Hope for a New Revival
In a story that captivated the world’s attention in 2010, 33 Chilean miners were trapped 2,300 feet underground for a nightmarish 69 days. Darkness and doubt took an enormous emotional and physical toll on them. Until they were finally rescued, hope was a choice of will—hope that once again they’d be able to see the light.
A. W. Tozer understood the power of hope and imagination in a believer’s life: “A purified and Spirit-controlled imagination is the sacred gift of seeing—the ability to peer beyond the veil and gaze with astonished wonder upon the beauties and mysteries of things holy and eternal.”
Rehearsing the great things God has done (Psalm 143:5) awakens and stirs our vision for what’s possible with God. The stories of Abraham, Moses, David, and the prophets, along with the miracles of Jesus and the apostles, shape our imagining of how God might work today.
So, too, do accounts of how God has moved powerfully in church history, through men like Martin Luther and the Reformation, or George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, among many others.
Even today, we hear fresh accounts of how God is still doing miracles across the world—of thousands converting to Christ and churches being planted in places that have never heard the gospel of Jesus before. Yet for some Christians, stories of God’s power in answer to prayer are just that—ancient history or faraway trivia.
When it comes down to it, I suspect many of us really don’t believe that we’ll ever experience God that way, let alone see sweeping revival in our own life or church or nation. I wonder why? God hasn’t changed. And the problems we face, while dire, are not unprecedented.
After all, are the moral and spiritual problems today really any worse than they were in Nineveh when God had mercy on that great city? Or than in Sodom and Gomorrah when God promised to stay His judgment if even a remnant of ten righteous people could be found?
God’s desire is that none perish, but that all come to repentance. The choice before us as believers is the same choice that faced the churches in Revelation—if they would repent, God would rescue and restore their vitality.
No matter how deflated or depressed things look, there is still hope for a miraculous, transformational recovery. That’s why now is the time for us to believe again, and expect again. Even while in the dark, to hope.
What might it look like for our world to be transformed? Revival movements everywhere—not just in a faraway land, not just in a history book, but here, now, in your life. Is that something we’re willing to believe is possible? Is it something we might even expect, when so many places and so many situations seem dark?
Over our years of ministry at Life Action, we’ve seen firsthand that revival is really possible for individuals, families, and churches; for those who pray, who obey, who sacrifice, and who give their all to His mission. D. L. Moody was once challenged by this statement: “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully consecrated to Him.”
“He said ‘a man,’” thought Moody. “He did not say, ‘a great man,’ nor ‘a learned man,’ nor ‘a smart man,’ but simply, ‘a man.’ I am a man, and it lies with the man himself whether he will or will not make that entire and full consecration. I will try my utmost to be that man.”
Why not be that man or that woman who lets revival begin in you?
Byron Paulus
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