An Article of Faith

God is the One who revives His repentant people. It’s an act of the Sovereign God. We cannot cause a revival to take place. We cannot force God to act. We cannot pray it down. He brings revival under His conditions and on His timetable.
Yet He wants us revived more than we do. In fact, He is the One who causes us to want to be revived. We come to Him at His invitation. God initiates revival, and He brings it to pass when His people have met His conditions:
“I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols,” God declares. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws” (Ezekiel 36:25b-27).
“Return to Me,” says God, “and I will return to you” (Malachi 3:7). How can you know when revival has come? The way to know that you have returned is to determine whether God has returned to you.
If you are still missing out on His presence and power, you have not yet met God’s requirements. Your return or “repentance” is not complete. When you experience God personally or corporately, you will never be the same. If you are still the same, whatever you have done, you have not encountered God. At a time like this you need to go to God and ask Him what you still need to do in repentance.
He is waiting for you to draw near to Him. Repentance and revival are not just a reform of behavior. Revival has not taken place unless a change of character has occurred, and a change of heart has taken place. But God even helps with the change of heart:
“I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD. They will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with all their heart” (Jeremiah 24:7).
When your love for the Lord compels you to obey Him and when your heart’s desire is to please Him, revival has come. That is the indication that the love relationship has been restored. The joy and pleasure in God’s presence are great! When a church experiences revival, the whole atmosphere is different. That is what most people pray for when they pray for revival. They are really praying for the fruits of revival. The cleansing process of revival is the hard part to endure. When God comes in revival, He comes as a refiner’s fire:
“See, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to His temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty. “But who can endure the day of His coming? Who can stand when He appears? For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.” ... “So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear Me,” says the LORD Almighty (Malachi 3:1-2,5).

(Jessie J. Charpentier Sr. is pastor of Jenkins Memorial Baptist Church in St. Martinville.)