Revival

 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation."

          Acts 2:37-40

    

       I wonder sometimes, my brothers and sisters in Christ, if we do not often mistake good music or even our own jubilant mood for the movement of the Holy Spirit. I say this only because I have heard words like, "I really felt the Spirit moving during worship today!" on a Sunday when the band or worship team was particularly well-tuned. I have also heard it said that, "I could never worship there--the music is terrible!" These are only two examples of a myriad that I have picked up in conversations here and there throughout the years, but all such statements have left me with a sense of disquiet.

     For I have to say, I have personally felt the joyous weight of the Holy Spirit in my life and these intense movements occur less often during a corporate worship gathering than some of these speakers might imagine. Even during corporate worship, the music or the preaching has little to do with the Spirit working within my heart--and often the work of the Spirit is intensely uncomfortable, driving me to repentance and sorrow that I have sinned against the Man who ransomed my life mingled with a joy that He would even take note of me at all, much less die for me. I think if we truly felt the Spirit moving, we would be different people altogether--changed utterly and lastingly and not a mere emotional high that fades with the music and the return of the hum-drum of daily living.
 
     Neither do I think the blame for the inability to worship lies in the laps of either the worship teams or the preachers. If I can only worship in certain conditions, it is a reflection of the state of my heart rather than a reflection on my environment, for true worship wells up within and spills out regardless of what is going on around on the outside. I have had the perfect worship environment and yet found my heart to be cold and listless. On the contrary, I have been in places where there was no music at all when worship spontaneously erupted from me. Such times include doing menial work around the house or yard, walking my dogs, praying or reading the Word, and even incongruously during times of deep sadness or heartache. I have also had very excellent times of worship in the traditional models of churches that many of my peers would deem "dead," as well as during liturgical services where I had been invited as someone's guest. True and genuine worship, I have found, has mostly to do with the focus of my mind and heart and less to do with the external trappings of church services. True worship goes on throughout the week and leaves me eager to find what God will say to me the next morning and the next... and even able to be patient when He seems silent for a time, anticipating with joy the next time He should choose to speak.

     As I  have read through Scripture, I have also noted that the movement of the Holy Spirit always brought two main things: repentance and joy. Genuine repentance brings joy, and true joy is borne out of a contrite heart. There are many other things that we see in the Word: Great power and boldness, healing and even spontaneous ability to speak in other languages so that foreigners could hear the Gospel preached. In all cases, however, these things brought about repentance and a renewing of passionate love and zeal for God, sometimes bringing in large numbers of people and at other times only a single person or family.  This is the sort of revival I long to see today--this revival that goes beyond discussion and head knowledge of the word to changed hearts and changed lifestyles all for the love of the glory of the Lord.

     I have been ruminating on both of these subjects recently, even more intensely since my last trek through the dark valleys that God used to bring about genuine revival in my own heart. It has weighed heavily upon me since then to plead for continued revival, not only of my heart but in the hearts of my children, my family, my church, and my nation. If you are reading this, I pray that God would revive your heart, too, beloved. I pray that You would see Him in all His splendor and glory--or as much as a finite mind can handle--and that you would see that He is worthy of any and all sacrifice. I pray that you will be unafraid to come to Him, unafraid to lay down every aspect of your life within and without and experience the wonder of His healing and the joy of serving Him. I pray that there is nothing you would hold back, for my friend, I promise you that there is nothing on this earth that compares with Christ. When you fall head over heels for Him, it will not seem that He is making you give up certain things you hold dear. Rather, you will forget all about them in the all-consuming wonder of His mercy and grace.

     Lord, bring about a true revival of Your people today and through those changed lives draw many more into Your glorious Presence to accept the salvation freely offered by Your Son. May we be willing and unafraid to change our lives completely as You guide us. Bring purity to bear in us, even to the most private of our thoughts or the most carefully guarded desires of our hearts. Be our focus, be our King, be our everything.Increase our love for You and Your Word until it overwhelms and colors every other aspect of our lives. We ask this in Your name and for Your glory, amen. 

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, 'They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.' As I swore in my wrath, 'They shall not enter my rest.'" Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. 

Hebrews 3:7-14