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Why do revivals have to end?
Why have many revivals gotten off?
Why have some revivals ended in shipwreck?
Was it Gods original purpose in Christ to build a Church that would need to be revived?
I wanted to share with you something that I talk to The Lord about often and something that I believe is of great importance to all of us that call ourselves Christians. In doing so, I pray that in some way all these questions above will be answered in your heart. The Lord loves you very much, He loves The World far more than we can imagine. He paid a high price so that we could become partakers of His Divine Nature and Ambassadors of His Great Commission He gave us to complete.
(2Peter 1:1-10) (Mark 16:14-20) (John14:7-18)
You have heard the statement "Revivals are not meant to last, they come and go".
Honestly when people say that there is something in my heart that understands that is true, but also I get a check , not really a check but bit of an asterisk in my spirit when I hear that.
I absolutely have seen how people try and prolong what God was doing for a season and it is never good. I have been there personally in my walk with God. Trying to carry an anointing far past its intended season can wear out every system of the body and mind. However, does that mean that God moving in miraculous and wonderful ways to heal, deliver and set free has a time limit on it, or does it reveal something in us, that needs to change?
This has been my question to The Lord in the many years I have been praying and walking with The Lord over these things:
"Lord, do you just decide enough people have been set free and delivered? Enough people have been healed? Enough people have had life changing interactions with you and your LIFE giving Spirit? "
The answer is always the same, "No it is my great desire to continue My ministry on earth through my church. To go about doing good and healing all who are oppressed of The Devil. To give beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, sight to the blind, to set the captives free and declare the time of The Lords Favor."
I have come to believe that what we know as "revival" isn't really The Lords best for His people. He truly does not want to have to revive us. He wants us to abide in Him, with Him and do all things through Him, as He works The Works of The Father through us. We have been given all these great and precious promises so we can always live in Gods favor as we have become partakers of His divine nature. We can dwell with Him, we can walk with Him, we can be fully authorized Ambassadors of His Kingdom every day of our lives. If we choose to make that our only goal and agenda. If we choose to abide in Him and fellowship in unity with His Church.
John 17:20-26
20 “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; 21 that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. 22 And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 23 I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.
24 “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. 26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
He said He would build His Church and the Gates of Hell would not prevail against it. He didn't say He would build men, in different times to revive His Church . He said He would build His Church. His Church are His People gathered. His called out ones coming together in unity under His Banner and Great Commission to take The Gospel of His Kingdom to all creatures, making disciples of all nations.
When we are engaged in that, operating together for His Purpose, following his path, obeying His command for us to love one another. We build a people who can continually walk in all His precious promises, as Ambassadors of His Kingdom, and empowered with authority to demonstrate His Love. Not just as planned services in the building we gather, but as we walk in the park, go to the store, work in our jobs.
The Lord is not going to place a time limit on how close His people walk with Him. He isn't going to limit the access we as his children have to His presence. He isn't going to withhold His love, compassion and Spirit from those who continually, as an act of thier will, draw close to Him everyday.
If we learn, and decide to dwell in Him and with Him and for Him, we will see His Great Love spill out of us and powerfully effect those around us. Demons will be irritated and even manifest themselves , only to be cast our, just as Jesus did. He hasn't set a limit on the deliverance He wants to bring to hurting humanity and lost souls. He will move us with compassion when we see see somebody bound by sickness, disease and evil spirits and as we are obedient to do as He instruct, how He instructs He will heal and set people free.
This abiding in Him , so that we could ask what we will and have it done unto us, was, is and will always be His plan until this age ends. To think He limits the love He wants to pour out through His Church , shows a great misunderstanding of what Christ was manifest for. That type of thinking limits the scope of The Finished Work of Christ.
The Love of Christ operating through us toward others carries an anointing in it that we have just scratched the surface of. Love never fails. Many times, apart from his "scheduled ministry" Jesus saw the plight of people lost and without a Shepheard, hungry without food, thirsty without drink and was moved with Compassion. A compassion unlike normal human compassion, but a compassion that came up from His Own Spirit and through that compassion, unique only to Jesus at that time. He did signs and wonders in order to draw the people to what they needed the most, Him.
(Matthew 9)
I believe this is why Paul prayed so often and earnestly prayed that we would know The Love of Christ, the fullness of The Love of Christ. (Ephesians 3) The depth, the width and the breadth of His Great Love.
I believe we can get to a place as individuals where we are walking in this revelation and reality everyday. I believe we can dwell in His presence and abide in Him in such a deep close way that we will be moved by His Compassion and Love to continue His work of healing and delivering those whom He brings by our path to show His Kingdom to. (Matthew 9:35-38)
I have faith, that we will enter a time, and are already beginning to step into it, in which we will be more aware of spiritual things than natural things. That we will abide in Him and walk with Him so closely that this world and its chaos will be like the temporal puff of smoke it is. We will begin to walk in the spirit and truly be able to say , it is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives through me.
It is a truth in God that He allows His people to walk in certain lesser truths in order to get them to keep moving forward toward the fullness of truth He wants them to walk in. I believe this is where we are at concerning "revival" . What was once accepted in one season has now become something The Lord will no longer, allow. Not revival as we have come to see it. He wants us, I would even be bold enough to say He requires us, to come back to Him. He so desires true ands close relationship with us that He is no longer able to allow us to just be revived for a season, only to have us build idols in His Sanctuary.
Don't we understand how we have so hurt The Lord? How we have been like and unfaithful wife. He reaches His arms out to us, calling us back to Himself and we choose worldly things instead. He welcomes us into His arms and presence , only to have us then walk away into the arms of another. Even then He still calls out to our hearts to return to our first love, only to have us ignore Him, reject His arms and commit adulteries against Him in His very presence.
He has created in us a holy temple where He abides. When Jesus prayed for us, He prayed that we would be one with Him and each other. That The AGAPE Love He and The Father had, would remain as we dwelt with Him , He with us and We with Each other.
His intent was never to stay distant from us, be secondary to our "ministries" and lives. He calls unto us daily. He paid the highest price to be in us, and move through us. He never intended for us to need revival, His intent is clear. Abide in me even as I abide in you. Draw close to me and I will draw close to you. I am the vine m you are the branches, apart form me you can do nothing. His Love was always meant to flow continuously through us. His Spirit guiding us and growing us, directing us and giving us LIFE and Peace.
John 15:7-12
7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
I hear saints wanting revival to return, and saying it may return, but wont remain. In all of that conversation we can see where we have forsaken our first love. Where we have believed something that was just not true. We look back at revivals with such fascination and longing , wanting to see then again, and I get it, but that time is over. The Lord wants His Children to gather to Him, to abide with Him, to be guided and taught by Him. He wants YOU to know The Love of Christ. He wants you to get a revelation of The Depth and The Width and The Breadth of The Love of Jesus.
Revivals were never meant to last, because revivals were never meant to be needed. Revivals have almost become something like a husband calling his unfaithful wife to come back to her first love, showering her with gifts and demonstrations of his love, only to have her be enamored by the gifts and attention, but not really interested in him. She doesn't even really receive him back anymore, she just wants the gifts ,attention and excitement. Once they go away, there was never any real love her part, even though He loved her with all his heart.
Help us Lord to return to our first love. To rest, abide and like John The Apostle , lay our head on your chest, to hear your heartbeat, to sense your love for us, and the world you were sent to save.
As your word says: So let it be so:
Ephesians 3:14-21
14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,
17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height
— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
