A Cry From an Empty Heart

“Will You not revive us again, That Your people may rejoice in You?” The Psalmist there in Psalm 85:6 seems to cry out from an empty heart as he makes his plaintive request of The Lord who has delivered His people in the past.

Individual Christians ponder the times long past when a spirit of revival swept over them and they felt close to God. They ask in their spirit, “Why can’t I experience that again?” I believe the heartfelt desire of each and every Believer is to once again experience that time of exciting closeness with God, which seems ever farther and farther away.

We Baptists, tend to have meetings which we call “revivals”, but are nothing more than a series of meetings. They usually last for several days, and when they are concluded, everyone goes on about his business as if the interruption was nothing more than a brief vacation from the ordinary. Such protracted meetings become nothing more than a temporary break in the regular schedule of life.

But the heart’s cry for “Genuine Revival” remains, and I suspect that many begin to wonder if there really is such a thing. In contemporary society few have witnessed genuine revival. When “Genuine Revival” comes, it affects the lifestyle of those around. It causes men to close their business early just to be a part of the working of God. It causes mothers to keep their children up later on school nights, so they can be a part of such a moving of God. For that is what “Genuine Revival” is, a moving of God.

“Genuine Revival” is not something worked up by men. It is a moving of God. It seems usually to be preceded by a time when men are stirred by God to a spirit of prayer. Prayer for self, and for those around us. Men and women realize their own sinfulness and confess it before God. Such changes take place in the life of Believers that those outside the Body of Christ are awakened from their darkness and made aware of the supernatural working of God in the lives of men. Such unbelievers are often convicted of their lostness and great numbers come to Christ.

My heart’s desire is for “Genuine Revival” to sweep our land. I don’t know what I can do to bring that about, but I do know what it takes for me to experience revival individually. I must discipline myself to spend time with God so that I again begin to “seek first His Kingdom” and get my eyes off the things of this world system.

Should you be willing for God to bring revival in you life, you can be sure change will follow. It will affect relationships, and for some maybe even cause a change of vocation. Are you willing? I believe God stands at the door of each Believer’s heart and is ready to restore each one to a closer walk with Him.

He is knocking on your heart’s door today, believer. 1 John 1:9 is to Believers, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.”