The devil is quite adept at his job description, so good that often times his opponents don’t recognize his tactics, which is his purpose. He takes what God creates for His own glory and corrupts it into something with a distorted resemblance of its intention, superficially appearing like something good but corrupted into defilement and deception.
Thus he has done with revival. What some see as revival is nothing more than a man-led, flesh-indulging display driven for self-gratification, self-promotion, and the appeasement of superficial faith, providing nothing more than momentary ecstasy for the listener and hero-worship of the messenger.
God forgive us for not pursuing the death to self that is the predecessor to any true move of God!
This has much to do with why modern day so-called revivals are fleeting. Far too often they are flocked to as if the blessing is coming through a human personality or geographic location rather than personal and corporate consecration and desperation for God. And far too often, too great a focus is placed on the messenger, which dangerously borders on idolatry.
God is not in it!
True revival is different from that:
- True revival shakes our foundations.
- It interrupts our plans.
- It is not accommodating to our agenda.
- It does not exalt my flesh; it crucifies it.
- It does not bring me, my church or “my ministry” attention or prominence: True revival says, “He must increase and I must decrease.”
- It does not increase my influence; It increases God’s ability to mold, shape, form, and lead us in His will for His glory.
- And it is not wrapped around the personality of man; It is completely enveloped in the Person of Christ.
The Spirit stirs us to understand:
- Revival cannot be hoarded; It must be shared!
- It does not come for my personal exaltation; It comes to do something in me so profound that it flows with power, authority and brokenness into the lives of others.
- Its focus is Jesus, not me.
- It doesn’t come to empower me toward personal advancement or to help me build my own kingdom; It comes to break me, crush me, crucify my flesh, bury my old man, obliterate all that is not Jesus, and fill me with so much of Him that my passion solely becomes the mission to make Him known.
- Revival burns away my culturally-infused desire to gratify and please myself and transforms me to live for the glory and honor of His name.
- Revival changes me so that God can change others through me.
May the prayer of A. W. Tozer be the cry of our hearts:
“O God, be exalted over my possessions. Be exalted over my friendships. Be exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please You even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten. Rise, O Lord, into Your proper place of honor, above my ambitions, above my likes and dislikes, above my family, my health and even life itself. Let me decrease that You may increase.”
Hosea 10:12 “Sow with a view to righteousness; Reap in accordance with kindness. Break up the fallow ground, until He comes to rain righteousness upon you.”
In the NLT “Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that He may come and shower righteousness upon you.”
[Emphasis mine.]