Hosea 6:1-2 “Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.”
I believe that we are living in a critical time for the church. It seems that major ministries are constantly trying to come out with a new “Word from the Lord” or a new theme to try to get people to buy into their ministry.
I’m persuaded though what God is really trying to say to His church is “it’s time to get down to business.” We in America have it so easy and we’ve let the people determine the course of the church and not God. Most churches have become like Supermarkets trying to have a variety to please everyone who comes.
The church is not in the people pleasing business, it’s God’s business. We’ve gotten to the place where we’re afraid to offend anyone because they may quit coming or quit paying their tithe. So many have diluted the message of the cross and try to make ourselves more presentable.
We as a church are going to be held accountable for what we do before God. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be found wanting or lacking when it comes to the things of God.
What’s missing in our churches is passion. There’s a lack of passion from the pulpit to the pew. What’s needed in the lives of the pastors and members is personal revival. If personal revival doesn’t come to each of us, we’re in danger of raising up a generation that knows not the power of God.
I want us to look at tonight on how to prepare for personal revival.
We’re going to begin to look at 17 areas that we need to be brutally honest in as we compare them to our life. If you’ll be honest in answering these questions and make changes in your life to line up to the Word, you’ll find personal revival sweeping your life. And when you really get on fire for God, it’s going to affect those around us.
Let’s look first at how to prepare for personal revival.
I. First we need to pray a prayer of searching
Psalms 139:23-24 says “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Before there can be any change in our life, you first must be willing to allow God to examine our life and secondly we must be willing to listen to God as He shows us our hearts as they really are.
Many times there are things in our lives that we’ve grown so accustom to them being there that they are oblivious to us. They’re there and others may be able to see them but we don’t see it because we just have grown to accept it as part of our life.
It’s sort of like your jewelry that you wear. If you have any gold jewelry most likely it’s 10 or 14 carat gold. The lower the carat number the less gold it has. Unless you’re a specialist when you look at your ring you don’t think anything other than it’s a gold ring. You don’t see any of the impurities in it.
But that gold ring that you have isn’t pure, it has other metals in it, and that’s what makes it hard. Pure gold is soft and pliable.
Many of us may look okay from the outside, but our life is full of impurities that makes our hearts hard. Our hearts are full of impurities such as hurt, bitterness, anger, resentment, strongholds, and sometimes things in our heart that’s just down right displeasing to God and they all work together to make our hearts hard.
We need to let God remove those impurities so our hearts will be soft and pliable before Him. That’s what the psalmist prayer was all about. He wanted to be honest and open before God.
He cries search me and know my heart. This is not an easy thing to do because it’s easier to go around thinking that everyone has problems and I’m just as good as the next person. So everything’s all right in me.
None of us like to admit faults and failures, we would like to think we’re always good and perfect. That’s why we don’t honestly pray that prayer. We may pray it to sound spiritual, but no searching will happen until you mean that prayer. It’s at the point, when we mean that prayer, when we really decide to get down to business with God. God’s searching process is a necessary step in your preparing for personal revival.
Look what David was saying, search my heart and search my thoughts, and David goes on to tell God that not only show me what’s wrong in my life, but lead me in the way everlasting.
Show me what I must do to correct these areas in my life.
II. The next thing you need to do to prepare for personal revival, agree with God about each need he reveals in your life.
Its not likely God is going to dump everything on you at once, because He knows we can’t handle it, but He may. More than likely it will be over a period of weeks or months that God begins to reveal areas in your life that needs repented from.
What’s important is as God shows you areas of sin in your life, that you confess that sin before God with the willingness to make it right and forsake it.
If you’re not willing to confess and ask forgiveness for sin in your life, you’ll never be able to experience personal revival and you’re in danger of judgment on your life.
I believe if we don’t ask God to reveal things in our life, we will be held accountable for it. We can’t just hide our heads in the sand and pretend everything is okay when our house is on fire.
After you confess and repent from your sins, praise God for His cleansing and forgiveness. Thank Him for loving you enough that He was willing to show you areas that you need to repent of and gave you a chance to repent instead of bringing judgment on you like we really deserved.
III. Next, renew your mind and rebuild your life through meditation and practical application of the Word of God
2 Tim 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (KJV)
It’s important that you spend time in the Word on a consistent basis. When you find yourself having an urge to do something that you know is wrong and sinful. Don’t sit there an play with it, get in the word and begin to rebuke that thing through prayer.
If the Word gave Jesus, who was setting the example on how we were to operate, the power to over come an one on one encounter with Satan. The Word is going to help you to stand against him too.
If the devil starts harassing you, get out the bible and start quoting the Word to him, he’s not going to hang around. He can’t stand the Word of God.
If we are really honest with ourselves, sometimes we welcome those opportunities to slip up because you haven’t crucified that sinful nature. The temptation sounds good, and we begin to swish it around in our head. The more we swish, the better it sounds.
What we are suppose to do, is bring every thought and every imagination into subjection to Christ.
2 Cor 10:5 “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” (KJV)
It’s our unwillingness to do this that gets us into trouble. There’s not enough resisting going on in the body of Christ.
Resisting is more than just saying, get thee behind me Satan. This is how some of us do it. “Devil, you leave me alone. I really mean it.” Then it goes to “okay, I’ll give in just this one last time, but no more”
How many of you know what I’m talking about. Resisting is when no matter how much the devil hollers and cries at you, you keep saying NO!
How many tonight would give a little child a 10” extremely sharp knife. No matter how much he cried and kicked and screamed. That child would probably end up with a spanking if he or she was to act like that.
The Word tells us to submit to God and resist the devil. You keep on saying no and keep on quoting the scripture until he gets the message that you’re not giving in no matter what!
The sad part about a lot of believers is the lack of Word in their life. I’ve talked to people in our church that says things that they believe and I wonder where in the world did they get that from?
Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” (KJV)
If you’re not in the Word, you’re destined for failure. That’s why it’s important for you to spend time in the word everyday. That’s why it’s important for you to go to Sunday School. That’s why it’s important for you to come on Wednesday nights and Sunday Mornings.
Your need for prayer is why you should come on Tuesday nights and Sunday Nights. The Word and prayer will change your life.
I want us to close tonight by looking at the first of the seventeen areas that we need to look at on a regular basis to remain sensitive to your need for revival.
IV. Seventeen Areas of self examination.
A. Genuine Salvation: 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (KJV)
There’s three questions we need to ask ourselves concerning our salvation.
First, “Have you ever genuinely repented?”
Second, “Is all my trust in Christ?”
Thirdly, “Is Christ Lord of my life?”
Have you genuinely repented?
Repent means to turn away from or change directions. When Christ really comes into your life and you repent of your sins, there’s going to be a change in you.
If there’s been no change in your life then you probably didn’t really mean it when you asked forgiveness of your sins and asked Christ into your life.
You might ask, how can you say that preacher. I say it by the authority of God’s Word. If any man is in Christ, then the old creature is gone. If your still acting like and living like you did before you asked Christ into your life, then the old creature is still around.
When Christ comes in, and the old nature’s gone, there will be such a change in your life that people around you will notice. Now I received Christ in my life as a child, but even as a child, there was something different about me. I was going to the shopping centers passing out tracks. I was sharing Jesus with other children in school.
I didn’t do that before I was saved, but God put a desire in me because He put a new me in me.
If we’re going to experience personal revival in our life, then repentance will be a part of it. Never has there been a major revival with prayer and repentance.
You might be asking, what do you need to repent of? How much time are you spending in the Word? How much time do you spend in prayer? What are you doing to share Jesus with those you come in contact with? Are you paying your tithe or a tenth of what you make, faithfully? What have you done to work in God’s kingdom? What have you done to help keep God’s house in shape?
There’s more and more I could go on with. But this is why we need to allow God to search our heart, and then be willing to repent and change directions.
