******* REVIVAL FIRE!!! *******
Let me be blunt, when all we have of revival is good meetings we might have actually already lost it in the way. If a revival remains within it becomes like an unborn baby: the baby was conceived and grew within the womb, and jumped, and kicked, and move around, but if the child is not delivered into the outside world he dies.
The best question about revival is not how good and powerful, or how anointed the preachers are, or what level of high worship we reach, or how much of goose bumps we can get. If that is all what we have, we must become aware that revival might be on its way of extinction. Revival is truly a revival when it affects society out there; a true measure of revival relates more to how many people are reached in the community rather than how many people come to our meetings.
If my community is not directly affected by my church revival, the only thing we have is a club meeting for the initiated. If those in need of life remain untouched we cannot even call our meetings ‘revival’ because a revival that brings no life is itself not alive. Period.
We are in Argentina right now. We have just visited some places. We have seen things that speak to my heart, actually shout to my heart: ‘revival’ with big screaming outbursts, more so than any gathering I had ever attended. A man and his wife who touched by the Holy Spirit back in 1993 started serving children in need: street kids, orphans, abandoned children. They have touched the lives of several hundreds of children; some of them are grown young men now, from being street kids some are now studying university careers; some in Bible College, many still growing in the home: The couple reject calling the place an ‘orphanage’ because they say that the moment a child arrives in the home he or she is not an orphan anymore but have become part of the family. And all this was started by two people who dedicated all their lives, and livelihood, time and resources to bring life to those children! That is one unseen face of revival. You will not see big gatherings here, it is just a home, but the children that were rescued and grew up in the home can be found involved in many ways in revival in their churches.
One thing to learn from the Argentine revival is that revival is not about meetings, but much rather about bringing the Holy Spirit into the streets, to touch the lives of people outside the church. A friend of us pastors a church with a membership of well over 30,000 people, and leaving aside the impressive figure, what is more impressive is how the church is so inserted in the community that you find it almost everywhere. They have permanent teams in hospitals, prisons; they have social services, medical services, helping hands all over; but is not just social welfare, for every single person involved in the multiple venues of outreach are filled with the Spirit and daily spreading the life of Jesus everywhere. They have an “army’ of children that regularly visit hospitals to pray for the sick and have seen awesome miracles, so much that they waited for, asked for, hospitals know them and people even when they know that they might be hospitalized send someone to ask those children to come pray for them!
How much. To what extent are we known in our community? Do people know us in our walk in such way that our daily walk is an extension of the meetings we attend? Huumm... tricky one this: If the meetings I attend are all about us, and we have an “awesome” revival all enclosed with our safe walls, our daily walk would probably be just like that, for anything we might have is hidden within.
Dead man walking, or better say ‘dead revival walking’
A few years ago several hundred people were saved because of a small big gesture. Students from the local Bible College were preaching in the streets like they do ever week. One of them was wearing a brand new shirt that his girlfriend had given him for his birthday; as he was preaching to the small crowd he spotted a homeless man, quite dirty and smelly, quite a tramp one would say; he stopped preaching and stepped up to where this person was and took off his own shirt and exchanged it for the filthy shirt the homeless man was wearing. The man was in tears with the gift and the fact that someone reached out to him in his condition, and as the young preacher put on the filthy shirt he got from the tramp the crowd began to sob and soon almost everybody was moved into tears and quite a few lead to Jesus.
How ‘powerful’ our meetings are ... well that is not the point of revival, the real thing is expressed by this question: “What am I doing with the life I have received” Spread life my friend! Spread the life of Jesus in the streets, at work, at school, in the restaurant, hospitals, everywhere, at every crossroad; after all your church meetings will be powerful as a result of what you have done outside.
In Acts they were in the streets, putting the world upside down, and when they met thousands were added as a result of the church’s action in power right there were the need was.
Be Blessed!
JC
Revival Highway
Wales - United Kingdom
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