Revival is sought by many, but not rightly understood by many. Indeed, what many call revival is in reality just superficial experiences, more emotionally driven and spiritually authentic. In contrast, true revival always brings real long-lasting transformation. As Iain Murray writes in his book Revivals and Revivalism, "Every true revival begins in the church and a proof of the genuineness of the work is that it does not leave believers where they were before. They are filled with new wonder, joy and praise, with a new sense of the privilege of serving God, and with renewed energy that comes from being constrained by the love of Christ." Revival is really happening when people's old selves are being crucified such that they come away living new lives in an obvious and ongoing way.
How might this begin to happen? It will happen as we better understand who God is and who we are. Indeed, the word "revival" implies that someone is going from one state to another state (i.e. from being unconscious to conscious). So also spiritual revival will mean us waking up out of the sleep of moral and spiritual apathy and becoming much more aware of God and ourselves.
What then of God and ourselves should we be more aware? I believe it is one basic truth, namely that God is holy and that we in relation to this God are unholy rebels. To say that God is holy is to say that God is utterly unique and distinct. He is set apart from all things in perfect excellence, goodness, and beauty. God's holiness is the one attribute of God in the Bible that gets repeated three times in a row, to emphasize how much this attribute describes the essence of God. This is seen for example in Isaiah 6:3. Note also in this verse that a connection is made between God's holiness and glory ("Holy, holy, holy is the Lord…the whole earth is full of his glory!") In fact, the Bible regularly makes a connection between God's unique existence as a holy God and this resulting in some expression of glory and praise. See for example 1 Kings 8:10-11, 1 Chronicles 16:9-10, and Revelation 4:8-11. The Revelation passage is especially informative. God is acknowledged as holy and totally unique in his existence (Rev 4:8). Because this is the case, he naturally deserves all the glory and honor. And in particular, everything that he creates should give him glory and honor.
Let's be sure to grasp this point. All created things are meant to point to their creator in some way. The more finely crafted the created thing, the more attention it should bring to its creator. A well written, bestselling book naturally brings praise and honor to its author. Several artistic masterpieces will inevitably bring renown and fame to the name of artist who made those masterpieces.
The Lord God has been eternally perfect in his distinctiveness and uniqueness. He decided to further display his eternal perfection, his holiness, by creating everything in the universe. But then, in particular, he decided to place a unique stamp of himself, his image, upon one being in all the universe – mankind. Man then is God's masterpiece. Our fine and unique craftsmanship should naturally point to the excellence of our Creator.
For example, while all the creations of Leonardo Da Vinci are notable, the Mona Lisa still continues to be an especially potent display of the unique talent of Da Vinci. People are consistently drawn to look at this unique masterpiece in the Louvre museum, and in doing so they are drawn ultimately to give praise to Da Vinci. Here is the purpose then of each human life – to see the evidence of God finely crafting every part of you, and to rejoice in and praise God for your expert design as a masterpiece that displays the glory of your God. We find the most meaning in our lives when we are giving the maximum amount of glory and honor and praise to our holy Lord.
The real horror here comes when we realize that instead of being masterpieces displaying God's glory we instead have become like ugly, broken down clunker cars leaking oil wherever we go. We rightfully belonged to God but have wrenched ourselves away from him by focusing in ourselves through our words, actions, and desires. Doing so has horribly damaged our God-displaying ability. And the Bible makes clear – our God defying and God rejecting ways are nothing less than a direct personal attack against God. As Colossians 1:21 makes clear, we are alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds against God. Romans 5:10 is even more clear, telling us bluntly that we are enemies of God. Sin is not primarily an offense against other people. It is an offense against God. See for example David's view of his adultery with Bathsheba and his subsequent cover-up. He writes that it is against God primarily that he sinned (Ps 51:3-4).
The lie so many people live is that they really aren't so bad, especially compared with other people. God's answer to that in the Bible? We are all bad! "None is righteous, no not one, no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one." Sin ultimately makes us worthless! In light of this, the question we should ask is not, "Is it fair for God to judge us?" The question we should ask is, "Why wouldn't God judge us?!" Our worth came from our creation by God but we have totally squandered and wrecked our worth through our rebellion against him. It is as if we were a multimillion dollar mansion that is now falling apart and worth nothing due to our arrogant and foolish misuse of the mansion. The best that can be done is to just bulldoze the whole property.
We are by all appearances living in the days described by Paul in 2 Timothy 3:1-4. These are days when many think of themselves as being good or godly, yet in reality they are far from any true goodness or godliness. There are many who have the appearance of being godly Christians but none of the power of it. Many in the church have a spirituality that is like a well-dressed corpse. There is lot of fancy clothes being worn that bring lots of attention, but the reality is we are admiring a dead person.
What's needed in the church today is real honesty. It's a real honesty rooted in humbleness and an almost desperate need to get past the superficial surface behaviors and instead get to the heart, to see the pride, selfishness, and self-righteousness that's rooted there, and to then kill it. The Bible gives us great encouragement along these lines, for we are told that for those who are humble, who are truly aware and ashamed of their sin, God will be ready to meet them where they are at and bring revival to their hearts (see Isa 57:15). God's word is a crucial and practical means by which this occurs (see Isa 66:2). As we read lots of God's word into our lives, letting it teach and convict us, and then pray God's word back to God in humble prayerful confession, we will find God. For God's word is truth, and thus meditating deeply on his word will us truly understand God and ourselves, and such understanding will always draw God near to us and revive us (see Ps 145:18, 19:7).
And what will God do when he draws near to us as we cry out to him? What will he reveal to us so that we might have revived hearts? What God will do is show us who he truly is. What he will do is show us Jesus. The hope we have that we will experience a true revival within our lives, within our churches, and within our city, comes as we look at God and see how he acted to save us out of sinful rebellion and reconcile us to himself through Jesus (Romans 5:10). As Richard Lovelace writes in Dynamics of Spiritual Life, "The cross is the perfect statement both of God's wrath against sin and of the depth of his love and mercy in the recovery of the damaged creation and its damagers."
More than ever we need God and even more than ever we need Jesus! Any hope we have for revival comes as we put our faith in Christ, linking ourselves to him in his death to give the final deathblows to our sin and living anew in his resurrection and so forever have freedom over the power of sin.
Obviously, these are things only God can bring about. Only God can really change hearts and make them brand new and bring revival. It is this divine action in people's lives that is the foundational step for any true revival.
So, what are your thoughts? What will revival look like in our city? In our church? In your own life?
