Many people in our community and around our nation are praying for revival right now. We need change in a big way, and only God can bring it. I think every Christian ought to pray for revival: in themselves, in our community, in our state, and in our nation.
But before you can pray for revival, you must know what it is. It is not a series of special meetings, or a fuzzy feeling that comes over people. The essence of the word “revival” is “to live again.”
If a young person is pulled from a lake and the EMTs get him breathing again, he is said to have been “revived.” If a show on Broadway gets updated and recast after decades of not being played, we say this is a “revival.” Revival is a return to life again.
This implies first that there needs to be initial life. True life can only come from Jesus Christ. Jesus said in John 5:24, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.”
This is not just future life, but life right now. It is being born again (John 3:3), and having the life of Christ within you (Galatians 2:20). True Christian faith is not a set of dogmatic statements and creeds we recite, but the actual life of Jesus living in you. You cannot have revival until you first have life!
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Do you have new life? This implies that there has been a return to life. It doesn’t mean being saved again, but it is a moving back to the place where Christ’s life is lived through you. Your decisions are His. Your will is His.
Imagine how our world would change if this reviving was at work in every Christian!
Pastor Joshua Hawn serves at First Baptist Church in Park Rapids.
