Preparing for an Outpouring

BY COREY TURNER

'And it shall be said, “Build up, build up, prepare the way, remove every obstruction from my people’s way.” For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place and also with him is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.” '(Isaiah 57:14-15 ESV)

For the last four years, our five-fold leadership team have led Neuma Church to cry out in prayer, the words of Psalm 85:6 ‘Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you?’

In recent months we’ve seen God respond to this prayer with a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This move of God bears all the marks of what some would call revival. These include mass repentance, healings, deliverance, baptism of the Spirit and many salvations. Both from revival history and the Bible, we have discovered a few key insights into positioning for a fresh outpouring.

Revival is a partnership between God’s sovereignty and our prayerful preparation

In the Old Testament, the word revive or revival is mentioned 15 times. In the New Testament, we read about the original prototype revival on the Day of Pentecost. In Revelation 2 and 3, we read where Jesus calls the seven churches back to their first love and fervent commitment to God. The word 'revive' means to be quickened, to be made alive, to be restored and to bring back into use after decline.

Historically, revival has been preceded by spiritual apathy and moral bankruptcy, both in the Church and the world.

So to counteract spiritual decline and create spiritual momentum, God stirs a hunger in His Church for revival. Psalm 110:3 says, ‘Your people offer themselves freely in the day of your power.’ The day of God’s power is determined by God’s sovereignty but us offering ourselves freely is determined by our intentionality. Too many believers blame a lack of God’s power on His sovereignty but God’s Spirit won’t do for us what He has commissioned our faith to prepare for. The prophet Isaiah declared, ‘Build up, build up, prepare the way.’

Honour for God’s presence over people’s approval is foundational

One of the greatest obstacles to revival is our lack of honour for God moving on His terms. We see this in Jesus' hometown of Nazareth, where He could not do many miracles there because of their lack of belief that was attached to their lack of honour. Too many of us are content to build a great church but not hungry for a move of God. The two are not automatically the same. Some of us can get nervous about the potential excess of revival and steer the church away from it. The great revivalist, John Wesley once prayed, ‘God give us revival without its defects, but if we can’t have revival without its defects, just give us revival.’

We must play our part in removing every obstruction from God’s people by addressing our fear of man and lack of honour for God moving on His terms. God invites us to experience Him, not evaluate Him. We must be careful to not allow our lack to become the measuring stick for someone else’s hunger to experience more of God.

Holiness is essential to carry the Spirit of revival

So few of us cultivate a resting place for him to dwell and yet 1 Pt 1:15 calls us to ‘Be holy as I am holy.’ This is a call to reorientate our hearts towards God’s nature. When God gets close, what’s not holy gets exposed. We see this principle at work in Acts 5 when Ananias and Saphirra lost their lives due to their lack of holy integrity and fear before the Lord.

The prophet Isaiah revealed where God lives, in the high and holy place. Unfortunately, holiness has been given a bad wrap and almost frowned upon in modern preaching, being mistaken for law. But holiness is supposed to be byproduct of delight not duty. The conviction of the Spirit is a gift not an inconvenience to a lifestyle of sin.

Humility guards our hearts against a spirit of entitlement

God’s presence manifests on the altar of a broken and contrite heart. Therefore keeping a short account of sin and practicing active repentance is necessary to remain in a state of revival. When revival hits a church, no one really knows what they’re doing so humble dependence is a necessity. God continually reminds me to just follow His lead and not try to lead the move of God.

I’ve had several pastors ask me the question, ‘How are you going to sustain this move of God?’ As I pondered this, the Holy Spirit reminded me, ‘Son, you don’t have to sustain it because you didn't start it. I did. You just have to remain in me.’ How do we remain in Him and be the resting place of God? By keeping lowly and contrite before Him.

Hunger

Proverbs 27:7 says, ‘One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet.’ The first sign of the morbidly sick is they lose hunger. The first sign of an unhealthy believer is they lose their appetite for God’s presence. When you’re hungry for God, you don’t take no for an answer. Just ask the Syrophoenician woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter if she was hungry or not? Hunger looks past offence because whatever you want from God is on the other side of your offence.

God will often move in ways that offend our minds to reveal the lack of hunger in our hearts. The great thing about hunger is it doesn’t require giftedness, only desire. You have as much of God today as you wanted Him yesterday. I encourage you to become more hungry for God than you’ve ever been before. This is the season of spiritual rain across the earth and it’s time to ask God for rain in the season of rain. Lets join together in prayer as we cry out Psalm 85:6 ‘Will you not revive us again, so that your people may rejoice in you.’