There are certain words we use in church so often that sometimes we stop and realize, “I’m not actually sure I know what that means.” Revival can be one of those words.
We schedule revival services. We prepare the worship. We invite people to come. But can you actually schedule revival?
I don’t think you can. We can schedule gatherings, worship, preaching and prayer. We can make room for God to move. But we cannot manufacture a move of God.
We can’t schedule revival—but we can position ourselves for it.
Revival Is the Church Coming Alive Again
To revive something means there was already life there. You don’t revive something that has never been alive. You revive something that was alive but has become weak, faint or unresponsive.
That is a beautiful picture of spiritual revival. Revival isn’t primarily about lost people being saved—that’s evangelism. Revival begins when God awakens His people again.
Something cold becomes warm again. Something routine becomes real again. Prayer isn’t simply something we know we should do; we actually want to pray. We don’t just sing the words; we worship. We don’t merely read the Bible; we hear God speaking through His Word. Sin bothers us again. Grace amazes us again. We become passionate about Jesus again.
You can see that kind of awakening throughout Acts: at Pentecost in Acts 2, when believers cry out to God and are freshly filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 4, and as an entire city is impacted in Acts 19.
What if revival isn’t God creating some extraordinary version of Christianity? What if revival is God awakening us to what Christianity was supposed to look like all along?
Remember. Repent. Return.
Ephesus gives us a sobering picture. Acts 19 records an extraordinary move of God there. Yet years later, Jesus tells that same church in Revelation 2 that although they were working, persevering and standing for truth, they had forsaken their first love.
A church that had experienced revival still needed revival.
It is possible to do a lot of things for Jesus while slowly losing our affection for Jesus. We can serve and lose intimacy. We can sing and stop worshiping. We can know the Bible and stop being moved by it.
Jesus tells Ephesus what to do: remember, repent and return. Revival is coming back to Jesus.
Revival Looks Up
Revival begins when Jesus becomes our first love again—not church, ministry, worship music, preaching or even revival itself. Jesus.
We can become more interested in having a dramatic spiritual experience than in Jesus Himself. But true revival doesn’t make us fascinated with revival. True revival makes us fascinated with Jesus.
When did grace stop amazing us? When did the cross become something we could hear about without being moved? Revival begins when we look upward and pray, “Jesus, become my first love again.”
Revival Looks In
When we really look at Jesus, we begin seeing ourselves differently. In Acts 19, people responded to Jesus by confessing sin and walking away from practices that belonged to their old lives.
They didn’t just have a great service. They changed the way they lived.
It is easy to pray, “God, revive our country. Change our culture. Fix my family.” But revival doesn’t begin with them. Revival begins with me.
David’s prayer in Psalm 139:23–24 is a revival prayer: “Search me, God, and know my heart.” God, if there is bitterness, unforgiveness, pride, compromise or anything pulling me away from You, show me.
Don’t start with everybody else. Start with me.
Revival Looks Out
Revival never stops with us. Acts 19 says the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. Acts 4 says that after believers prayed and were filled with the Holy Spirit, they spoke the word of God boldly.
The building shaking wasn’t the destination. The people changing was.
Changed people go home. Changed people go to work and school. Changed people forgive. Changed people love differently. Changed people tell other people about Jesus.
So maybe experiencing revival is simpler than we’ve made it: Look up. Look in. Look out.
Jesus, become my first love again. Jesus, show me anything in my life that doesn’t belong. Jesus, use my life so somebody else can encounter You.
Maybe revival begins with a very small prayer:
“God…start here.”