Your Personal Mantle of Revival
“A constant revival state in a congregation is certainly vastly preferable to temporary excitements, however deep and beneficial in the results; and if its attainment is possible, ought not every congregation to enjoy it?”
I make some people nervous when I teach on anything to do with the sovereignty of God.
Because those concerns come from very respected people, consider what I have to say carefully in light of Scripture and eat the meat and throw out the bones. Admittedly, my emphasis is generally on our responsibilities before God. Never is it my intention to question or challenge God’s nature or heart or what He can and cannot do. He is the sovereign Lord over all. He can do whatever He wants without ever having to explain Himself to any of us. He owes me nothing, yet He gives me everything!
My bigger concern and focus are on our responsibility to do our part in carrying out His sovereign plan. I just don’t want to fall short in embracing the assignment He has given to me. In other words, I don’t want to be found waiting for Him to do something when He is waiting for me. In my way of thinking, that is the greater concern.
“I don’t want to be found waiting for Him to do something when He is waiting for me.”
Sometimes an unnecessary controversy arises over the subject of God’s sovereignty in that there are two realities that need not be in conflict. One is the absolute sovereignty of God, where He is able to act completely separately from our will or desire. We do not control Him at all. The second is that, at the same time, He welcomes us into a relationship where by His design we have the privilege to influence Him. That is the basic privilege of prayer. He can do anything He wants, with or without us. But often He chooses to act in partnership with those made in His image, who worship Him by choice.
God can do anything and everything better than we can. Jesus modeled the absolute perfection of the Father in everything He did. My attempts to mimic are genuine and sincere, yet incomplete. And yet He welcomes us into service where our continual lack is made up for, much like when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes. His additional touch to our best efforts elevates our impact to a level referred to by Jesus with confidence, “and greater works than these shall you do” (see John 14:12). Such an astonishing promise did not signify our greatness as much as it illustrates how His grace is the sufficiency that makes up for all that is lacking. That is not to imply that we don’t mature and become better at all He’s called us to be and do. It simply means the infinite greatness of God will never be equaled by us. His grace will be needed through- out eternity as we continually grow to be more like Him. Perhaps this is what is meant by Paul when he said, “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:7). This wonderful grace of God will be discovered, enjoyed, and depended upon for all eternity—the ages to come.
God is a covenant-making God, who delights in all that He has made for its intended purpose. If God were ever to have limitations of any kind, they would be self-imposed.
The Will of God
My absolute favorite definition of the will of God found in Scripture is in the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples to pray: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). That is the will of God—that the reality of His rule would be realized over every part of our lives and every aspect of life on planet Earth. Most everything I can think of that falls into the category of God’s will for my life can be found in the answer to that prayer. “On earth as it is in heaven.”
Bob Mumford gives us much-needed clarity on the subject of the will of God in his book, The King and You:
We need to understand that there are two different words used in the Greek for our English word will, as it is used throughout Scripture. One is boulema, and the other is thelema. Boulema means the eternal counsels of God which are unfolding through the ages—His purpose—His determination. It is going to be done whether you and I like it or not. God’s intention will come to pass. However, thelema, which means God’s wish or desire, most often depends upon the response of each individual for fulfillment.
This was a very helpful truth for me to understand the will of God more clearly. The word thelema doesn’t nullify that God is the absolute sovereign One. What it does do is reveal how the sovereign One wrote us into His design. This sovereign Lord chose us to be co-laborers with Him in the unfolding of His purposes. That means He works in and through His sons and daughters to implement His will in the earth. Let’s face it, He can do everything He’s called us to do significantly better than all of us combined. He can preach better, feed the hungry better, heal the sick and raise the dead better, and on and on. The point isn’t that we question His ability. It’s that we recognize our response-ability. Here is a perfect example of the usage of thelema in Scripture translated as “desires.”
This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4).
What is God’s will in this verse? It is that all men will be saved. Are all being saved? No. We have a part in seeing His desire accomplished in the earth.
He has given mankind the priceless gift of a will. That includes those who would surrender to Jesus as Lord and what those converted ones do with their assignment before God. In other words, if we send no one to share the Gospel with a particular people group, there will most likely be few conversions, if any. Was that God’s will? No. He said, “Go!”
His Response to Our Actions
Once again, God can do anything and everything better than we can. But He has chosen a partnership between Himself and redeemed humanity. A favorite verse in this regard is found in Acts 4.
And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence, while You extend Your hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Your holy servant Jesus (Acts 4:29-30).
Here Peter prays for boldness so that as they declare God’s word in bold confidence, God will respond by extending His hand to heal in honor of the name of Jesus they carry. They declared. God healed. Teamwork.
Learning From the Old Testament Priests
My whole reason for starting the article this way is to affirm and yet challenge one of the great historic statements regarding revival: Revival is a sovereign move of God. Is that true? Absolutely. We could never experience a great move of God simply because we willed it to be so. Great moves of God are initiated by Him. No question. But my challenge to this idea comes in the notion that God willed the outpouring to end. The devastating result of this way of thinking is that we then assume that great moves of God are not to become a way of life, but instead are seasonal invasions of God to give us a booster shot to strengthen us for the next season. Consider this alarming thought: In the Old Testament, God lit the fire on the altar. But it was the priests who kept it burning. Why did the fire start? Because of God. Why did it end? Because of man. Any fire will die out if it runs out of materials to burn.
Proverbs warns, “For lack of wood the fire goes out” (Prov. 26:20) and describes “fire that never says, ‘Enough’” (Prov. 30:16). It’s rather simple, but fires burn as long as there is fuel to burn. If the fires of revival end, man had something to do with it. If my assumptions are true, then God has a way of life planned for us that is far beyond what most of us have experienced in this life. I like to think of it as a revival lifestyle. Others call it the ascended life, which is living from Heaven toward earth in unbroken fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Regardless of the title we give it, there is more. And it has been put upon us to pursue.
“In the Old Testament, God lit the fire on the altar. But it was the priests who kept it burning. If the fires of revival end, man had something to do with it.”
I don’t consider this concept of God lighting the fire on the altar and man causing it to end to be in violation of the sovereignty of God at all. The will of God was revealed in revival. It is made possible by God initiating His will among us. His will is much like a stream that passes by us continuously. Dipping into that stream is my response to His will. He destined us for revival. I cooperated by yielding to His will by dipping into the stream.
My concern has little to do with anyone agreeing with me on the subject of sovereignty. My concern is that we will miss the heart of God for His people, for He is much more extravagant in His will for us than we have an imagination to capture. The bottom line is that many wait for Him to act. And oftentimes it is He who is waiting for us. We must learn to respond to what He’s given us with acts of faith.
