Sermon Central
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Preparing For Revival Series
Contributed by Brad Stone on Oct 23, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: It is important if we, as the church, ever plan or desire to see revival break forth in our church, that we make preparation prior to a series of meetings. Revival should always begin before a scheduled series of meetings and continue long after. (Compiled using resources from Sermon Central)
This must change if we ever want to have revival. We must renew our vows, so to speak, with God, and we must fall in love with Him all over again. How do we do that? We must ask Him to forgive us for falling away and draw near. We must make it a priority to tell God and show God how much we love Him.
II. Declare A Fast
There once was a little boy who was asked to give the blessing at dinner. He bowed his head and said, “Thank you Lord for this food and bless the hands that made it, AMEN.” Out of breath, he looked up at his parents, and said, “Do you think I prayed quick enough for God?” His mother was a little curious about this remark, so she asked, “Why do you think you have to pray quickly?” The little boy replied, “Because the pastor said that in the Bible we are told to pray and fast!”
Now, like this little boy, we often are mistaken about the activity of fasting. In a general sense, fasting talks about giving up food, and that is mostly true; however, God is not concerned about the fact that we are not eating. God is more concerned with the fact that we are giving up something that is important to us in order to get closer to Him. We so often give up food, but sometimes, we must get rid of some things in our life by fasting from them.
So many times, we allow a wedge to get between God and us without even noticing it. One example of this, and I have been very guilty of it many times in my own life, is television. Recent statistics show that the average Christians spends well less than an hour a week reading his or her Bible. The same study shows that the average Christian spends between 15 and 20 hours a week watching television. Now, I am not condemning the watching of television, but I am suggesting that if we want to get close to God and revival as a church, we may have to give some things up. Whatever you spend the most time on is the thing you love the most, and until we spend the most time with the Lord and doing his will, we cannot truly say that God is first in our lives. In order to do this, we must declare a fast on all things that we have put in front of the Lord and spend time with Him instead. We must restore God as the number one love of our life if we ever hope to have revival.
III. Rend You Heart And Not Your Garments
Wives, if your husband does something wrong towards you, what are the two words you want to hear? I’m sorry. Sometimes, they are the two hardest words to say in the English language. Now, sometimes, it is not just enough to hear these words however. You want to know that the person who says them truly means them.
God requires the same when we tell Him we are sorry. In our passage, god tells us to rend our hearts and not our garments. Back in the time that this passage was written, people use to tear their clothes as a sign of repentance for something they had done wrong. After awhile though, this tended to lose it’s meaning. People would skip the part where they would apologize and mean it, and they would simply tear their clothes. This is not what the Lord desires. He desires that we turn from our ways with a truly repentant heart and not just words.
