A Sure Fire Way to Start Revival
The past 12 months have been a whirlwind for Kim and me.
We’ve moved to a bigger home. I’ve been involved in starting a new business. She’s opening up her own salon. With all these changes came new challenges; some we anticipated, some we didn’t.
As always, we turn to the Lord for help. He is an integral part of life and ministry. He is our source of knowledge, wisdom, and peace. We are spending more time in prayer/fasting, Bible reading, and ministry.
Kim and I have reached a point in our lives and ministry that best defines our passion. We’ve come to terms with three exciting realities that energize our hope for the future.
The first reality is our personal awareness of the eminent return of Jesus Christ. We are convinced in our hearts that Jesus will soon return for His bride – the Church. And so, we wait with great expectation!
The Apostle Paul’s words best describes our hope. “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved (Romans 8:22-24).” Time is short. The final process in our redemption draws nigh.
The second reality is the wave of revival that is hitting cities and countries around the world. We believe that this is a conformation of the Lord’s final advancement of His Kingdom; battle strategies for the redemption of mankind. Our hope is that the Lord will visit our community with an unprecedented “revival,” that most people have never seen.
With these first two realities in mind, Kim and I believe we have a mandate (our third reality) – get busy about God’s business! For every Christian that so desires to fulfill God’s will in his/her life, God has a place for them in the Body of Christ. It’s time to put our precious faith…our spiritual gifts…our individual talents…our natural abilities into profound action; in other words, just do the things we’ve known and talked about for years – go and make disciples of Jesus Christ.
I’ve asked the Lord many times to send revival to my community. I remember His response to my prayer one Sunday morning. I felt as if He was turning the tables on my prayer and challenging my petition. I felt He was saying to me, “Stop asking Me to move in your midst. Pray that you and your community will mightily move in My midst!” I knew exactly what He was speaking to my heart. It’s time for us to stop talking and start doing. The truth is that “actions do speak louder than words!”
Kim and I have great hope and expectation for what the Lord is doing in our community. He is stoking the “revival fires” in our hearts and causing us to burn brightly. Jonathan Edwards once said, “If you want revival to come to your church, set yourself on fire for the Lord, and people will come watch you burn!”
For Kim and me, our prayer is simply this: “Lord, bring revival to our community, and let it begin in us. As your passions and desires burn in our hearts, let us start brush fires everywhere we go."
