A cry ascends. Like an ocean tide, the cry sometime surges strong and wild. In other moments it wanes. The tide, may wane but it never disappears. That describes the ascending cry of people and churches that hunger for a fresh revival, and that cry has taken on a fresh intensity.
Revival – a significant, loaded word. For one person it stirs nostalgia. For another it awakens memories of real or perceived excesses. Still others think of special weeks each year for extended meetings in terms of duration in weeks and in hours per service.
I suggest we free the word revival from historic implications and allow it to take our minds instead to the promise made by God. Acts 2: “17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke…”
As I consider current events around the USA and the world, I see significant hunger for an authentic manifestation of revival among “sons and daughters” — especially among the group entering an adult world with a worldview shaped by COVID lock downs, canceled high-school graduations, and their perception of dwindling economic opportunities. They want something real, something robust enough to pull them from apathy, depression, and complacency into unquenchable hope and worthy purposes in which they may invest their lives.
In this current context of notable hunger among young adults, there exists a notable spiritual auto-pilot in some people running their last laps of this life. Those of us with stored up wisdom, insights, and stability must fan into higher flame our hunger for a fresh, unique revival. I want to seize the “old men will dream dreams” phrase as a generational promise. I want to read that as a personal invitation – not the worn out lead-in to a worn out punch line about the tall stack of birthdays some of us have accumulated!
Alums, He has not left us here to go quietly into the night. Instead He wants us to wade into the rising tide, join the intensifying cry of a people who want more now that we stand closer to the end than we experienced in our early years! He extends His promise of another outpouring of His Spirit. Will we seize it or live “business as usual?”
“Business as usual” church services and prayer services, populated by “business as usual” people will not suffice or usher us into His last-days revival.
If we want HIM to release “a new thing” among us, and see revival in this day – we must cry out to Him from a heart burdened for the spiritually dead to experience resurrection life in Jesus. He wants to pour life on young and old and everyone in between. He intends this fresh revival to orbit around the spiritually dead coming alive: Acts 2:21 “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Whether the moniker “son or daughter” most accurately describes you or you identify with “older man or older woman” —please join me in an intensified personal cry for fresh, unique revival.
Please take a moment and let me know about your fresh prayer commitment. Please email: [email protected] and say something like – “I’m in.”
“Father, one last time before the return of our Lord Jesus, please “show up and show off” in our spiritually bankrupt, needy country and world. Let us participate in the staggering end time harvest you have in mind. I refuse to sideline myself. Holy Spirit, count me in!” Amen