Church Volume One: An 8 Day Devotional By Jesus CultureSample

Revival - Chris McClarney

There’s no denying that very regularly we, not only as individuals, but as a community of people who make up the Church, face struggles and tragedies that target us both mentally and spiritually, especially when it comes to our trust in the absolute redeeming power of God. We live in a time where fear is constantly being projected onto us through news outlets and social media, and anxiety is becoming so commonplace that we’ve begun to ignore its presence in our day to day lives. Not only are we facing tragedies on a worldwide scale, but in our personal lives as well, as we are often confronted by death and disease. In these times of trials and suffering, we begin asking a lot of questions: Why is this happening? Why did God allow this? When will we see redemption? And so on and so forth. The same is true for the three sons of Korah, who wrote Psalm 85. They look back at the history of the Israelites and wonder why they aren’t seeing that same salvation and restoration as before, and question whether or not they ever again will see revival in their lives and in the lives of the Israelites.

When speaking of revival, we have to understand where it comes from in the first place, which is something that the sons of Korah understood well. It’s our human nature to want to believe we can accomplish everything ourselves, yet, we commonly see in scripture that that is not the case. This reliance on God is expressed in this text by the word “you” at the beginning of each sentence near the beginning of the passage. By repeatedly saying “you”, they’re showing how it was God alone Who accomplished the first revival of the Israelites. Not only this, but in verse 4 they write “Restore us again, God”, implying that it was Him alone who brought original revival to His people. Revival cannot be accomplished by the works of men. It is God alone Who can accomplish healing and restoration, and it is God alone Whom we need desperately to restore us today.

Since God can bring revival, that means we can just sit back, do nothing, and sin as we like, right? Wrong! Even though God is the One Who does all of the actual “reviving”, we, as Christians, still have responsibilities! These tragedies that we face are a result of our sin and the fallen world, so if we were to sit back and continue living like normal, we would be working against our goal of revival. 2 Chronicles 7:14 tells us that if we humble ourselves, pray, and turn away from our wicked ways, God will restore our land and forgive us of our sins, therefore bringing us revival. We should be a people who cry out to God and seek revival in all forms, and pray that, one day, we may witness a revival where we are liberated from our sins, lives are restored, and we experience God’s Presence in a new way.