life to spiritually dead Christians
and not a restoring of spiritual life to non-Christians who have never
been spiritually alive in the first place.
It's just the simple meaning of the word "revive."
Over the centuries there
have been revivals that have revived spiritually dead Christians within a
spiritually dead church. The
Great Awakening, also known as the Wesleyan Revival that spread across The continual need for
revival is just the way it is in our entropic world where all things will
eventually decay and die. It's
why we pray for a Christian revival today, but I often wonder if we know
what we are praying for. Let's
look at what Jesus told two spiritually dead churches as is written in
Revelation 2 and 3. Revelation 2:1 through 7
tells us about the Ephesian church that had lost its love for Jesus.
Despite all of the good work it was doing in Jesus' name, it was in
need of revival.
So what did Jesus do about this?
He did not send an exciting revival to which people flocked to
enjoy a spiritual high. Instead,
He rebuked the church, demanding repentance, lest He remove its lampstand
from Revelation 3:14 through
22 tells us about the self-sufficient Laodicean church that left Jesus
standing outside of its door (Revelation 3:20).
So what did Jesus do about this?
He did not send an exciting revival to which people flocked to
enjoy a spiritual high. Instead,
He told the church to repent and work through the process of God's
discipline, lest He vomit the church out of His mouth (Revelation 3:16) as
He eventually did. Does such a
reaction from Jesus cross our minds when we pray for revival?
As drastic as this may sound, we can't forget Jesus saying that
those He loves He rebukes and disciplines (Revelation 3:19).
From my observation, many of us view a revival as a movement where we experience next to an erotic-like spiritual high that people from across the country flock to experience. It's what I saw at times when involved in the Charismatic Movement of the 1960's and 1970's. I do believe that was a valid revival, but too many people ran from meeting to meeting in search of the next spiritual high, and that's not what revival is about.
As we pray for revival,
consider what Jesus demanded from the Ephesian and Laodicean churches that
needed to be revived. He
demanded repentance, the enduring of Godly discipline and an effective
working relationship with Him lest He vomit the church out of His mouth
and thus remove the church from its community.
With all of the diverse prophetic words being spoken today, might
this be the prophetic word we need to hear?
Post Script I
have written a commentary on Revelation, chapters 2 and 3 entitled "
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