Next Sunday, we’re hosting revival services.  Now there is usually a great deal of excitement around these services and rightfully so. 

We eagerly come expecting great things from God.  We expect to experience a personal encounter with Him.  Whether it be a prophetic word, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, salvation, spiritual gifts, healing, deliverance, or some new thing that has never even been done before, we come with great expectation!

We expect the fire of revival to come anew and to set our hearts ablaze for Jesus.  We expect His refining fire to burn away our fleshly desires and for God, our All-Consuming Fire, to cause us to shine brightly for Him.  We expect to have our hunger and thirst for more of His Presence to be satisfied and yet simultaneously to increase.

We expect to hear a fresh word of God; a new revelation about Him and His Kingdom and more about who we are in Christ.  We expect to be encouraged and challenged and inspired to live the full and abundant lives that Jesus promises to us.

All of this is great and right and should be the case.  However, why wait until we need revived to seek after God for these things and to expect them from Him?

Do we wait to eat until we are fatigued and beginning to pass out?

Do we wait to breath until we’re blue in the face and losing consciousness?

Do we wait to find a source of income until our vehicles and home have been repossessed?

Of course not!

What if our zeal for the Lord was something that we fanned into flame daily?  What if we lived under the sheltering cover of His Presence?  What if we sought and followed the lead of the Holy Spirit consistently?

What if our desire to bring others into a personal encounter with Jesus exceeded our own personal hunger for more of God’s Kingdom?

Proverbs 11:25

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

It’s something to seriously consider, right?

Throughout our history, we’ve experienced many revivals.  God’s word and our recent history contain several of them and I believe that we’re going to soon experience a great revival once again!  As the Elijah and Baal showdown taught us, if we provide the sacrifice, the fire of God will fall, right?

However, now, we don’t prepare an altar of stone and wood upon which we place bulls.

Romans 12:1-2

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

We offer up our own selves as a living sacrifice and expect the fire of God to fall.  It’s said that John Wesley was once asked “What is your secret? Why do so many people come to hear you preach?” and that he answered “I get alone with God in prayer. He sets me on fire. The people come out to watch me burn.”

The greatest revivalist of all time took the same approach.  In fact, you may have heard of Him before.  His name is Jesus Christ.  God, Himself, came down from perfection and wrapped Himself in the same weak and tempted flesh that you and I live in.  God became man and dwelt among us. 

He was baptized with water and with the Holy Spirit and He began a world-wide movement that will not cease until He returns again to end the current order of things.  In just three years, His ministry made such a rippling wave that you and I are here as a direct result of it!  In fact, that same Spirit that baptized Jesus and even rose Him from the grave dwells in you and I!

The blind could see, the dead were raised, the deaf could hear, the leprous were given clear skin, sins were forgiven, food was multiplied, every sickness and ever disease was healed, demons were cast out, many believed and began following Jesus.  The list goes on and on and on,