The Recovery of Revival

Whitfield preaching in the first great awakening


What does it mean to be revived? From the perspective of history, when people say revival, they generally mean an event in time where there was a significant increase of spiritual interest in a specific region after a period of decline, often characterized by mass conversions and burning zeal toward God. There was the First Great Awakening, then the Second, the Third, and finally, the Fourth Great Awakening. Yet many begin to wonder what happened? Where did that spirit of revival go? These days morality plummets and normality is distorted. Deep down, everyone knows we desperately need the Recovery of Revival.

To be revived means "to bring back to life or consciousness; to resuscitate (to impart new health, vigor, or spirit); to restore, use, or activate." What we actually need is not a mere exciting event of revival once every century, or every decade, or every year. We need a day-by-day revival!

In the midst of this tired universe we're living in, the need of revival is much more intimate to us. It's not just some sort of reformation of the theology and methodology. It's also not some random surge of positive, spiritual energy. It deals with our inward being. I mean it makes so much sense. An event in history may indirectly affect us, but an event in our spirit has everything to do with our entire being. After such a hectic day, naturally we would feel out of breath. Yet as Christians, we don't have to remain so. We can be resuscitated, revived from our droopiness.

I was greatly helped by a periodical I've been devouring lately, The Ministry of the Word- Crystallization of the Minor Prophets:

"Among God's people there has always been an aspiration to be revived... Psalm 80:17-9 says, 'Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, upon the son of man whom You have strengthened for Yourself; then we will not turn back from You. Revive us, and we will call upon Your name. O Jehovah God of hosts, restore us; cause Your face to shine, and we will be saved.'"

So how can this revival be recovered?

"All of our degradation and desolation come out of our not giving Christ His proper position. We need to exalt Christ (the man of God's right hand). If there is going to be a revival, we need to exalt Him day by day, we need to give Him the preeminence in our being day by day, and we need to regard Him and take Him as everything in our life."
Actually revival and resurrection have similar meaning of being enlivened from a deadened condition. Practically, the way to experience revival is "to contact Christ by repenting and confessing our sins, failures, and darkness, thereby entering into Him as the resurrection."

By our transparent, genuine contact with Christ in this way, our spirit is stirred up and we enter into Him as the reality of revival itself. Degradation and desolation can only swallowed up by the resurrected Christ. The only One who has been proven to have overcome death, all the byproducts of death, and the source of death is the resurrected Christ.

To exalt Christ means everyday "we must come to the Lord in a definite, purposeful way, not to pray for various things but to meet the Lord and to be met by Him. We must tell the Lord, 'Lord, here I am. I am ready to be searched by You. I am ready for You to meet me, break me, and speak to me. I am ready. Lord, here I am.'"

Our revival, therefore, should be as daily as the sun rising every morning.

sunrise in Austin

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Comments

  1. I appreciate that the recovery of revival that we need today is not a sudden stirring like the "great awakenings" from past centuries. These revivals were very short-lived. What we need today is for the Lord's believers to enter into a day-by-day revival. Proverbs 4:18 confirms this by saying "But the path or the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until the full day." As believers, our revival is like "the light of dawn," something we experience each morning by beholding Christ, our real Sun. May we all increasingly experience such a day-by-day revival!

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    Replies
    1. Proverbs 4:18 is such a great verse to convey this daily revival. I'm glad you mentioned the verse and the fact that we need to be revived every morning of the day.

      I feel like we need daily revival because by default, in our natural self and flesh we are old and tired. Just like we need to breath, eat, and drink daily, we can't graduate from being revived daily because it's a life practice, not once in a lifetime kind of deal.

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  2. Amen. Wow, this really reminded me of past concepts I used to have. I remember I used to wait around for "opportunities" to be revived to come to me in a sense i.e. conventions, special church events, etc. I would think to myself, "Oh, I can't wait for this date to come so I can be joyful and filled with the Lord again and these bad feelings will go away". I was so ignorant to the fact that I could be revived at moments when I felt dead or dry. I am so grateful to know that we can cease the opportunity to be revived right NOW! We don't have to remain feeling out of breath or droopy because of circumstances happening around us, but we can have a revival everyday! This revival is not outward necessarily but something inward that ends up affecting our inner being. We don't have to wait for an event. We can just turn, confess, recieve and enter into Christ as the reality of our revival today. He's the only one that can overcome everything even death! What a great reminder. Oh Lord, inwardly revive us day by day!


    Ps. I feel like i reiterated tid bits of your post alot :P but anyways, I enjoyed this daily reminder very much.

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    Replies
    1. That was a powerful comment, RDLC. :)

      Thank you for genuinely enjoying this blog post. I think what I appreciate the most is your comment truly encapsulates the entire post.

      Amen! O Lord, revive us, we call upon Your name! Cause Your face to shine and we will be saved!

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  3. It is a great mystery on how the Lord is able to come into contact to us but just this fact that He is able to it is just wonderful! Not only can we speak to Him but we can be revived by Him! I just appreciated your writing Katherine because it just what one is looking for when we feel dead and without the Lord. But Praise the Lord that we can meet Him! Then after He meets us, we will no longer feel dead but full of life! Oh Lord cause your face to shine on us so that we can be filled with YOU!

    -Jenni

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    1. Yes, we need to be desperate to meet the Lord everyday! In my experience, morning times are the best times to contact Him. Actually today, I just heard a quote that "the morning time is the foundation of our day."

      It's how we start off that matters, because this determines the source of our day. May the Lord continue to have mercy on us and awaken us morning by morning to meet Him.

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  4. Lord Jesus, I open - here I am, I come to You to be enlightened and shined on by You! Revive me! Revive me every day and every moment!

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  5. Great post! It's interesting that you point out that revival is something intimate and internal. I think those two words are often forgotten when we start looking for solutions.

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    1. Right! It's because we're always seeking for things seen, instead of the things not seen. We often rely on our mental and physical capacity to sense or substantiate things.

      Yet the solution is within, based on the fact that Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20).

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