Seeking Him: 12 Days to Spiritual RevivalSample

Day 1: Revival

Are you tired of trying to be a good Christian? Are you overloaded and worn out with church activities? Do you sometimes feel like you’re just going through the motions of the Christian life? Do you often find yourself running on empty spiritually? Do you experience heaviness or shame more than joy and freedom in your Christian life? If you answered yes to any of these questions, perhaps God is calling you to something deeper. Maybe you’re ready to experience personal revival!

God wants to reveal Himself to you; He wants to fill your heart with Himself; He wants to set you free from every unholy passion; He wants you to drink deeply of the joys found in His presence; He wants your service for Him to be the overflow of genuine love and an authentic life; He wants you to be a reflector of His glory in our dark world. He wants you—and His entire church—to be revived!

The revival we will be talking about in this study is for God’s people—those who, by faith in Jesus Christ, have received salvation and belong to Him. (People who do not belong to God cannot be “revived”; they first must be regenerated!) Since the days of Adam and Eve, God’s people have often chosen to resist His will and rebel. Because of His great love, God keeps calling them back to intimate fellowship with Him. God’s grace—the desire and power He gives us to return to Him—always accompanies His call to revival.

To begin our study, let’s look at the Old Testament, where we clearly see God’s desire to restore His wayward people. Consider, for example, the prophet Hosea.

God sent Hosea to prophesy to the nation of Israel. Though they were God’s chosen people, the nation was in a sad state of spiritual and moral decline. For years, they had enjoyed God’s blessings—material bounty, military strength, and peaceful relations with neighboring nations—yet they still turned away from Him. They stopped viewing God as the source of their blessings and chose instead to credit themselves. They put off worshiping God. They ceased loving Him. They replaced Him with idols, trivial pursuits, and earthly wealth.

It was to these confused fellow countrymen that Hosea delivered repeated rebukes and appeals. He warned that judgment would surely come if they did not return to the Lord. Here is the essence of Hosea’s message:

Sow for yourselves righteousness; Reap in mercy;
Break up your fallow ground,
For it is time to seek the Lord,
Till He comes and rains righteousness on you.
You have plowed wickedness;
You have reaped iniquity.
You have eaten the fruit of lies,
Because you trusted in your own way,
In the multitude of your mighty men. (Hosea 10:12–13 NKJV)

Then, after taking His people through a time of discipline and correction, God urged them once again:

Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God,
for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.
Take with you words
and return to the LORD;
say to him,
“Take away all iniquity;
accept what is good,
and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.
Assyria shall not save us;
we will not ride on horses;
and we will say no more, ‘Our God,’ to the work of our hands.
In you the orphan finds mercy.”
I will heal their apostasy;
I will love them freely,
for my anger has turned from them. (Hosea 14:1–4)

These passages provide snapshots of how and why God revives and renews His people “before,” “during,” and “after”. The constant in all three stages is His love. God loved them when they were newborns (“child” in Hosea 11:1 literally means “infant”). He loved them after they returned to Him from a season of rebellion, and He loved them throughout the whole process of correcting them.

It was His love for them, in fact, that caused them to want to return to Him. It wasn’t that they suddenly “felt” love for Him again, nor that they somehow remembered how wonderful it was to live with an awareness of God’s love. It was that God caused them to desire that love relationship again. He enabled His people to see not only how wrong they had been and why His discipline was necessary but also that He would welcome their return because He had never ceased loving them.

Perhaps your own heart is hungering for intimacy with God—an intimacy that you haven’t enjoyed for a long time or perhaps have never known. That very desire is God-initiated. He wants you back! Why? Because He loves you and knows that you cannot experience all He has for you in your present condition.

Consider:

What does the idea that God initiates revival in His people tell you about God? What does it tell you about yourself?