Revival – What Is It?

What about this thing called “Revival”. We have revival meetings. We talk about revival, but many people do not enter into revival. We think if we all get together somewhere and say we’re going to have revival, that somehow magically a great revival will occur. Guess again.

Revival cannot begin in the church, in a group, or in a conference of some kind just because we call it a revival meeting or encounter. Revival must begin with you. It must begin with each one of us. Many people never enter into revival. Revival is when people fall in love with God. Revival is when people love God.

Many have shown videos and have told stories about the great revival that took place here or there. They say this because there were people rolling on the floor and laughing and crying. People were getting Words of Wisdom and Knowledge. Others were being filled with the Spirit and Speaking in Other Tongues. That’s not revival. That is the result of revival.

There is nothing wrong with all those things I mentioned in the previous paragraph. The problem is that people focus on those events or actions and as such will never enter into the fullness of revival. You will never enter into the fullness of revival, until you realize that it is not the manifestations. Revival is when people, once again, love God totally and have relationship with Him. What happens as a result is the presence of God becomes so strong that things begin to occur in their lives.

It’s important to never let anything get bigger in your life than the presence of God. There are kingdom principles, and there is kingdom presence. It’s better to live by presence than it is to live by principles. The reason for this is whenever God invites you into his supernatural presence and gives you extreme revelation, He doesn’t invite you as a visitor, He invites you as an heir.

When you fall in love with someone, things start to change in your life. Before I knew my wife and before I fell in love with her, I was never in her presence. Once I fell in love with her, I began to spend most all of my time with her. I was present in her life. I didn’t live on pictures of us, or memories of us, or phone calls between us. No. I lived in her presence.

The other thing I realized is that I didn’t grow in my love for her based on a set of rules, or principles, or “how to” formulas. I grew in my love for her by being in her presence and sharing my life with her. Sharing my concerns with her. Sharing my ideas with her. Sharing my dreams with her. Why do we think it should be any different with God?

In addition, the love I have for my wife changed the way I acted. The things I used to do as a single man fell by the wayside in favor of the consideration of things we could do together. Also, when I was not with her, the old things I used to do I quit doing because of my love for her and relationship with her. The same things ought to occur in your relationship with God.

There are many people who go to this meeting or that meeting seeking all the feel good manifestations of the moving of the Spirit. They begin to operate in the gifts of God and get a strong sense of spiritual excitement. Then they leave the meeting and very shortly thereafter, it’s as if nothing has changed in their lives. Why? It’s because they are seeking after the ritual and events of the meeting and discarding the relationship with God.

We’ll get to the scriptures for this teaching, but this has just been heavy on my heart. Anything that leads anyone down a false path brings a burden on my heart to reveal the Truth and see them set free.

With that in mind, there are many people who do not come into revival. It’s not their fault that they cannot. It’s because they have been taught incorrectly about the freedom they have in Christ Jesus. What they’ve learned about God does not make it conducive for them to truly love God.

It’s because religion and legalism have put such a burden on them to perform or be “good enough” for God to accept them that they see loving God is almost impossible. First they believe they have a lot of baggage that needs to be dumped.

They have heard incorrectly about who God is, how He responds to you, how He will react toward you based on your performance. When you hear the false religious teachings about God, it hinders your ability to truly love God. In fact, when I hear the way some people preach or teach, I want to tell them to keep that God away from me. There’s no way I want to get close to “that” god, because it’s not the loving, kind, graceful, merciful, powerful God I know.

Okay. So with all of that said, we will look at this scripture in Ephesians 1:15,16.

15 For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints,

In your own time, study the verses leading up to this verse 15, because Paul says it is for this reason he does not cease giving thanks and mentioning them in his prayers.

16 do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers;

Whenever you read Paul’s writing and whenever he makes mention of his prayers, pay close attention to what he is saying, because usually in those cases there is some real revelation knowledge being released.

Remember that Paul is mostly writing to those who do not come out of the Jewish tradition. He is mostly writing to the uncircumcised Gentiles. As such, you will read that Paul calls the gospel he preaches, his gospel. You can see this in Romans 2:16; 16:25; 2 Timothy 2:8. In other places Paul calls it “our gospel” when others who joined him in the truth proclaimed in the gospel of the kingdom.

Also we notice that since Paul preached to those who did not come out of the Jewish tradition, he never preached the Old Testament to them. He didn’t even mention to them that there was such a thing as the Old Testament, because they had no concept or understanding of such a thing. There is a gospel that was given to preach to the uncircumcised and the circumcised. It was Peter’s job to preach the gospel of the circumcised to them, not Paul’s.

Just as an aside, here’s Galatians 3:1-5 in the NLT.

1 Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? For the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death was made as clear to you as if you had seen a picture of his death on the cross.

Paul is in effect saying here. What’s the matter with you people? I didn’t preach to you the gospel of the Old Testament. I didn’t even mention anything about that. I preached to you the gospel of the kingdom. I preached to you Christ Jesus and Him crucified.

2 Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ.

Paul asks a great question here and one that should be asked to all those who think religion, legalism, performance and works under the law are necessary. He asks them “How did you get saved? By keeping and obeying the law of Moses? By being good enough and getting all cleaned up before God would allow you into the kingdom? By going to church every Sunday, praying three hours a day, reading three chapters in your bible everyday? Reading the bible all the way through every year? By “tithing” your 10% obligation? (See the teaching on tithing).

Then Paul answers the question. Of course not. Those things didn’t save you. You were saved by the Spirit of God because of the message you heard about Jesus. Now there’s nothing wrong with the other things, as long as you “want” to do them and are not forced into doing them. Anything that is forced upon you to perform is a false gospel and has no grace with it. Just look at this inserted scripture right here in The Message bible.

Matthew 11:28-30. This is Jesus speaking. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow!!! “Unforced rhythms of grace.” “Live freely and lightly.” Now I don’t know about you, but Jesus spoke this very clearly and with great intent. I’m guessing Paul got this powerful revelation, because in Galatians 3:2 Paul refers to their belief in the message he preached to them about Jesus. I’m certain he preached to them this verse in his own words.

3 How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?

4 Have you experienced so much for nothing? Surely it was not in vain, was it?

5 I ask you again, does God give you the Holy Spirit and work miracles among you because you obey the law? Of course not! It is because you believe the message you heard about Christ.

It could not be any clearer. God doesn’t move in your life because of the works of the law or obedience to it. He works in your life because of the message you heard about Christ. When people are taught the wrong religious message, they fall from grace and find it difficult to truly love God.

When you listen to most Christians, you get the idea that God is schizophrenic. They’ll chant that “God is good, all the time, all the time, God is good”. Then in the next statement they’ll say “God is punishing me for what I did”, or “God gave me this illness to teach me a lesson”. They’ll remark “God is love”. Then in the next statement they’ll say something stupid like “I haven’t done enough for God to love me and give me my breakthrough”. WHAT???? That’s not the God I serve.

God is love…PERIOD. God loves me unconditionally…PERIOD. God has healed me by Jesus’ stripes…PERIOD. God is my provider…PERIOD. I could go on but you get the idea.

Got off on a little side track there, but for some reason the Holy Spirit wanted to make sure this truth was released. It fits in this discussion about God’s love and the truth about what revival really is. So we’ll get back now to Ephesians 1.

Continuing on in verse 17, Paul says this is what I pray when I make mention of you in my prayers. “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him”.

“The Father of Glory”. In the Greek the word is “doxa” pronounced do-ksa. It means opinion, or views. Basically it is saying that God the Father gives the views and opinions that are reality. So this verse in that area could be understood to mean we ought to let God become the Father of our views and opinions by the wisdom and knowledge given us through the revelation in the knowledge of Him. Again it’s relationship, loving Him, and entering into rest with Him.

Let God groom in you the views and opinions you ought to have about Him, about yourself, about your life, and about your love for Him. Do not let the world determine that for you through religion, legalism, political influences, or other worldly situations. Let God be the God who influences your views and opinions.

I love the way The Message bible makes this declaration. It reads “But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength”!

It shows us that it’s God who is “making us” intelligent and discerning. It’s God who is revealing exactly what it is He wants us to do and then it’s God who puts forth the utter extravagance of HIS WORK in us who trust Him. He gives us endless energy, and boundless strength. Woo Hoo!

Again, we see that Paul is strongly urging us to hold fast to his gospel that he preached, which was a gospel to the uncircumcised without reference to the Old Testament. Why? Because Paul believed what he heard about Jesus and the gospel of the kingdom of grace is what Jesus preached.

There are many Christians that can quote the Old Testament and take scriptures from the Old Testament and the law of Moses and try to apply them to their lives today. There’s a problem with that.

Wait a minute. Are you saying we should throw the Old Testament out? Absolutely not. In the book of Romans 15:4 it states that those things that were written in scriptures in earlier times were written to teach us, in order that we might have hope through the patience and encouragement which the Scriptures give us.

The problem is when you live with one foot in the Old Testament and one foot in the New Testament. If you’ve followed this website for any length of time, you would have already seen numerous studies that spells out the difference between the Old Covenant law and the New Covenant of grace. You would also realize the difficulty with trying to bring an Old Covenant scripture into the New Covenant.

Before any Old Covenant scripture can even remotely be applied to our new life in Christ in the New and better Covenant, it must first be brought to and through the finished work of the cross. Bill Johnson says “We must learn to view the law through the eyes of grace, rather than grace through the eyes of law”.

When you bring the Old Covenant scriptures through the cross you’ll discover they cannot be applied to today, no matter how good it sounds. No matter how good someone can preach it and make it seem valid. When you bring it through the cross you will discover it has no application for today.

Well, to get back to what Paul was saying in Ephesians 1:17. Paul was praying daily for them that they would receive and be granted a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him.

Revival is found in the deep and intimate knowledge of Him. That is a byproduct of loving Him and having great relationship with Him. This is so you can know and understand what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe.

I love what Graham Cooke says. “One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to utterly convince you that you are completely, compellingly loved by God regardless of how you are showing up. That means to God it doesn’t matter, in that sense, whether you are doing well or doing badly. He has already chosen how He is going to be towards you, and He doesn’t change.”

So to conclude this teaching let me say that real revival cannot come until you are totally and completely in love with the Father. He’s already completely in love with you. He has no stipulations on His love for you. He loved you enough to sacrifice His very Son for you. He loved you so much that “He sacrificed the very life, for those who caused the death, of the very life He sacrificed”. When you love Him totally, then true revival will come and with it will be all the powerful manifestations of the Spirit in you and around you.

Grace and Peace.