The GREAT PHYSICIAN

The GREAT PHYSICIAN who caused us to be born again and made alive in Christ is the same One Who will REVIVE our hearts as needed! He will be among us this Sunday to do just that.

I looked up the word “REVIVAL,” and sure enough, it means RE VIVE.  Literally from the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin forms, it means to LIVE AGAIN! So, everyone who is born again has been revived because He has imparted His resurrection LIFE to us. (That’s sort of what EASTER is all about!)

But if we have been revived, why would we need or want to be “Revived again”, as the Psalmist cried? Frankly, we get choked out by the cares of this life, worn down by the worries of the world, and just weary of the journey sometimes! He knows that. He understands that. And out of His great mercy, He brings new life to us AGAIN! Revival is not a church meeting, or a time of year we have for special services, it is an INFUSION of HIS fresh power to sustain us and empower us to really LIVE! It’s cool, behind that word “vive” in the Hebrew is the word “breathe.” He will cause us to breathe deep, afresh, of His Holy Spirit’s mighty wind and be transformed! Yes Lord, “Will you not revive us again that your people may rejoice in You?”

But as I thought about revival, I wondered why we don’t receive the fresh breath of God more than we do. I think there are many factors, and certainly HIS SOVEREIGNTY is at the center of it, because revival is HIS DEPARTMENT after all… but the word that kept surfacing in my heart and mind was complacency. And when I looked up the word complacency, it has at its core the word PRIDE. It’s good enough. I’m good enough. My church is good enough. My community is good enough. I’m very satisfied with how things are. (Sort of proud of it in fact).

Just up the road from us, near Paris, Kentucky, is the old stone Cane Ridge Church, where one of the greatest revivals happened in America. Tens of thousands gathered for weeks among the cane of “Canetucky”, and cried out to God. The revival soon spread all across America. What many folks don’t know is that it all began with just a handful of people sharing in a communion service… who began to be transparent, authentically confessing their sin. In humility and a holy discontent (unlike complacency), they cried out… and God met them in a wondrous way. (You can still visit that stone church, and I believe you can still sense the Holy sweet presence of God there)

So, this Sunday, we are going to consider what “healthy revival” looks like, and just what it might actually mean to be “alive again!”

Come expectant. Come with a holy dissatisfaction. Come Hungry for God!

See You Sunday!

Pastor Daryl

Cane Ridge Revival, 1801, Kentucky