Basics Of Revival Series

Revival Teaching

CCCAG January 3rd, 2021

Scripture- 2 Chron 7:13, Matt 6:9-13

So todays devotional time is going to introduce the sermons series we will be in once we start having meeting in person again. I want to take a moment and speak to why I feel it’s God’s will to move in this direction.

I've had a growing sense that's something it is about to change. I thought maybe it's just what I'm going through personally and going through college and everything of switching job rolls. I thought maybe it was because of the huge upheaval in our nation right now. The best way to describe this feeling is a sense of anticipation- like something be is on the horizon. Whatever this is, it will change everything, and will require us to move into even deeper levels of trust and dependance upon Jesus.

So this morning I want to take a few moments and reorient our thinking. Much of the Christian Church is fractured into various opinions about everything from our government, to the elections, to the coronavirus, or who is supposed to be leading our country right now.

It's my feeling that many of us have subordinated Jesus for one of these opinions.

This isn't really anything new, it's been going on for at least 20 years, and probably even before that. As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun what was will be again.

Most of the chaos in our country if not all of it is because the church and it’s members have focused on the wrong thing.

But this isn’t the first time that has happened.-

We know from the Bible that there was another church that did this.

In the Book of Revelation chapter 2 Jesus sends a prophetic word to seven of the churches that existed around Asia minor at that time. The first letter was to the church at the Greek city of Ephesus.

Ephesus had a thriving Christian Church. In our modern terminology we'd call it a mega church. it had a huge influence in their city , was very active in caring for the poor, and very involved in the politics of their local community. they were so busy that they did the same thing that we are doing today and that is mistaking the work for God for the word of God being Jesus.

Jesus complemented them on their dedication to the gospel principles, but had this rebuke for them:

Rev 2:4-6

4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

This is where a lot of American Christianity is today. We are more worried about our comfort here than we are concerned with the proclamation of the Gospel in both word and in deed.

I started off this message saying I have this sense that something big is coming. It reminded me of something that was spoken by Evangelist Steve Hill gave a prophecy during the Brownsville Revival over 20 years ago.

I’m going to play a snippet of it for you this morning

Steve Hill Prophecy

Pretty challenging isn’t it? My heart burns every time I hear this prophecy.

That prophecy was given in 1996, but it rings even more true today then it did then.

I played it for you to introduce the focus for the month of January- revival.

The key to revival in all of our hearts is prayer.

Prayer is simply seeking God. Spending time with Him. Allowing Him to speak to our hearts, and sharing our honest thoughts, needs, fears, and anxiety’s with him.

Many expression or denominations of Christianity teach their people formal prayers to repeat over and over again. It’s not a horrible thing, but it loses what prayer is supposed to be- intimacy with God- crawling up in Father God’s lap and experiencing HIM in all of HIS goodness.

So I want to spend some time this morning emphasizing our prayer lives for 2021.

It’s a peek on what we will be talking about in the coming weeks when we are meeting together again. If you are listening to us by Facebook live this morning, it will be on the audio only podcast which we will post here Sunday afternoons.

So we will begin this morning by covering a scripture we will be focused on heavily this month. It’s a very familiar scripture found from the Old Testament of second chronicles 7:13 and 14.

2 Chron 7:13-15

13 "When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, 14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.