My unpopular view of "Revival"

"Revival" Is Huge



This theme of a coming revival shaking the foundations of Christianity and awakening a movement of people crazy about following Jesus has been preached long before I was born. 

 Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely believe that as the days come closer to an end and we get closer to Jesus coming back, there will be a huge wave of truly devoted Christ followers being discipled and brought to life. This I believe is biblical, and this I believe, is happening right now. With the huge rise of house-churches and leaders in the faith reestablishing what "true church" is supposed to look like, I know people will be "ALL IN" or will fall to the side. We see this foretold in the bible and now we see it happening all around us. 

 I guess the issue I have with the revival mindset is what it's done to discipleship and our mandatory call as Christ followers. This revival mindset, I believe, tells people that something outside ourselves is coming. It's a mindset of waiting. And this I don't see in the bible. We are told that the harvest is plentiful and the workers are few. We are told to GO. Jesus very plainly and clearly tells us that WE are the revival. The mighty force we are waiting for, already came. Revival happened when the Holy Spirit came into the first believers and it continued when they obeyed the Great Commission. 

 I think we look back and we see all these incredible movements of people coming to Christ, from the first church onward. But somewhere along the way we stopped seeing that it's our simple hands that bring these movements. We stopped understanding the heart of what we do. Instead of seeing lives we started seeing numbers. We inflated with pride when we brought 30 to the front and we went cold when we only saw one. We lost sight of the actual mission. To find the one and then celebrate with all of heaven at their true repentance. Not the emotion driven, sinners prayer of the masses. 

Somewhere along the way we started looking for someone else to bring the revival and as harsh as it may sound we just stopped obeying. 

 We fell into the hands of corporate religion that was preaching "No religion" and we bought it. We fell into the pews, taped up our mouths with every sermon on "speaking with our lives" and we became religious do-gooders. We filled our intellect on Sunday and bought coffee for the guy behind us in the drive-thru and checked off our religious "live it out" lives. We left our bibles dusty as we married podcasts and theologians bent on burying the sanctity and validity of God's word below their success and growing podiums. 

 We have been silenced in a world preaching the most appealing and beautiful rise of darkness we've ever seen. We've cultivated the thorns all around us because they've been topped with elegant and delightful roses. And we don't feel bad because we are in very good company and we've seared our consciences with feel-good notions like "not by works", "once saved always saved", and "I'm a good person compared to that guy". All bred from a dangerous trend of plucking bible verses out of context and making our translation of the bible fit into the context of today. 

 We eat up the words of hipster dressed pastors who proclaim a Jesus that transcends the bible and we leave churches that make us uncomfortable in our sin for churches that worship a god that takes you as you are and leaves you there until you somehow get tired of your fulfilling and desirable sin. Which I've yet to see actually happen. 

 My dear friends, we need to wake up and stop waiting. Stop preaching an oncoming revival and just go. We need to stop waiting for the right moment, the right conversation to strike up, or the right person. We need to see that every single person we come in contact with deserves to know. We need to open our eyes and realize that absolutely everything is at stake. Put aside our selfishness and pride because we ARE exactly the revival Jesus had in mind. Get out of the mega-church lazy-boys, take our earbuds out, and actually get to know Jesus and the truth. Dust off our bibles and sit and let God's word speak for itself. And we need to pray! Pray that God will dig us out of the glamorous deception that has gripped the "Christian" world for far too long. It's time to get uncomfortable. It's time to tell the truth. 

 With all my love <3
Candace 

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