Do you ever feel spiritually flat? Like the wind has gone out of your sails? Your enthusiasm is fading. Your service has declined. You don’t like it, but you find yourself adrift in the doldrums of spiritual stagnation. Take heart! Many of God’s best children have navigated those stale waters to find vitality on the other side of decay. You can too.
To refuel your spiritual fire you need revival. You need to know the passion of the psalmist’s plea, “Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?” (Psalm 85:6). In the Bible revival is what happened when God’s people recognized their spiritual apathy, and awakened their souls afresh to the things of God. How do you do that?
In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God provided a map that charts the way out of the spiritual doldrums. The irony is God presented this map when His people were in a state of spiritual ecstasy. They had just built the temple and experienced the most intense period of worship imaginable. Yet, God knew that life is not often lived on the mountain tops, so He provided His people with a road map to revival. Here it is.
“If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)
We are prone to let our love for God grow cold. So, when it does stir these four coals of revival.
Humble Yourself. Go into spiritual bankruptcy (Matt 5:5). See God in His rightful place and confess His total authority. Look at your own weakness and sin and confess your bareness apart from His gracious work.
Pray. Stir your heart to this spiritual discipline. Lift your prayers up to heaven with words of praise. Bring your prayers down to the dust with words of honest confession. Take your prayers forward to the future with words that affirm God’s purposes.
Seek God’s Face. There is no revival apart from the word of life. Earnestly return to God’s Word, and relentlessly pursue His wisdom (Prov. 2:1-5; Jer. 29:13).
Turn From Your Ways. Make a new commitment to holiness. Repudiate the wrong for the right. Reject the better for the best.
God promises He will “hear” and “heal.” Sounds great doesn’t it? Let’s do it.
Tim Jennings
“Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:14)