There's been a recent "Like" group on facebook going around that says, "Let's start a Christian Revival right here, right now! Click "like" if you believe that Jesus is Lord!!"
Is this really how revival starts? Do we even know how revival looks? I wish that clicking "like" on facebook would cause a revival...if it did, a revival would be in progress already.
True revival will never come from clicking "like" on any social network. Revival is a work of the heart not a work of the fingers. It is hard work. Spiritual surgery that leaves ones heart broken. Only when the heart is truly broken can one's heart be healed.
Real revival begins with being broken about your own sin. Psalm 51 outlines this beautifully. It's begins with searching the depths of your heart for sin. Big sin. Small sin. Hidden sin. It begins with identifying the things you have turned into an idol, whether its a job, being entertained, or church work. It begins with examining what you are really loving with your heart, soul and mind. A half-heart for God is always a heart in need of revival.
Real revival looks like praying. It's very essence will be repentance and confession and then more repentance. Without these two elements, I just don't believe that revival can truly occur. Revival rides in on gut-wrenching, brutally-honest, self-examination but it will leave on a light heart, renewed hope and deeper love for the One who bore your guilt and shame. Revival looks like weeping before the Savior for making idols of the cares of this world or because they are coddling sin in their hearts instead of dealing with it as a the sin sickness that it is. It follows confession as the broken-hearted person turns to the only One who can both deal with the punishment of that sin and forgive it. As the person confesses before the Lord, a revived heart cries out just as the Psalmist did in Psalms , "For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it" David was willing to do whatever the Lord required of Him. And what was it that the Lord required of him?
"You do not delight in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart - These, O God, You will not despise." (emphasis mine)God is not looking for people to "sacrifice" by coming to church more, though that may be the inevitable result of a truly penitent heart. God is not looking for the sacrifice of tithing more, but that too may be the inevitable result of a truly penitent heart also.
The only thing God is requiring of us so that we can truly have revival is a contrite and broken heart, and a broken spirit. These are the true workings of revival. Anything is a fraud, or a nice gesture. Or worse, a half-hearted gesture to try to allieve guilt by attempting to buy off a Holy God's disapproval. Our works are never accepted until we do them as a result of the work He has done in our hearts...the work of a broken and contrite spirit within us.
God is serious about revival. Are we? Will we as a family continue to coddle our own sins. Will we continue as a church to pray for the revival of everyone else? Will we as a nation continue to taunt God with our love of:
sin over the love of the Spirit?
playing with God rather praying to God?
entertaining ourselves at every opprotunity rather than entering into His house at every opprotunity?
calling Dr. Phil for advice rather than calling on the Living God?
worshipping creation rather than worshipping the Creator?
I want revival to begin. I want it to start in me.
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