The concept of revival was never installed in the New Testament.

I know that it’s a shocker. But I have finally found someone online who understands this concept to some degree. Greg Stier’s article entitled A Holy Spirit Happy Meal lays down some excellent insight into the whole concept of how most Christians do pre-revival

pray enough, cry enough, fast enough, wait enough, repent enough, call on His Name enough…

…yada, yada, yada… I’ve had enough of worrying about if I do enough for God. And that was all I ever heard… especially on why revival did not come….

still secret sin, someone hasn’t prayed hard enough, repented hard enough or given enough money at the last repent-a-thon, mega-fast, or 2 Chronicles 7:14 rally….

What really got me thinking again about the subject of “revival” was these statements:

It’s hard to imagine our heavenly Father with that overflowing revival bowl saying, “almost, almost, keep praying, keep screaming….okay….now here you go!” And with a flick of his wrist that bowl is poured out and an awakening sweep across the nation.

Actually, when you think about it, waiting for revival seems anti-New Testament. The call in the New Testament is to act, to do, to drive…not to wait for God to do something….

So why do I go to Christian meetings and church services where preachers and worship leaders constantly call out for the presence of God and the power of God to come? Some scream, some sing, some wave banners trying to get God’s attention. Sometimes it feels like they are more like prophets of Baal than prophets of God. They dance around the sacrifice, cutting themselves, screaming themselves hoarse all while trying to call down the lightning. Meanwhile the thunder is rumbling down deep in our souls. The Holy Spirit is ready, willing and able to consume the sacrifice when we, like Elijah, act in faith.

It’s very hard to imagine that because in reality, God isn’t really like that at all. God isn’t like the buggy driver that holds the carrot in front of the horse to make it move to never give the horse a carrot. God isn’t like the lay-a-way section of a department store where we have to repent in installments until the full price is received to eventually get the item.

Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.

Marathon racers run a marathon pacing themselves in a constant and steady motion running every mile to some degree of consistent timing. They do not run one mile in five minutes and another mile in eleven minutes. The pace is consistent from point A to point B. The only thing that changes are the elevations of the environment.

Why is it in Christianity we have this backwards where we mistake the christian walk for the changing elevations of the environment and the stable pace for the progress bar? We view our Christian walk going up and down like a roller coaster or a stock market chart when in actuality if disciplined correctly should be plotted as a steady and consistent pace and a steady and consistent timing between two points in life.

If anything, we do not need to learn how to adapt to the up and downs of life. Instead, we need to learn how to be stable and consistent and keep up the pace when the terrain of life changes from the pved sidewalk to the rocky terra firma.

But the one thing that I have in question with the author is that from the way I comprehended the article, the author defined the consistency that is needed as “revival”.

Shouldn’t the really be “vival” as in life where “re-vival” is life again implying that we in our post-conversion moment walk must have died and had to be resuscitated?

I really wonder because if we fully understand this, all these super-revivals, repent-a-thons, mega-fasts, or 2 Chronicles 7:14 rallies could really just go away….

Or is there just too much money to be made in the revival business via the offerings, books about the revival, the revival worship DVD’s, and the ‘official revival instruction handbooks’ that would motivate people from hearing the truth about not needing their conventions and rallies and bait them with the carrot on a stick never to obtain the goal, or ever feeling ‘worthy’ enough to be able to receive ‘revival’. All the time time being told “Don’t blame God, blame yourself, when their solutions are deep down implying the blaming of God for not catering in to the works of ourselves.

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not need a “revival’. I need Father God; Jesus, the way, the truth, and the life; and the Holy Spirit to live within me to show me how to live out life.

I need ‘vival’, with consistency and stability….