What is the Vision of Revival? Isaiah 54:7-8, The Eternal Covenant of Peace

⁷ For a brief moment I deserted you,

    but with great compassion I will gather you.

⁸ In overflowing anger for a moment

    I hid my face from you,

but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”

    says the Lord, your Redeemer.

How much is God committed to us and how committed are we to him?

Because God blesses his people, Judaism was intended to be a blessing to the world.  However, God ultimately abandoned Judaism because it became an institutionalized religion rather than a passionate movement of God’s people to bless the world. He turned to one man: his Son. And his Son and turned his focus to the Church. Unfortunately, I think it is safe to say that much of western Christianity has shifted from being a passionate movement to being an organized institution.

Movements are centered around a leader and his vision. Remove the leader and the vision and the movement eventually becomes a religion. That is why revival re-focuses us on Jesus. In the first 300 years of Christianity the person and work of Jesus dominated the life of the church as it spread over the known world. Who was he? What did he do? Why did he die? Why does he matter? In the first 300 years of the Church Jesus was all that mattered. Christianity was founded on what God did for us in Christ. It was a movement and not an institutional religion.

Institutional religion opposes revival because the vision of revival is the vision to return to Christianity as a missionary movement guided by the Holy Spirit. It is a return of focus onto Jesus and away from the institutional church. Revival is a return to a way of life and away from a belief system. Revival produces principled people of the Way who live for the Cause. Revival is mobile. Revival brings God to the people by raising up servants to do the work of God.

What is the vision of revival? Jesus is calling his followers to the back roads of real life and out of an institutional prison. Jesus is calling us out of our sanctuaries and away from the false safety of our denomination to associate with the unreached and unchurched of our day and age. Jesus is calling us to be like the repentant tax collector rather than the stuck-up Pharisee. Jesus is calling us out of our comfortable lives into the mission field. The vision of revival is Jesus himself, and he is going to use you.

Awaken our hearts, O Lord, to love what you love.

Awaken our minds, O Lord, to think with the mind of Christ.

Awaken our souls, O Lord, to walk faithfully with your Spirit.

Awaken your Church, O Lord, to renewal and revival

as we gather in Christ, grow as disciples, and go bearing the Gospel. Amen.