REVIVAL

January is gone and February is upon us!  Time is precious, and none of us can afford to waste it! The good news is that God has a perfect plan for every second of our lives; as we surrender our lives to Him, we don’t have to worry about missing out on what He wants to do.

I just got back from a conference on revival. Let me tell you of God’s marvelous work of revival that broke out exactly 120 years ago! In February 1904, God brought a great revival to the lost and hurting people of Wales. Like every revival, it started with prayer. A young pastor named Joseph Jenkins was leading a prayer meeting. He asked people to share about their relationship with God. Some spoke of other things, but Pastor Jenkins kept calling them back on topic.  Finally, a young lady named Florrie Eveans stood up and declared, “I love the Lord Jesus with all my heart.” In that moment, God’s Holy Spirit drew many to make similar confessions of faith and surrender to Jesus, and the Welsh revival was ignited!

God did astounding things! People came flooding into the churches, to pray and worship and surrender their lives to God. Not one penny was spent promoting the meetings, yet over 100,000 people came to faith in Jesus Christ in a 2-year period. Wales is famous for its coal mining. When the miners gave their lives to Christ and stopped swearing, some of the ponies working in the mines no longer understood the commands given to them, and had to be retrained!

Is revival just a random act of God? Not at all – prior to the prayer meeting there was another pastor who had been praying daily for revival; for 13 years, his heart broken over the spiritual darkness of his people. Many prayer groups had formed, crying out to God to bring salvation to their people.  Revival never starts with lost people; it begins with God’s own people. One Welsh pastor put it like this: We cannot organize revival, but we can set our sails to catch the wind from Heaven when God chooses to blow upon His people once again.” Evan Roberts.

Let’s renew our commitment to prayer, alone and together, that God would revive our hearts and bring salvation to the lost and hurting people all around us. Like Jesus’ first followers, let’s ask Him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1)  

Can you imagine how our lives, our church, and our city would change if God were to bring revival? Such things can seem impossible – good thing Jesus reminds us that “with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26) Some days we may think we will never live long enough to see God reveal His power and glory in revival in our lives. Take heart! The great preacher and pastor Martin Lloyd-Jones once said, “When God acts, He can do more in a minute than man with his organizing can do in fifty years.” 

Praying for you and with you, that God might “blow upon His people once again!”

Pastor Jamie