God can revive us!

Our congregation is concluding our spring revival services.  We typically take an opportunity twice a year.  These multiple services are a call to our people to set aside more time for attending corporate prayer, singing, and preaching.  Revival week is a call to other individual spiritual disciplines as well.  We typically do revivals in Spring and Fall.  After the frigidness of winter, it is a time of refreshing time in Spring.  After the busyness of Summer vacations and school beginning, fall provides a time of refocusing of our priorities.

However, revival is not associated only with a series of meeting at the local church.  Revival can come in various ways to believers in groups or in solitude.  Revival happens at anytime and anywhere because, in our broken world, we get tired, lose focus, and need help all the time.  Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, reminds us that we serve a God who faithfully revives His people.

“Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”  -Is. 40:28-31

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” – Is. 57:15

By reading those Scriptures, it becomes clear that God will revive those who are willing to follow Him.  When we feel spiritually weak, we must examine our self and see if we have allowed pride or any other hidden sin to creep in and have separated us from God (Isaiah 59:2).  We can experience revival is we wait on the Lord by seeking His will and following His lead.  We can experience revival when we are humble before God.  We can experience revival if we confess our sins to Him because He is faithful to forgive (1 Jn. 1:9).  God can revive us!