REVIVAL - Part 6

PERSONAL REVIVAL

     On the 28th day of February 2024, after the dust had settled from the 'Healing the nation of Kenya' crusade, the Lord gave me a vision: I saw the red horse running clockwise in the lanes at Nyayo Stadium, Nairobi without its rider... Revelation 6:4. According to Zachariah 6:5, this horse is one of the four spirits of heaven, who go out from their station before the Lord to patrol the earth. I was not able to attend the pastors' meeting with the man of God, Pastor Benny but I watched the video on YouTube. This was the 3rd day [Wednesday] after the Pastors' meeting with Benny Hinn. They had repented from the atrocities that had been reported going on in the Church and especially with the ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

     After watching the meeting online, I was elated that I might be able to preach the message of the Kingdom of God in peace. Previously, I had seen revelation after revelation men of God attacking me. But, the Lord seems to be telling me not to make haste my conclusion. Although the men and women of God had repented, it was a wait-and-see situation. Thus, the red horse.

     The red horse is the spirit sent by God to patrol or discern the hearts of the men and women of God. It symbolizes servanthood and seeing the horse means that there's still no peace or the fivefold are under probation by the Spirit of God. When the horses are not in the stable, it means there are problems... it is a-wait-and-see situation. As important as corporate repentace is, it is the individual heart that the Lord is concern about. Man of God, seek after your personal renewal... leading to a personal revival. 

     If you attended that meeting for impartation of healing anointing, your motives were wrong. The man of God, Pastor Benny had nothing to give. The healing anointing over his life was not his to distribute. Neither did he receive from man. But, he showed you how to have a personal revival so that God can begin to trust you with His anointing, "Pursue after the Lord and His Word",  Pastor Benny seemed to say

Difference between corporate and personal revival? 

1. Personal revival affects an individual and sets in motion a revitalized heart. God does this by encountering a person powerfully as they seek after Him and position themselves to trust God fully. Corporate revival centers on a local church, a distinct community of believers or a nation. 

2. Personal revival is an experience that activates a believer's passion and inner drive for God and service. It restores one to the first love they had for God and awakens the spirit to a continuous revelation of Christ. Experiencing personal revival is vital as it ensures that you remain spiritually relevant. When I made a decision to seek God, He first, dramatically, removed me from a congregation. Then He called me to be His apostle. Then He sent me into the wilderness. A decade plus later, He was ready to anoint me. It may or may not be the process for everyone, but at one point, God will test your commitment.

WHY DO WE NEED  A PERSONAL REVIVAL?

     Personal revival is the only road to true revival in the Body of Christ as a whole.  This is when the Church is filled with people who in their personal walk with God are alive spiritually and are filled with the power and anointing of God so that the Church can be revived. Often times we hear that the Church is not the building. This is very true. Church is people. The Church is simply an outward expression of what you and I really are on the inside. If for instance the prayer life, worship life, evangelism or commitment level of the Church is low, it is because in the personal lives of those that make up the Church, there is a very low level of prayer, worship and study of God’s Word.

     It is good to have anointed guest ministers and programs that can stir up a revival, but there’s a limit to what those services and programs can do. If after such programs, the people ministered to don’t do anything about their own personal relationship with God, then the purpose of the revival service has been defeated. If after a revival meeting you personally don’t do anything to remain vibrant and alive spiritually, after sometime, things will return back to normal. The spiritually dryness and emptiness will return back. And the result is that the Church continues to be in need of a revival even after the revival service or meeting. After the corporate repentance in the mentioned crusade, each man of God should not stop there, this was only the beginning. 

     Hasn’t it happened to you that after a very powerful ministration you are charged up; you become prayerful and very active in Church, then after two weeks or a month, the spiritual dryness, the prayerlessness and lukewarmness returns. It is because we have not experienced a real personal revival. What simply happened was that you were just excited and motivated by the speaker, program or service but deep within you, you haven’t really experienced a personal revival.

     Personal revival will keep us from being a yo-yo believer - up today then down tomorrow. Up this month, down the next. Up this year, down next year. Which in itself brings a lot of spiritual frustration, dissatisfaction and guilt that weighs people down. 

One person that is personally revived can make a big difference before God. When God wants to do a new thing, bring about a turnaround, mighty deliverance or transformation in a family, He doesn’t need everybody in that family to be spiritually alive, vibrant and on fire before He can intervene and bring about a change. With just one person, God can do what He wants to do. One person that is personally revived can make a big difference before God.

In Ezekiel 22: 30, "And I sought a man among them who should build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it, but I found none". God was in search of a person who was personally revived. A person who was awake and alive spiritually, could stand in the place of prayer. With just that one vibrant, spiritually alive, personally revived person, God was ready to bring about a mighty deliverance to the whole nation.

In Genesis 18:26 - 33... when God was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He told Abraham that if He found just 10 people in that city that were in right standing with God, were living right, were personally revived, He wouldn’t destroy the city. God wasn’t waiting for the whole city to be personally revived before He would bring deliverance and restoration to the land. In fact, if Abraham had gone on to pray to God that what if it was just one righteous person in the land – God would have spared their lives.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A PERSON WHO IS PERSONALLY REVIVED

Like I said in the pevious blog, revival begins with one person, please see some characteristics:

1.      God can rely and depend on such a person: In Luke 14:16-24, Jesus told a parable of a great banquet where the Lord had invited people to His Presense – but these people started giving excuses. I would love to come but I have things to attend to. I have to attend to my business, my spouse, and so on and so forth the excuses kept pouring in. The real issue was not so much the things or people they had to attend to. The real issue was that these people were not personally revived. When you are not spiritually alive and awake, you will always have a ‘perfect’ excuse to justify why you can’t pray, read the Word, or do the things of God. 

But when you are revived, you are like the deer in Psalm 42:1-2 panting, thirsting and going hungry for more of God in your life. God was the last thing on these peoples' minds. This was why they could give such responses to the invitation to come to His presence. If really they had been thinking of God, had a passion for God, were hungry for God, and now had an opportunity to come to a place where that hunger would be satisfied or met, there’s no way they would have rejected the invitation to come and spend time feasting and fellowshipping with the Lord.  Clearly, these people didn’t have a hunger and passion for God. They were not personally revived this is why they had such excuses and were not in the least bit eager or interested in the banquet or the presence of God.

God can’t rely or depend on a person who is not personally revived because the person would always have a good excuse not to be where God wants him to be or do what God wants him to do. The sad truth about not being personally revived is that like it happened in that parable where God got other people to replace those who didn’t accept His invitation, God can replace you. May we not be replaced in His kingdom, may our divine assignment and God ordained place not be given to another person.

2.   The person’s life is a source of inspiration: The person challenges others positively – Jesus is a perfect example of a person who was personally revived. His disciples were greatly challenged, inspired and encouraged by His prayer life. His disciples in Luke 11:1ff asked Him to teach them how to pray. If Jesus had a lukewarm prayer life, there’s no way they would have asked Him to teach them how to pray. It was because they were challenged by His consistent commitment and passion for prayer that they asked Him to teach them how to pray.

Is your relationship with God; your dedication and commitment to God a source of inspiration to anybody? Does your life inspire others to want to spend more time with God or do more for God? Iron sharpens iron according to Proverbs 27:17. When people come near you, do they get blunt or do they get sharper? Are they strengthened spiritually or weakened spiritually?

3.      The person is a carrier of fresh anointing: Often times you hear people say things like, "That man is anointed or that woman is anointed". The truth of the matter is that every believer is anointed from within... 1 John 2:27. We have all been anointed by God when we got born again, but it is what we do with the anointing of God in our lives that makes the difference. Some allow the 'oil' of the Holy Spirit to dry up, some others let it go stale. A person who is personally revived is a carrier of fresh anointing or fresh oil... Psalm 92: 10b, 14.

The opposite of fresh is old or stale. A lot of believers today are carrying old and stale oil because they are not personally revived. David said fresh oil had been poured on him. What is the old oil or old anointing? These are old testimonies, encounters and exploits. It is still talking about what you did for God 5, 10, or 20 years ago, or in your former Church. No record, no testimony of what you are doing for God today.

When you are not daily being renewed in the presence of God, you are not daily coming to God to receive from Him, what you will be carrying about is old anointing because you haven’t received anything new and fresh from God’s throne room of grace. So many people pride themselves in this old anointing. They aren’t doing anything to have a fresh encounter, to do new exploits for God, they just keep going on and on about things they did for God in the past. Forgetting that yesterday is gone. Yesterday’s anointing is not enough for today. Today has fresh challenges that need a fresh anointing to tackle.

What is the stale oil? Like oil that is unused becomes stale and thickens, so also will the anointing on a person’s life dry up if it is not used. Your skills, talents, gifts and potentials which God has given [to everyone of us... 1 Corinthians 12:7] will dry up and become stale if you are not regularly putting them to use.

Experiencing a Personal Revival

•so God can always rely on you •so God won’t have to replace you •so your live can make a difference in your home, church and nation •so you can be a source of blessings and inspiration to others •so you are a carrier of fresh oil or fresh anointing

1.      Acknowledge and accept the fact that you need a revival: Until each one of us can get to that point where we can honestly tell ourselves and God that ‘yes, I come to church every week, I give, I sing, I teach, I preach, I do so many things for God, I attend so many services and programs, but the truth of the matter is that I am spiritually dry, I am spiritually empty. In fact, I am dying spiritually. God I need your help, I need your intervention, I need you to revive me’. Until we get to that point, we can’t experience a personal revival. For as long as you feel you are healthy spiritually, it is all well with you spiritually, you are doing fine spiritually, you can’t experience a revival. But the moment you acknowledge that I am sick spiritually; I am weak, empty and dry spiritually, you are on the road to experiencing a personal revival ...Matthew 8:10-13.

2.    Start taking responsibility for your spiritual growth: The reason why we have so many believers today who aren’t growing spiritually, who are not spiritually alive is because they have put their spiritual life in the hands of one pastor or one church. Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:12 tells us, "..work out our salvation with fear and trembling". Note something important Paul said in that scripture – in my presence and in my absence – meaning that whether you are under the anointing of this highly anointed man of God or you are not under his anointing, whether there is a pastor to tell you what to do or there isn’t a pastor to tell you want to do, you as a person, take responsibility for your own spiritual growth. Paul was telling the people to take responsibility for their spiritual life; not to put their salvation in his hands, or make it dependent on what he does or doesn’t do. That’s the only way to have and maintain personal revival.

     The reason why Jesus grouped the virgins in Matthew 25:1-13 into wise and foolish was because the wise ones were in the group that had taken responsibility for their spiritual growth, the foolish ones were in the group that were putting their spiritual growth in the hands of another person. That was why when their lamps went out, they thought it was just a matter of getting oil from those that have, those that are anointed and they will be okay. I believe that what the foolish virgins had been used to was that anytime they had a problem, they would say I will go and meet my pastor or that anointed man or woman of God to pray about that situation. But that day, their pastor said this time I can’t give you from my own oil, I can’t pray for you. And so because there was no pastor available that day, they had to handle the situation themselves, they had to take responsibility for their spiritual growth, they had to go and get oil for themselves, they had to now try and build up themselves spiritually. But it was while they were running helter-skelter trying to do this and that the bridegroom arrived and they missed Him. By the time they got their oil, by the time they became alive spiritually, it was too late. But if like the wise virgins, they had been taking responsibility for their spiritual growth, they would have had their own oil at the time that mattered most.

     Beloved, it is a dangerous thing not to take responsibility for your spiritual growth. We are not being wise if we are depending on just the message in church to grow, or the prayers of one great man or woman of God. You have to take responsibility for your own spiritual growth. Decide on your own to fast, don’t wait for the Church to call for a fast. Organize a personal vigil for yourself once in a while. Read God’s Word and other inspirational books and materials that can strengthen your walk with God. When we have people who are personally revived, then when we come together, there will be a corporate  anointing, the presence of God will be so mighty in our midst, the glory of God will be all over the place, and God will do great things in our midst. But it will start with personal revival.

     The heart of revival is when Christ shows up in your personal life, for Church, or nation. It is when we begin to experience what we already know is true biblically and theologically concerning the presence of Jesus Christ. One of the major tenets of our faith is that when believers in Jesus gather, the Lord Himself is present in their midst in a very special way.

Pray this simple prayer several times until you are spiritually revived. Mean it and take action as the Holy Spirit leads: O Lord, I'm in desperate need of a revival, revive me O Lord. Amen.

Maranatha!