What Is Revival?
The word “vive” comes from the word that means life. The word “revive” means to restore to life. Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10). Our new birth experience is meant to revive us and bring us into life as God intended for us to experience. So when we talk about revival, we are actually talking about being restored to normal Christian life and we should be passionately determined to not settle for anything less than that.
We should be passionately determined to not settle for anything less than revival.
The life that we are restored to, the life we are supposed to live, what is normal from God’s perspective, is life as it is lived in heaven. Jesus said in John 8:23 that His life was from above and He explains that further when He prays, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). He walked in the reality of life as it’s lived in heaven; in the Glory of His Father.
The glory of God represents a manifestation of His presence and with that, His power and also His character. The Father’s manifest presence rested on Jesus, was realized in Jesus, and was released through Jesus and everything He did.
Anytime you read about individuals coming into revival or about places being immersed in revival, what they are actually describing is an overwhelming immersion, saturation, baptism, if you will, in the glory of God, His presence. All those things we associate with revival, power, healing, signs, wonders, come with His Presence.
Personal Revival
In John 17:22, Jesus said, “This Glory you have given me, I have given them.” Personal revival can be described as being baptized in the glory of God, His manifest presence. It rests on you, you realize it in you, it’s released through you. It says in Romans 8:29-30 that all of us have this singular purpose; that we be conformed to the image of Jesus. Just like He revealed the likeness of the Father, revival causes you to grow in revealing the likeness of Jesus, not by imitation, but by participation in His Glory, the very life of Christ in us. So, personal revival is Christ-likeness, manifesting itself in you and through you because of the Glory of God resting on your life.
“Lord, I desperately need You to break through and take over my life!”
How does that happen? God breaks through in your life and works supernaturally when you cry out, “Lord, I desperately need You to break through and take over my life!”
What does Christ-likeness look like on a personal level? Christ-likeness is Christ victoriously living in you overcoming sin and self, and victoriously living through you overcoming situations and satan’s oppressive activity in fallen humanity. In other words, it’s personal holiness and power-filled ministry. When we surrender and allow Christ to live His life through us, we become a dwelling place where Christ can be on full display in purity and in power. We come to a place where we see Christ move miraculously in our lives and ministries.
Ministry becomes more than a ministry of words, reason and arguments. There is something supernatural about it. It’s Christ living through us doing what Christ does; going “about doing good and healing all who are oppressed by the devil” (Acts 10:38).
We will see Jesus conquer the oppression of the enemy in the lives of other people. We can expect supernatural physical, emotional, and mental healings and deliverance. We can expect signs and wonders, just as Jesus did.
In this pursuit of Christ-likeness, both personally and corporately, we must be careful to not be those who just seek signs and wonders. He invited the disciples to be with Him and THEN sent them out to preach the gospel. All ministry has to flow out of a life of holiness that is pursuing His presence.
Corporate and Geographic Revival
Many Christians’ understanding of revival on a geographic and corporate level is; We’ll get this, that and the other straightened out. We’ll break through here, there and over there. And then God can break in, break through, break open and bring revival. But the truth is, until God breaks through, people can’t break through.
We can have this little group and we can have that little group. We can have things in the city about crime and things about racism and things about this, that, and the other that accomplish a little bit. But when God breaks through, there is an atmosphere for the people to break through, for this need to break through, for this to happen, because it begins to happen supernaturally.
“If we want to see corporate revival, our priority should be to cry out for God to break through, to break open even more, to manifest His presence even more.”
If we want to see corporate revival, our priority should be to cry out for God to break through, to break open even more, to manifest His presence even more. Then we are able to break through in those different areas and arenas where we want to see things happen. All the meetings and the negotiations for the kind of racial reconciliation that we know is in God’s heart, where there is just none of that nonsense, can only happen once an atmosphere of revival has occurred. And as a matter of fact, any little thing that we see happening that’s progressing is because there is at some level, even if it’s at a baby level, an environment of revival. That’s how things happen, because of God supernaturally breaking through.
So what do we need? We need more of the Lord, more of His presence. Then all the things that we are tring to fix in a city or nation (housing, racial reconciliation, poverty) will come. If Jesus is living His life in a city, not one person can tolerate or excuse racism or prejudice at any level. Nor can we sit back and be OK about poverty or injustice or addiction issues or depression or mental illness. We will attack it. We will have breakthrough because He has broken through in the city.
Lord, may we walk in Your Manifest Presence. May Your Manifest Presence rest on us. May Your Manifest Presence be realized in us and be released through us in power and glory.