What is revival? Many people can describe what revival looks like, even though that description may look different depending on where they’re coming from historically. For years, revival was defined or described as people coming into a place of repentance and full surrender to the will of God and authentic internal victory over the power of sin. Others have described revival as the manifestation of supernatural signs and wonders. My question is not “What does revival look like?” but “What is revival?” I think if we have a better understanding of that question, we will have a better understanding of what revival should look like when it’s manifested.
I submit that revival is a lifestyle that a person or group of people live in, even on a large geographical scale. I would go further than that and say that revival is actually a person and the lifestyle that person lives. That person is Jesus Christ himself. I believe that the Bible is very clear that revival is Jesus and the consequential manifestation of His glory. It is Jesus and the lifestyle he lives and reveals. Nothing in the Christian life is about an it or thing. Everything about the Christian life focuses on a person and the experience and manifestation of that person. Jesus said in John 10:10 that the enemy has come to kill, steal, and destroy, but that He has come that human beings might have life and have it more abundantly. That abundant life that Jesus has come to give us is the life of revival. I’m convinced that so many expressions of revival throughout church history were very short-lived because people did not know how to steward a person and focused on the manifestations of revival. If we focus on the manifestations of revival, those manifestations are the things we begin to honor the most and feel compelled to reproduce so that we feel secure that revival is continuing.
Revival is the unhindered manifestation of the person and presence of Jesus and His consequential lifestyle of holiness and signs and wonders. Jesus used the term “Eternal Life” to describe what we would call revival or “abundant life.” As you know, Eternal Life isn’t primarily a chronological term that involves the duration of endless time, though, of course, it does include that, but Eternal Life is about the quality of life that has its origin in Heaven and, at its core, involves the experience and manifestation of the presence and glory of God.
John 17:3 NASB “this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Of course, the word “know” is the word for “experience of.” Eternal life, and therefore revival, is the experience of God in the person of Jesus and the supernatural lifestyle changes that reflect that experience. Look at these few verses in 1 John. They are amazing.
1 John 1:1-2 NASB … What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— [2] and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us …
1 John 5:11-12 NASB [11] And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. [12] He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
Those few verses clearly declare that eternal life is a person, and that person is Jesus. Also, if you are a Christian, you have possessed that life from the beginning of your new birth in Christ. Eternal life is heavenly in nature and supernatural in lifestyle. It is the life of Jesus resting in us, on us, and being released through us. Revival is something you have possessed, or better said, someone you have possessed since your new birth. It’s not about getting something but about realizing and manifesting someone from glory to glory.