Table

of Contents
Chapter 1: What is Revival?
Chapter 2: Revelation of the Truth
Chapter 3: The Need
Chapter 4: A Submitted Heart
Chapter 5: The Way
Chapter 6: It Is Done
Chapter 7: Slaves, Sons, Servants
Chapter 8: Thank The Lord
Chapter 9: Fellowship With The Lord
Chapter 10: Fellowship With One Another
Chapter 11: The Place of Prayer
Kingdom Faith Resources
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First published in Great Britain in December 2004 by Kingdom Faith

Kingdom Faith Trust is a registered charity (no.278746)

Copyright © 2004 Colin Urquhart

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the
prior consent of the publisher. Short extracts may be used for review purposes.

Unless otherwise stated, Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION.
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.
Used by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Limited.

ISBN 978-1900409605
Acknowledgements

Revival has been a passion for most of my life, the desire to be living in
God’s best. I am thankful to the Lord for all the joy I have received in
experiencing ‘True Revival’. It is surely a work of His grace.
I am also thankful for those with whom I have had the privilege of
experiencing ‘True Revival’, those who have given fully of themselves to meet
with God in life impacting ways. They have been prepared to pay the cost that
others may receive the blessings of God’s Kingdom.
My thanks also to all who have worked on the preparation of this book, to
Sandy and Cliss in particular.
My prayer is that all who read this book will be inspired to take hold of
God’s best for their lives; this is surely His will for all His children.

Colin Urquhart
What is Revival?

People use the word ‘revival’ in many different ways. ‘It is the work of
God’s Spirit’, some say. It is certainly correct that without the Holy Spirit there
can be no true revival. However, the Holy Spirit moves in many ways in the
lives of believers, not all of which could be described as true ‘revival’.
‘It is a move of God’, others affirm. And so it is. Yet there can be many very
powerful moves of God that would not properly be termed as true revival. It has
to be said that many incorrectly describe such moves as ‘revival’ simply because
they have never experienced true revival. Because what is happening to them is
so much greater than anything formerly experienced, they assume this must be
revival.
‘Revival is God invading society’. This is certainly the fruit of true revival.
We must find out what God needs to do among His people in His Church to
produce such an effect on the world. After all, the Church is called to bring
definite and visible evidence that the Kingdom of God has come to be expressed
in the lives of those who believe in Jesus Christ. It does not need a prophet to see
that the Church patently fails all too often to accomplish her high calling!
‘Revival is God bringing His Church back to her first love.’ Again, this is
true; yet we are still left with the question as to how He can accomplish this.
There must be a process through which God revives His people to produce this
end result. From time to time news spreads rapidly around the world that
‘revival’ has broken out in some locality. It is wonderful when God moves in a
very special way, causing a season of great and unusual blessing. It has been my
privilege to experience several such times in over forty years of public ministry.
But surely revival is something God intends for His whole Church, not only for
particular localities at particular times.
I would not minimise the importance of such times, these seasons of unusual
blessing. Yet surely the Lord wants His Spirit to move in a consistent way in
His Church — not just in unusual seasons of blessing! Surely there must be a
way for any group of Christians anywhere to be able to experience the revival
power of the Holy Spirit. There is nothing in scripture to support the idea that
God ever wants to deprive His Church of the very best. It would be impossible
for her to fulfil her commission if He were to do so.
 Enough of definitions. Revival is life! Revival is exciting! Revival is always
available! God’s best is already ours through Jesus Christ our Lord!
It was the great American revivalist, Charles Finney, who maintained that
Christians could experience revival anywhere at any time, if they were prepared
to face the cost and allow God to do what was necessary in their lives. Some
disagree and criticise Finney for such a stance. Yet Finney experienced revival
for decades in a long and fruitful ministry. Many detractors have never
experienced what was familiar to him. ‘Revival is a sovereign work of God’,
they say. And so it is! Perhaps these two sides are not opposite but
complementary truths! If we are prepared to do what is necessary through the
power of God’s Spirit to enable personal and corporate revival, we can
experience a sovereign move of God that takes us out of the mundane experience
of church life, away from striving to achieve great things while accomplishing
little! Surely it must be possible for the situations in which we sow much and
reap little, to be reversed so that we sow little but reap much! Yet we are left
with this nagging question, ‘Is there anything we can do to encourage revival?’
I believe there is an emphatic ‘Yes’ in answer to that question. This short
book will point you in the right direction for you to experience personal revival.
Where the biblical principles outlined here are put into practice corporately, a
revival can break out among believers.
Before we begin to unfold this process (and that is what it is!) let me state
where I stand personally, for there are theoretical books on revival written by
people who have never experienced it themselves, and it is a good biblical
principle that we are to speak of what we know.
I have had the privilege of experiencing true personal and corporate revival
during phases of my ministry. I have also had the privilege of speaking in some
of the major revival churches in different nations, churches that number tens and
sometimes hundreds of thousands. Although the nature of these revivals may be
different, the life that it produces among God’s people is always the same. This
is hardly surprising, for there is only one Holy Spirit. Wherever He is allowed
freedom He will express the fullness of His life among believers.
What is this life? I would say there are four main characteristics when there
is ‘true revival’ among God’s people:

1. An amazing love for God and for other people.

2. A bold faith that enables believers to live consistently in God’s
supernatural power. Faith working through love.
3. A sacrificial living for the cause of God’s Kingdom, living in holiness as
true disciples, with a strong desire to see others saved.
 4. God’s people really pray! The Spirit of prayer is on them.

Love, faith, holiness, prayer; surely these are always God’s purpose for
His Church, in every place at any time.
We do not need to wait for revival, but to become a revived people. To the
four activities above, many others could be added. But these are the essential
ingredients, all fully infused with the life and power of God’s Spirit.
I have been greatly blessed and influenced throughout my ministry through
three revivalists: Charles Finney, John Wesley and above all, Watchman Nee.
You could not imagine three more different characters, who all approach the
subject of revival from entirely different standpoints. And yet there is a
consistency among all of them as to what is necessary for there to be true revival
through the Holy Spirit: love, faith, holiness and prayer. Then the gospel of Jesus
Christ will be both preached and lived in power. He will be glorified in His
Church, which will be abundantly fruitful in impacting the world with the
gospel.
However, before we start looking at the process that can bring us closer to
God than we have ever been, let me make this clear. Reading this book will not
result in you experiencing a personal revival. Putting these principles into
practice will, even if those around you show no interest in revival. Let this book
inspire and motivate you to reach out for God’s best.
When these principles have been operating in my life in the way God intends
I have lived in true revival. When they have operated in those around me as well
we have seen God move in phenomenal ways. Sadly I can also reflect that when
any of these principles have been lacking I have not walked in God’s best, even
though I have still seen much blessing. Sometimes we can be satisfied with the
good without reaching out for God’s best. I am only thankful for the Lord’s
merciful forgiveness when I have been guilty of settling for anything less!
One thing is certain, without true revival God’s purpose for His Church
cannot be fulfilled. For the word ‘revival’ means ‘to bring back to life.’ God has
provided for us the fullness of His life through Jesus Christ, so that we can live
in the fullness of that life, as Jesus Himself did!
Revelation of the Truth

What is the life that has been given to every believer who has been born
again and filled with the Holy Spirit? What is the believer’s position and status
before God? Without being able to answer those questions we cannot know what
life God intends for His children, not only to receive but to be expressed in their
lives! To be revived is to be brought back to this life so that we live it out in our
present circumstances.
Jesus Christ, God’s Son, stated clearly the reason why His Father sent Him to
earth:

I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.
He will come in and go out, and find pasture.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;
I have come that they may have life,
and have it to the full.
(John 10:9-10)

Jesus came to give us life, God’s life, eternal life, and to give it to us
abundantly. He made it clear how to receive that life:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me
has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death
to life. (John 5:24)

To receive this life clearly changes our status and relationship with God
Himself. This eternal life is the life of Jesus Himself, not simply the life He had
during His humanity, but the life of the crucified, risen, ascended, glorified
and victorious Christ. This is the life that we NOW have as believers in
Him. How can such a wonderful truth be recognised as true in our experience so
that it is more than a doctrinal proposition? And if all born-again, Spirit-filled
believers have such life, why isn’t this much more evident in their personal lives
and in the Church as the Body of Christ?
Because of shortage of space in such a brief book, I must summarise briefly
a whole series of truths. Other books in this series will help you come to a
greater revelation of these truths. Remember that this life is already ours if we
have received the Holy Spirit. Revival brings us back to the fullness of life we
have already been given in Christ.
At the Last Supper, Jesus said to the disciples: ‘Remain in me and I in you.’
This can also be translated: ‘Abide in me and I in you’, or ‘Go on continuously
living in me and I in you.’ (trans. from Greek of John 15:4)
The verb is in the continuous present tense. Jesus was explaining to the
disciples that, because of the events that were about to take place, His physical
presence would be taken away from them; yet something even more wonderful
was about to happen. Jesus had been with them and they with Him. After His
crucifixion, resurrection and return to heaven, the Holy Spirit would be given to
each of them. They would then be able to live continuously IN Him, not just
with Him; and He would live continuously IN them, not just with them.
This latter state would be much better and would turn their grief at His
imminent death into great joy, the fullness of God’s own joy. Their entire
relationship with Jesus Christ would now be on an entirely different (and even
better) footing.
The apostle, Paul, did not know the human Jesus personally. From the
moment of his dramatic conversion his whole relationship with God was through
the risen and glorified Christ. He appreciated what it meant to live in Christ and
to have the risen Christ living in him. His writings, inspired by the Holy Spirit of
truth, give us wonderful revelation of what it means to abide in Christ and have
Him abiding in us!
Paul writes that ‘it is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus’ (1 Cor.
1:30). We could never deserve to be in Christ, nor could we earn such a
privilege. This is what God did for us at the very beginning of our Christian
experience. He put us into Christ, so that His life became our life! Whatever
He has became ours, life in all its fullness, the life Jesus came to make possible
for us. And Jesus commanded the disciples to abide in Him, to continue to live
in the fullness of His life.
Paul also teaches extensively about the complementary truth: that as we live
out our lives in Christ, so He lives out His life in us by the Holy Spirit. He
speaks of ‘the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory’. (Col. 1:27) If we live in the fullness of His life, the fullness of His life
will be in us. Revival brings us back to the place with God where this is reality
in our experience and not just a great theory. If we have such life it is to be
evidenced in our lives personally and in the Church.
The New Testament gives us amazing revelation of what this all means in
practice. Paul wrote his letter not only to the Corinthians, but to ‘all those
everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ – their Lord and
ours’. (1 Cor. 1:2) This letter was written to us and all believers everywhere. It is
to us he says:

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us
wisdom from God – that is our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (1
Cor. 1:30)

One thing is certain, none of us is able to live the Christian life, to be like
Christ, in our own strength. No matter how hard we try to be without sin, to be
holy in all we do (as we are commanded), we fail. This would be discouraging if
it were not for the fact that we are in Christ and He in us. God would not call us
to a particular way of life without making it possible for us to live that life. We
cannot accomplish this by depending on our own abilities or any righteousness
of our own (‘filthy rags’ in God’s sight!); but it all becomes possible because we
are in Christ and He in us. He can live out His life in all its fullness in us, if we
allow Him to do so.
This is why Paul describes Christ Jesus as ‘wisdom from God’ for us. God
knew that because of the frailty of our humanity we could not fulfil His
commands. This was amply demonstrated throughout the Old Testament.
Although God’s law was good, men could not keep it. Their failure placed them
in condemnation before God. They could not satisfy His righteous and holy
standards. So God decided in His wisdom to make Jesus Christ our
righteousness, holiness and redemption.
Only a righteous people can satisfy a righteous God. Only a righteous
person can have a relationship with the Lord who is righteous. Sin is
unrighteousness and is hated by God. The cross of Jesus Christ dealt with all our
unrighteousness. Although He was Himself righteous and had not sinned, He
took all our sin and unrighteousness upon Himself. He offered His life to the
Father on our behalf to satisfy His righteous and just demands that only a
righteous and holy people could be acceptable to Him. Without this sacrifice
it would be impossible for anyone anywhere to please God. Because of the cross
even the greatest of sinners (as Paul described himself) can be brought into a
place of complete acceptance and unity with God.

If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and
he in God. (1 John 4:15)

John says this of anyone who believes in Jesus as God’s Son.
 To live in Christ, in God, must be the result of God’s complete acceptance of
us. For Him to live in us by the presence and power of His Holy Spirit must
likewise demonstrate that His desire is to live at one with us as His children.
This is the wonderful truth of what has been made possible because Jesus
sacrificed His life for us. To put this personally, as a believer, as a Christian (not
because I am a preacher or a doctor of theology) I live in the fullness of Christ’s
risen, ascended, glorified, victorious life, and He has placed that life in me. This
is the fullness of life Jesus came to make possible for us to receive. We only
need revival if we do not live in that fullness of life and it is not evidenced in our
lives.
In this case, you could say that we all need revival. Yet I can testify that it is
possible to live in the fullness, without any desire to sin, in close unity with
Jesus Christ, overflowing with His love and knowing that nothing will be
impossible for Him to accomplish in response to prayer. At such times it is no
effort to pray for as long as you need to, hours if necessary. The Presence of
Christ is such a reality that you want to do nothing that would displease Him or
grieve His Holy Spirit. So to live in holiness becomes possible, not an
unattainable ideal.
Because we do not live continually in that condition we need revival. This is
God’s purpose, to bring us into such life if we have never experienced it, or
back to such life if we have.
What is the secret of such life? Christ Himself. HE is our righteousness. It
is not that I become righteous. If I trust in myself, in my flesh-life, I will sin and
entirely fail, no matter how much of the Holy Spirit is present in my life! No,
Christ Himself becomes my righteousness! The One in whom I live and who
lives in me is my righteousness!
While I walk in unity with Him, His righteousness will somehow be revealed
in and through me. This is true of every other part of His life. I can have no
holiness of my own; but because I live in Him and He in me, Christ Himself
is my holiness. His holiness (not mine) can be evidenced in my life. He is my
wisdom from God. He is my righteousness. He is my holiness.
And He is my redemption. Everything that I could ever owe God because
of my sin, my failure, my unrighteousness, my unholiness, my lack of wisdom,
has been settled by Jesus Christ on my behalf.

The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by His wounds
we are healed. (Isa. 53:5)

And what I say about myself personally is true for every believer in Christ! I
could not pay God back what I owe Him, neither do I have to try to do this. Jesus
Christ, in whom I live and who lives in me, has paid my debt and given me the
fullness of His life. No wonder Paul says:

I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.
For in him you have been enriched in every way – in all your speaking and
in all your knowledge – because our testimony about Christ was confirmed
in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift. (1 Cor. 1:4-7)

If I believe God’s Word, I believe I have been enriched in every way because
I am in Christ and He in me. I do not lack any spiritual gift because He has given
me Himself.
This is the truth we need to grasp. God’s gift to you and me is nothing less
than Christ Himself – the risen, ascended, glorified and victorious Christ. I
can live in Him and He in me! And so can you!

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish
and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much
fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:7-8)

What results come from living in the good of these truths! The Father will be
glorified in you! You will bear much fruit! You will live as a true disciple, and
your prayers will be answered!
So it is for our own benefit, as well as for His purposes, that God wants to
revive us. He wants us to live in His best. If we are not doing this, He wants to
revive us!
Neither Jesus nor Paul is speaking about some sovereign move of the Holy
Spirit suddenly appearing from nowhere, but of living in the fullness of the life
He has already given us by His Holy Spirit.
Let us see more of what this involves before having to see why we do not
evidence such life in the way God intends. ‘He himself is our peace,’ Paul says.
(Eph. 2:14)
This word ‘peace’ means to have a sense of total well-being with God, with
ourselves and with others. To try to attain this by depending on yourself is
impossible and unnecessary. He Himself is your peace. At the Last Supper, Jesus
promised:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. (John 14:27)

 When He appeared to the disciples in His risen body He said, ‘Peace be with
you.’ (John 20:19) This was not simply a greeting, but an impartation of His
peace, a peace such as the world cannot give.
Because you are in Christ, you are in His peace. Because He is in you, He is
your peace. He wants to release that peace into your life so that you live in a
state of continual well-being and unity with Him and He with you. He wants you
to be at peace within yourself because you trust not in yourself but in the one
who lives within you. He wants His peace in you to overflow to others, to pour
out of you as a river of living water. He is not only your peace, but the activity of
peace that is to be expressed in your life.

God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he
has given us. (Rom. 5:5)

As with His peace, so with His love. He is love. So because you live in Him,
you live in the One who is love, divine love that never changes and is always
consistent. That same love is in you, because Christ is in you. God has poured
His love into your heart by the Holy Spirit. Because you are in His love and
His love in you, there is no situation in which it is impossible for you to
express His love – so long as you trust Him to cause His love to be expressed
through you. There may be many occasions where you have to say ‘Lord, you
know I myself cannot love the person in this situation. But I thank you that you
live in me, that you are my love and I trust you to express your love for this
person through me’. In such ways you outwork this command of Jesus: ‘Abide in
me, and I in you’.
So you live in the Righteous One, and He is your righteousness. You live in
the Holy One, and He is your holiness. You live in the One who is the Prince of
Peace, and He in you is your peace. You live in the One who is love, and He is
love within you.
Do you see the truth now? He is in you, His own being and character. By the
same principle, Jesus said ‘I am the Way’. He Himself is the Way in which you
are to walk. He is the Truth. You can only walk in the Truth if you allow Him to
express His Word through you. He is the Life. You live in Him and His life, the
fullness of life, is in you — eternal life, God’s own life.
You live in the Almighty One and He in you. So the power that raised Jesus
from the dead is in you by the Holy Spirit. He Himself is the outworking of that
power in your life.
Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life. And He is in you. So that resurrection
life that overcomes death itself is in you. He does not say you have that life, but
that I am that life in you.
Because He is the Author and Perfector of your faith, you can only walk in
faith by trusting in the One in whom you live and who lives in you.
All those wonderful truths are a description of your present standing with
God because of what he has put into your life already. If you are born again and
have received the Holy Spirit, you need no further experience for these things to
be true for you. They already are! You do not need some mighty spiritual event
to be given such life. You already have this life because you are in Christ and
He in you. He is your wisdom, He is your righteousness. He is your holiness.
He is your redemption. He is your peace. He is your love. He is your Way.
He is truth for you. He is your life. He is the resurrection and the life in you.
This is why you can be confident of your future destiny!
Many look to God for healing because they know that: ‘I am the Lord, who
heals you.’ (Ex. 15:26). By the same principle, we not only have the Healer
living in us, but He Himself is the activity of the healing that takes place within
us. In other words, whatever He is, He does. It is all Him, and so all the glory
for what He does rightly belongs to Him.
You can thank the Lord that He is your righteousness. Thank Him that He is
your holiness; He is your life. Thank Him that He is your healing as well as your
healer.
Just as many are waiting for a revival instead of getting on with the business
of being revived, so many are waiting for a healing from heaven, while having
the Healer and all His healing within them. Faith releases the activity of the Holy
Spirit within us, so that the righteousness of Jesus is expressed, not your own
self-righteousness; the love of Jesus instead of your own inadequate and
changeable love. Faith releases the healing activity of the Healer within you.
‘Thank you Jesus, that you are my healing as well as my Healer and that your
healing life in me sets me free.’
Jesus is your Saviour, but also your salvation. He is the Provider, and He
Himself is the wonderful provision from God the Father to you because of His
incomparable love for you.
All this, and much more, is the truth about you because you are in Christ and
He Himself lives in you by His Spirit God’s gracious gift to you. He is both the
Giver and the Gift! No wonder John said:

And of His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. (John 1:16
NKJ)

From the fullness of the life He came to give us, we all receive one act of
grace after another. Grace is God giving freely of Himself to those who deserve
nothing from Him. How wonderful that though we deserve nothing He has given
us the fullness of His life in Christ! No wonder Paul says that God has lavished
the riches of His grace upon us! (see Eph. 1:7-8)
The Need

Why do Christians, for whom all these things are true, manifest so little of
such life? Clearly revival is needed. To understand the nature of such a revival
we must understand the cause for the glaring difference between the believer’s
position in Christ and his performance, the outworking of that position. We must
see why, if the fullness of Christ lives in him, he does not readily manifest such
life in love and power.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay. (2 Cor. 4:7)

We can readily identify with these words of Paul. The problem is not the
treasure of the fullness of Christ’s life in us, but the jar of clay in which that
treasure is contained! That jar speaks of the weakness of our humanity, our
inability to do anything that would please the Lord without dependence on Him.
How easy it is for Christians to be so pre occupied with the jar of clay
that they lose sight of the treasure within! Their focus is on themselves, not
the Lord. Even in prayer they spend more time thinking about themselves rather
than laying hold of the rich inheritance that is theirs in Christ. They talk about
themselves, worry about themselves. They may even try to improve themselves,
which proves to be a hopeless and frustrating task! They can be more concerned
about how they appear to others than they are about living in the fullness of
Christ! They may not even have revelation that such a life is possible. Let us
now quote the whole verse:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing
power is from God and not from us. (2 Cor. 4:7)

Our weakness should be the incentive not to focus on ourselves, but on the
treasure of Christ within, for God’s all-surpassing power is to be revealed in us.
He is Light and that Light is to shine out of our darkness. We are not to focus on
the darkness, but on the Light within. God ‘made his light shine in our hearts to
give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ’. (2
Cor. 4:6)
That sounds much more like revival than concentrating on ourselves, our
weakness and feelings. After all what does our weakness matter if we have
Christ living within us? This was the lesson Paul learned directly from the Lord
when he made his problem his focus:

But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made
perfect in weakness.’ (2 Cor. 12:9)

From the fullness of His life flows the grace to cope with any situation,
despite your weakness! Even the great apostle had to learn this lesson. Learn it
he did!

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that
Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in
weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For
when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:9-10)

Far from seeing his weakness as an impediment, Paul learned this was a
strength, for it encouraged him to trust in the fullness of Christ in him, and not in
himself!
Part of our need for revival, then, stems from the fact that we easily become
so preoccupied with ourselves, and so little attention is given to the life God has
put within us. In scripture, our self-life is called ‘the flesh’ – the self operating
without dependence on God! Jesus said:

The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken
to you are spirit and they are life. (John 6:63)

Fancy putting our trust and emphasis on what ‘counts for nothing’, while all
the time we are in Christ and He in us! It seems evident we need deliverance
from this pre-occupation with self, for this clearly prevents us from living in the
good of our inheritance in Christ!
Jesus’ estimate of the flesh is that there is nothing good in it. So why do we
strive to find goodness in ourselves, when we have the only One who is truly
good living in us? Of this flesh, this self-life, Paul says:

For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what that
nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit set their
minds on the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally (fleshly) minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. The carnal (fleshly)
mind is hostility against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor
 indeed can be. So, then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
(Rom. 8:5-8 trans. from Greek)

So Paul shares Jesus’ estimate of the flesh, of the self-life. It is useless,
opposed to the working of God’s Spirit in our lives and therefore to God’s
purposes for us.
The need for revival, then, is not that we lack the Spirit of God, but that there
is so much of this self-life that stands in the way of His life in us being properly
revealed through us. Paul continues on a positive note. He wants to bring his
readers revelation of the truth:

But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God
dwells in you. (Rom. 8:9)

He draws the conclusion:

If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who
raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through
His Spirit who dwells in you. (Rom 8:11 NKJ)

The life to which Paul refers is the fullness of Christ in you. He can, by His
Spirit, express in your body all the qualities of that life, despite your
weakness. Perhaps we should say that this will only happen in the way God
intends when you know and recognise that you are so weak in yourself that you
dare not trust in yourself. Besides it makes no sense to trust in your own abilities
when you have the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead living in you!
It is not simply that when we sin we work against God’s best purposes, but
that we even try to do what is good and right by depending on ourselves. That is
still dependence on the flesh in which there is nothing good, according to Jesus.
We can see, then, that ‘without faith it is impossible to please God’, (Heb 11:6)
for faith is a relationship of complete dependence on God. This is the faith that
Jesus wants to see operating in His Church when He returns. Will He find it?
(see Luke 18:8)
When you read the literature of those who have experienced true revival,
there is a word that crops up again and again: ‘brokenness’. At first this does not
strike us as a particularly biblical word, but we shall see that it stands for
something that is very biblical and essential to true revival. IT IS BEING
BROKEN OF THIS SELFDEPENDENCE.
You can tell those who have experienced true revival because you see this
quality expressed as a godly humility in their lives. There are many mightily
anointed men and women of God, who see great blessing in their ministries, but
who lack this brokenness. Such ministries may be powerful, but do not produce
true revival. You are more conscious of the person’s ministry and the way he or
she displays his or her anointing, than you are of the Lord.
David was a mightily anointed king and the Lord’s servant. He had a great
relationship with God, yet fell into deep sin. Psalm 51 is really a cry from his
heart to be revived. He begins:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to
your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my
iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. (Ps. 51:1-2)

We can readily understand such a heart cry from one who had committed
adultery and been responsible for murder. He realised that his real fault lay in the
fact that he had sinned against God Himself, such was the pride that had
enveloped his heart. This is a far cry from the lad who knew God and his
Shepherd, that he would lack nothing, be led by Him in the paths of
righteousness and followed by His love and mercy!

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what was evil in your sight.
(v. 4)

How could he walk in close fellowship with his Lord while committing such
sin? Because his heart had grown proud, instead of living in dependence on the
Lord and being led by Him, he reached out and took what he wanted for himself.
His self-life had risen up in opposition to God’s Word and purposes. The real
trouble lay, therefore, in his heart.

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the
inmost place. (v. 6)

He needs the Lord to do a heart work in his life:

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
(v. 10)

Such a heart is essential if we are to experience true revival. A heart
cleansed through the precious blood of Jesus Christ, who took all our sin
upon Himself.
 But David realises his need is greater than simply to know he is forgiven by
God. His pride of heart that led him to such action needs to be broken; this self-
dependence that caused him to do what he wanted, regardless of the will and
purpose of the Lord.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O
God, you will not despise. (v. 17)

A broken and contrite heart leads to true humility and is a work of true
revival. In such a life there is no self-promotion, but only a desire to exalt Jesus.
There is far less dependence on self and far more trust in the Lord. Consequently
more of His life in the believer can be expressed through him: His life, love,
peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and all the other qualities of the Holy
Spirit.
Even in the most revived believer there will always be mixture, some of self
and some of Jesus being expressed. But the more a person lives in revival, the
more of Jesus and the less of self is evidenced.
I must make it clear that I am speaking here of our daily walk with the Lord.
Many have experience of God that leads to a temporary change where it seems
He is able to express more of His life. But a broken and contrite heart cannot
readily be put together again, and so this humility and dependence on Jesus
becomes a way of life. Jesus said of Himself:

I am gentle and humble in heart. (Matt. 11:29)

Accordingly, He would do nothing without dependence on His Father. In
fact, He said He could do nothing without Him. He was the incarnate Word of
God, but He spoke no words of His own, only those His Father gave Him to
speak. He made it clear He had not come to do His own will, but the will of the
Father who sent Him. A humble walk of complete dependence on the Father.
It was such a walk that enabled Him to display the love and power of God
perfectly, to be the One who could always be victorious over the devil, demon
spirits and all temptation. If Jesus walked in such dependence on the Father,
should we not also walk in such dependence? If there was no reason for pride
and self-determination in Jesus’ life, how is it that we treat our pre occupation
with ourselves so lightly, even imagining that God should also be pre occupied
with what goes on in our self-life. After all, for many this fills the bulk of their
prayer time. Yet Jesus made clear:

 If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross
and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for me will find it. (Matt. 16:24-25)

Denying self is the very opposite of being preoccupied with ourselves.
Losing your life for the sake of the gospel and being obedient to the Lord is
drastically opposed to holding on to your life for yourself, wanting God to assist
you in the fulfilling of your own agenda and desires!
Did David pray the day he committed adultery? Probably. Would there have
been any conviction or confidence in his prayer? Hardly. He needed revival.
Prayer is one of the benchmarks by which we can see where we are in God’s
revival purposes. In revival God’s people often pray for hours a day, and prayer
is neither a hardship nor a duty! They pray out of desire. It is a joyful task to
travail in the Spirit for the souls of others. Costly prayer, that goes far beyond
self-concern.
When we need revival we are concerned about the cost to ourselves
whenever God asks us to do anything. We want to avoid things He places right
under our noses, if to love the people concerned is going to be too costly. Where
there is this brokenness of heart, there is little concern about cost. Believers do
not want to displease Him, grieve His Spirit or miss His best purposes.
This humility is obvious because of the way Jesus shines through such lives.
God spoke through His prophet Isaiah:

For this is what the high and lofty One says – he who lives forever, whose
name is holy. I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is
contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the
heart of the contrite. (Isa. 57:15)

God cannot revive a proud heart. First there has to be brokenness, the
process that humbles a person under the mighty hand of God, so that He can then
raise him up.

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves,
therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he might lift you up in due time. (1
Peter 5:5-6)

Notice that Peter says we are to humble ourselves, not wait for God to
humble us. If because of our stubbornness God has to break us of our pride, we
have to pass through very difficult times! How can He readily reflect His life
through proud hearts or if we are pre occupied with ourselves, seeking only to
see our own desires fulfilled, using God for our own ends, instead of letting Him
use us for His purposes?
How can this process of brokenness take place? First, each believer must
want this for himself or herself. God will indeed grant the desires of our
hearts when those desires are in line with His desires for us. Jesus actually
enabled this brokenness to become readily ours through what He did for us
on the cross. Isaiah writes: ‘He was crushed for our iniquities’. (Isa. 53:5)

Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer (Isa. 53:10)

The word translated ‘crushed’, means to be humbled, broken, crushed; to be
broken in pieces! Obviously Jesus did not suffer that for His own pride, for He
was sinless. It was our pride that necessitated Him having to be crushed and
broken on the cross. Our need to be broken meant that He had to be broken so
that every need would be met by His sacrifice for us. This explains why Jesus
had to experience such a harassing death!
Brokenness does not sound like a very encouraging word, but what we
experience as God works out this process in our lives is as nothing compared
with what Jesus Christ suffered for us! When you experience brokenness it
proves to be a liberating process, freeing you from self issues that have hindered
you for years. Paul testified:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in
me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved
me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:20)

The cross signified the death of the old life without Christ; victory over the
flesh, in other words.

He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but
for him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Cor. 5:15)

Such a life is only possible when we have this ‘brokenness’; otherwise one
will do whatever he can to avoid laying down his life for others, God’s purpose
for all who are Christians and part of the New Covenant that He established
when He shed His blood for us.

My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has
no-one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends
 if you do what I command. (John 15:12-14)

It is in this loving of one another that we can tell certain things about the
nature of our hearts and whether pride is a dominant factor in our lives. Jesus
teaches us that whatever we do to others we do to Him. And what we fail to do
for others we fail to do for Him! We deceive ourselves if we think we love God
but are not spending ourselves on loving others. Because His command is to love
one another, we are to let others love us, help us, encourage us, provide for us if
necessary. This is a blow to pride and independence, which is pride’s companion.
‘I can manage on my own.’ ‘I don’t need any help, thank you.’ ‘I’ll do it myself.’
Such are the attitudes of an unbroken heart!
In the Body of Christ there is to be mutual interdependence that will create
the love and unity for which Jesus prayed before going to the cross, the unity
that would encourage others in the world to believe in Him. The lack of
brokenness is a great hindrance to the love that is to exist in the Church and
to more effective evangelism. Hence the need for revival. Hence the need for
brokenness!
The treasure is in the jar of clay. If the jar is broken the sweet perfume of
Jesus Christ’s presence can readily be spread around believers. If you visit a
place experiencing true revival you sense this sweetness, you see the love
between the believers, how they care for one another and are constantly reaching
out to the lost.
When a believer wants this brokenness, it is not difficult for it to happen. He
first needs to humble himself before the Lord, not only asking Him to forgive his
sins, but asking Him to deal with the nature of his heart. Like David, the
Christian realises this is the real problem. His heart has been set on himself and
what he wants, making it impossible for the fullness of Christ’s life in him to be
expressed fully in the way the Lord desires.
In His light we see light. God then shows us the nature of our hearts. This
leads not only to a desire for forgiveness but to true repentance, a willingness to
turn away from sin. The believer sees that the desires of his heart need to
change. Although God has given him a new heart, it does not function in the way
He intends because of preoccupation with self! At some point, the believer sees
that there is nothing good in his self-life and that his only option is to trust in
Jesus Christ; to live in Him and He in the believer. He will learn to trust in the
fullness of the Christ in Him and the rivers of His life will then flow readily out
of him.
It is impossible to say here what any individual may experience for this
brokenness to be effected in his life. Several factors will be significant in
determining this:

The nature of his heart – how great his pride and independence.
How willing he is to submit to the Lord.
How thorough a work he wants the Lord to do in him.
How open He is to the Lord’s correction or whether he tries to defend
himself and excuse himself!

Brokenness can be a relatively simple task or a prolonged one. The work

usually takes place by degrees: a certain brokenness followed by a period of
encouragement, before God then deals more thoroughly with deeper issues than
were faced previously. It is very important to realise that brokenness never takes
place through introspection. This has been the problem in the past,
preoccupation with self that often leads to introspection. Brokenness comes from
God showing us what He perceives about our hearts, things we have often been
blind to ourselves.
The desire to be set free from those things that have been instrumental in
damaging our walk with the Lord, must be coupled with the longing for an
ongoing walk of loving obedience to the Lord:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain (abide,
continue to live in) my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands
and remain (abide, continue to live) in his love. I have told you this that my
joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:9-11.
Alternative translations in brackets)

It seems strange that this brokenness leads to such great joy. But then Jesus
Christ is not only Himself our peace and love; He is also our joy. The closer we
are to Him and His will, the more joy in our lives. This is much more than a joy
expressed in laughter; it is a joy that leads to a holy life style, as we shall see.
A Submitted Heart

Another word the flesh wants to avoid is submission! Yet, like brokenness, it
is an indispensable part of God’s revival purposes. Remember, we want Him to
deal with the things of self that fight against our ability to live freely in the
inheritance we have in Christ, and against seeing the fullness of His life within
us being reflected in our daily lives.
So revival is not a heavy thing, for God relieves us of burdens we have
been carrying for years and frees us from things that have prevented us
from enjoying the full blessing of the life God has already given us: We in
Christ, and He in us! This enables us to take hold of the inheritance that God
has chosen to give us through His mercy and grace, and because of His great
love for us.
All this was made possible by the cross. Then Jesus was ‘crushed’ so that our
self-life would be broken, liberating and enabling us to live our lives at one with
the Lord.

For you have died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col.
3:3)

When Christ died, we died. He was crushed for our sakes and died for us
so that we could also be one with Him in His resurrection life. We are NOW
with Christ in God. This is the position in which He has placed us. For what
purpose? God never does anything in the lives of His people unless it is part of
His divine purpose.
In calling and cleansing you, in saving you, in placing you in Christ and
giving His beloved Son to live in you by the power of His Spirit, God has made
you part of His divine plan and purpose, which can only be outworked by you
living in Him and He in you!

You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God
with your body. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

When Jesus Christ gave His life for you He actually purchased you for God,
that you might belong to Him and no longer yourself. Those who hold onto their
self-life are, in effect, denying an important aspect of the Cross. They fail to
acknowledge that the ownership of their lives belongs rightly to the Lord.
Jesus Christ bought you — spirit, soul and body — so that you might belong
to the Father and be His child. What greater privilege could there be? However,
as with other truths, this has to find practical expression in your life. In other
words, you are to live in such a way that it is apparent that you no longer live for
yourself but for the One to whom you belong.
If you love the Lord, this will not be a burden but a joy! When this is the
case, you are pleased that He has led you through the process of being broken so
that you no longer resist His purposes for your life. You truly want His will
rather than your own.
We all know that this should be the case because we are Christians. It is
wonderful when it actually is the case. For then we know that through His Spirit
working in us, the fruit that He desires will be produced in our lives, the fruit
that will glorify Him.
This is what the Christian life is all about. It is not a preparation for going to
heaven, but living for God’s glory here on earth. Then, in due course, we will be
able to enjoy our heavenly reward. For, although we are saved by grace, Jesus
tells us that each man will be rewarded for what he has done. The more we are
submitted to God’s purposes, the more fruit will be produced in our lives, and
the more the Father will be glorified in and through us. It is easy to call Jesus
‘Lord’, but He warned us:

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the Kingdom of
heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matt.
7:21)

On another occasion He said:

Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? (Luke 6:46)

The Lord is not fooled if we call Him ‘Lord’, but do not allow Him to be
Lord in our lives. The Lord is the Boss. He is the One in charge. Those who call
Him ‘Lord’ are to obey Him, the commands through which He makes His will
known to us, both in the scriptures and by His Spirit. This is not living by law,
but by our love for God. Jesus reminds us:

If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. (John 14:23)

 We are deceived if we think emotional feelings of love for God are enough to
fulfil His will in our lives. The Christian life is a walk of fellowship with God;
and that is a walk of love for Him and therefore for others. That love is
expressed in the way we obey His command to love others as He has loved us.
We have seen that those who have been ‘broken’ exhibit this great love –
not their own love, but the love of Christ in them. The outworking of the love
is obedience.
In the Old Testament God could tell His people what to do, but they did not
have within them His own love that motivated and enabled obedience to His
will. But His love is in you! As a Christian you have no excuses for not obeying
His will!
Why is obedience such an issue for many Christians? Because they still want
their own way, to be in control of their own destiny. They may want God to be
part of their lives, but they want to determine how much this is the case.
Whether we like it or not, the truth is that every one of us has precisely the
relationship with God he or she has chosen to have. If we wanted to be closer to
Him, we would take the necessary steps to do so, recognising our need of
personal revival. If we want His will for our lives, we will submit ourselves
whole-heartedly to Him and not seek to avoid His commands or purposes if they
seem too demanding or costly.
In other words, the problem for many is that although on the one hand they
want to think of themselves as belonging to God, on the other hand they still
want to belong to themselves, fulfilling their own dreams and ambitions. If we
are to be a revival people we have to wave good-bye to our own agendas and
embrace God’s will wholeheartedly! It is one thing to see that this is the right
thing to do, another thing to actually do it.
He has chosen the walk for you and me. It is a walk in fellowship with Him –
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Love is one of the expressions of this walk, but it is
essentially a walk on the Way of Holiness.
Most of us do not see ourselves as suitable candidates for holiness. If we are
pre-occupied with ourselves we will see so many unholy things about ourselves
that we will easily become discouraged. This is where we have to remember that
HE is our holiness, the One who lives within us. In Him there is no unholiness.
Jesus Christ has made us holy in God’s sight; we are already made one with
the Holy God through the cross. But we are also called to be holy. This raises an
obvious question. Do you really want to be holy? God will not work His purpose
in you unless this is what you want!
Nothing about your flesh (your self-life) wants to be holy, for Jesus says that
in your flesh there is nothing good. However the Christ in you is Holy and His
Spirit urges you to be holy, to walk in holiness, in the ways that please God.
In yourself this is impossible. In Christ it becomes possible.
Whether you choose to walk in the Spirit or the flesh is your decision. The
nature of your heart will determine the decision you make. If you love the Lord
and therefore want to please Him you will choose to walk in the Spirit. If you
focus on yourself and what you want you will walk in the flesh! If that is your
choice the Lord’s Presence will seem remote because He cannot have fellowship
with your flesh, for there is nothing in your self-life that could please Him.
Many Christians do not want to accept this. They strive and strain to do
whatever they can to try and make themselves acceptable to God, believing there
must be something they could do for Him. They imagine that He will surely
reward their efforts, even if they do not seem very successful.
But Jesus does not reward marks for trying. In fact the more we try to please
Him with our human effort, the more trying we become! It is better to accept His
estimate of your flesh and realise that the only way you can please Him is by
depending on Him so that His life in you will be released to flow out of you. The
more of a surrendered heart you have, the greater your dependence on Him!
The Way

Speaking prophetically of a coming time of revival, Isaiah describes the Way

of Holiness on which we will walk as the Lord’s redeemed people:

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The
unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it. No lion will be there, nor will any
ferocious beast get up on it; they will not be found there. But only the
redeemed will walk there and the presence of the Lord will return. They will
enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness
and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will fly away. (Isa 35:8-
10)

Jesus describes this as the narrow way that leads to life. The only alternative
is the broad way that leads to destruction. He says also that He Himself is the
Way! You can only walk on that Way if Jesus is allowed to be the Way in your
life. You living in Him and He in you.
There are several important truths we can learn from these few verses of
Isaiah about the Way:

It is the Way of Holiness. Christ who is our holiness will express His life
through us in practical ways that please the Lord.
This way is for the pure in heart, for ‘the unclean will not journey on it’.
The unclean will choose to please themselves, walk in the flesh and so
displease God. But Jesus said: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will
see God’. (Matt 5:8) No wonder David prayed: ‘Create in me a pure heart,
O God’, (Ps 51:10) after he had chosen to indulge his flesh life!
‘Wicked fools’ will not walk in it. In scripture sin is foolishness. So those
who choose sin will not walk on this Way.
‘No lion will be there’. The devil, who prowls around seeking someone to
devour, cannot reach those on the Way because he cannot get onto that Way
himself. He can growl at them; he can try and entice them to leave that
Way, in which case they will become vulnerable to the enemy. But while
they walk in that Way they are safe. Jesus says that His disciples have
 authority over all the power of the evil one, and nothing will harm them!
No ferocious beast, no demons or demonic powers, can walk on that
way, for they are all unholy. ‘They will not be found there.’
This Way is solely for the redeemed of the Lord, those who have washed
themselves in the Blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. They are the
Lord’s redeemed people. This is God’s vision for His Church, a Body of
people walking together on that Way and so able to impact the world with
the gospel, because they have overcome the power of the evil one and of sin
in their lives.
This will be a walk of unspeakable joy because they live in such close
fellowship with the Lord of joy. And this joy is eternal; beyond this life
they will live in the everlasting joy of heaven.
Is this the Way for only a few selected saints, those who conduct a
particularly saintly life? No, not at all. It is God’s purpose for every child
of God, all His redeemed people. And He has made it possible by
coming to live in them.

Does all this seem out of your reach? An ideal state that is always illusive?
You might think so if you look at yourself. But remember, you are in Christ and
He is in you. You are in the Way and the Way is in you! You do not have to
strive to get on that Way. This is where the Lord Himself has placed you! You
can live in Him. You can walk in that Way.
Does this mean you will never sin? Or if you do sin, will God push you off
that Way? No, no, for it is His will for you to be there! He is the One who has
placed you there, and He lives in you to enable you to walk there. He will do
everything to encourage you to stay there.
If you sin, He is ready to be merciful. However, He does not expect you to
disobey Him wilfully and intentionally, for that would indicate you have an
independent, rebellious heart that did not want to submit to Him or His will for
your life. You would need to ask Him to cleanse your heart if that was the case.
It is all a matter of heart motivation. The Lord is amazingly patient with us
and He certainly wants to prevent us from back sliding, from leaving that Way of
Holiness, because we choose to walk on another way, the way of pleasing self,
the broad way that leads to destruction. Many a believer has chosen to do that for
a period. When he or she is truly repentant and ready to return to the Way of
Holiness, the Lord is quick to restore him or her, as with the prodigal son.

This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.
(Luke 15:24)

To decide not to walk on that Way is to opt for death, to live like those who
are lost. It is to forsake our wonderful inheritance in Christ and to live as if we
have not been redeemed, as if we did not belong to the Lord but to ourselves
instead.
To forsake that way is to miss the close, intimate relationship with God
that those who walk on that Way are able to enjoy!
You may certainly be a Christian and yet as you read this you find yourself
thinking that you have never walked on that Way. Yes you have! Do you
remember how wonderful it was when you first believed that you had been
saved? Can you recall how great it was to be filled with the Holy Spirit?
Suddenly you knew the One to whom you prayed and experienced real joy and
love for God as you praised Him. Can you remember how keen you were to
share your faith with others, to tell them about how wonderful the Lord had
suddenly become to you?
Can you recall the way your priorities changed, that you lost interest in
certain sins that had plagued you? Yes, for a time you wanted to please the Lord
so much! Why? Because you had been put in Him and He in you and He had
placed your feet on the Way of Holiness. You began to walk on the Way and for
a time it seemed easy, natural even!
So what happened? The flesh began to reassert itself. Self had been knocked
out, but began to come round! When the devil renewed his accusations and
temptations, you began to focus on yourself again, instead of on the Lord. As a
result, compromise began to creep into your life, affecting your walk with the
Lord. You lost your desire to pray and worship with the same intensity; once
more these activities became a routine or even a duty, instead of being full of joy
and of God’s life.
Instead of sharing your faith with others you retreated into your shell to hide
from ridicule and rejection. You settled down to the level you chose for yourself,
apportioning part of your life, time and money to God, and counting the rest as
your own! Mediocrity set in; and you could excuse yourself because other
Christians around you had done the same thing! Now there was little excitement
about the Lord, far less expectation that He would answer your prayers.
To you it did not seem that you had backslidden; just settled down! You may
even have been deceived into thinking that you had become a mature believer!
Deceived? Yes, for Paul says that the mature are reaching out for that which
lies ahead. They want to take hold of everything for which Christ Jesus took
hold of them. They are expecting more of God in their lives, not less! A
closer walk with Him, not a relatively lifeless routine! Their attitude is that they
want the Lord to prune them as branches of the True Vine, Jesus, so that they can
be increasingly fruitful. Yes, they want more, not less, much more!
The Lord places every believer on that Way of Holiness, but how many
choose to walk on it? The Lord Himself walks there! Can you see why He said
that in order to follow Him it would be necessary to deny yourself daily! The
self-life, the flesh, does not want to walk on that way. So are you intent on
pleasing the flesh, or denying the flesh in order to walk on that Way in Christ?
After all, Jesus makes it clear that He and the Father want to come and make
their home with you. They do not feel at home in your flesh life but in the Spirit.
If you make the right choice to follow Him, to please Him, to walk on that Way
He will work within you to enable that walk, and will be quick to restore you
whenever you fail.
In revival, God’s people both individually and collectively choose to walk on
that Way. As a result others sense the holiness of God among His people. They
see the way in which they love one another, instead of living for themselves.
They are encouraged by the simplicity of their faith, the boldness of their prayer,
the great authority with which they overcome the devil.
And yet, like Jesus, there is a humility and gentleness about them. A kind of
sweetness pervades their worship. Yes, you can sense that the Lord has come to
make His home with them!
It Is Done

On the cross Jesus was crushed so that the power of sin could be broken in
our lives; that we could be delivered from ourselves, from being controlled by
the natural desires of the flesh! However, not only was the power of that ‘old
life’ broken; it was put to death. It is essential to understand this and to see how
God has made it possible for us to walk on the Way of Holiness. Paul wrote:

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. (Col. 3:3)

In what sense have you died? Clearly you are to walk in His ways because
NOW, already, as a present fact, your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Once bound by the flesh, a sinner, you could not be placed in Christ. When you
were born again you became a saint, one set free from the bondage of sin and
able now to please the Lord. One in whom Christ Himself lives as his or her
Righteousness and Holiness. It is right to use capital letters here, because we are
describing Christ Himself. HE is our Righteousness and Holiness! It cannot be
repeated often enough until the truth becomes not only clear to us, but the basis
of our relationship with the Lord.
When writing to the Romans, Paul gives a full explanation of how we were
not only broken but put to death with Christ on the cross. It is done; your death is
an accomplished fact.

We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all
of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We
were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we
too may live a new life. (Rom. 6:2-4)

We can ‘live a new life’, walk on the Way of Holiness, because our old life is
dead and buried with Christ, as our baptism in water signified. The old has gone
and the new has come! Paul continues to explain that because ‘we have been
united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his
resurrection’. (v. 5)
God incorporated you in the whole drama of salvation. You were in Him
when He was crucified. Your old life was being shattered as well as your sins
forgiven.
You were in Him when He died. So you too died; you were in Him when He
was buried. So that sinner you once were was crucified, died and was buried –
completely finished with! You were in Him when He was raised so that now you
can walk on that Way of Holiness, live for Him and in ways pleasing to Him.
Revival is living such a life in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul continues:

For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin
might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin –
because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. (vv. 6,7)

Clearly a dead person cannot sin. So if we know this, as Paul says, we know
that we have been set free from sin, we are no longer under its control. We are
free to live in Christ and He in us, to walk in true righteousness and
holiness.
Why does such a life seem to many Christians to be entirely beyond them?
Because they do not truly believe that they have died and been set free from sin.
Their focus is still on themselves and their inadequate performance. When they
consider how unholy they are at times in thought, word and deed, it seems
unrealistic to believe that they have truly been set free from the power of sin.
What would happen, though, if they started to believe what the scriptures say
about them? After all, they believe what God’s Word says about Christ! So why
not declare what it says about them?
If I believe that I have died, been set free from sin, that my life is now
hidden with Christ in God, then I can readily believe that I no longer need
to yield to temptation. I am not under the devil’s power, nor does the power
of sin have any hold over me.
Instead of yielding to temptation you can choose to yield yourself daily to
the One in whom you live. He is then your Righteousness and Holiness, no
matter what temptations, trials or tribulations you have to face. After all Jesus
said that in the world you, and all disciples, would have many tribulations. But
He also told you to be of good cheer because He had already overcome the
world! So if you live in Him, you live in the One who has already overcome.
You are no longer a victim of the world, the devil and your own flesh; you
are a victor over all these things! So Paul says:

Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do
not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not
 offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather
offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life;
and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For
sin shall not be your master because you are not under law, but under
grace. (v. 11-14)

There are several important points to note here:

Although Jesus has accomplished this great work for us in His

crucifixion, death and resurrection, we only know the power of those
truths when we believe them and live in the good of them. Paul is not
simply giving us good doctrine; he is telling us how to live the new life!
This means I have to believe that I am dead to sin; then I will be! Sin
will not continue to have any hold over me.
So I will not let sin reign in my mortal body. Christ now lives in me; so
He is to reign in me.
He will reign in me if I genuinely offer myself daily to God, to have my
focus on Him, not myself. This means I give myself into His hands. I
claim Him daily as my Righteousness and Holiness. I consciously and
deliberately offer the parts of my body to righteousness. If I continue to do
this, I will lose any present desires to sin. I will become more intent on
pleasing the Lord than myself.
Sin shall not be my master; Jesus Christ, God’s Son, will be Master in
my life! I will not only call Him ‘Lord’, I will allow Him to be Lord.
Instead of me driving the car with Him in the passenger seat, I will swap
positions! He will be the driver, I the passenger!
The result is that I will not be serving God ‘under law’, trying to obey a
series of commands and failing to do so. No, from His fullness, God will
work one act of grace after another to enable me to walk in His ways,
please Him by doing His will, and so feel fulfilled rather than frustrated. I
will rejoice that I have died and my life is now hidden with Christ in God. I
will realise the reality of the truth in the daily practical outworking of my
life.

God does not give us the grace to sin, only to do His will! Many
misunderstand and even abuse God’s grace by taking this to mean that He has an
indulgent attitude to their sin and failure. God would not give us grace to do
anything against His will. He hates sin. When we do sin, we need to be forgiven
and restored to Him through His mercy, not by His grace! Paul counteracts these
false ideas plainly:

What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By
no means! (v. 15)

Paul is being very emphatic: ‘Never!’ Perish the very thought or idea! Now
‘you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness’. (v.
18)
Those who view their sin lightly certainly do not live as slaves to
righteousness, nor do they walk on the Way of Holiness!
Paul recognises how weak we are in our natural selves, which only makes it
that much more important, that we offer the parts of our bodies ‘in slavery to
righteousness leading to holiness’. (v. 19)

But now that you have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to
holiness, and the result is eternal life. (v. 22)

The truth is that many Christians do not want to live as slaves to God. They
want to be independent and therefore self-indulgent. They want to be their own
masters and use God for their own ends, such is their need of revival.
It is wonderful to see believers living in revival. They live in holiness. They
are happy to live as God’s slaves, although they may not use such terminology.
Nevertheless, they are given over totally to pleasing the Lord, to walking in
righteousness and integrity. They say ‘No’ to temptation and trust the Holy Spirit
to cause them to bear much fruit for the Father’s glory.
Above all, they are able to enjoy close, intimate fellowship with the Lord
because sin is not continually intervening in their relationship!
Slaves, Sons & Servants

We are no longer in slavery to sin; now we are slaves of righteousness. As

believers, we are happy to be God’s slaves!

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to
God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
(Rom. 6:22)

A slave is one who is owned by his Master. As those whom He has
purchased with the blood of His Son, we belong to God. We are His possession.
We do not have any rights of our own, only those He gives us by His grace. As
slaves we cannot serve Him in a parttime capacity, when it suits us. We are His
to command whenever He chooses to do so!
As slaves; we possess nothing of our own. All that we are and have belongs
to the Lord and is to be used under His direction.
However, we are slaves who are sons of God. This seems a contradiction in
terms at first sight. Without God’s ownership of us we could not become His
sons. We belong, not only to a Master, but to the heavenly Father. He has
adopted us into His family and made us co-heirs with His Son, Jesus Christ.
Now we are in Him and He in us.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be
called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1)

This is indeed the evidence of the great love that God has lavished upon us.
As sinners we deserved nothing from Him. Yet He sends His Son to be a
sacrifice for our sins, takes us to be His own and makes us His sons. What
amazing grace!

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who
were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. (Gal. 3: 26-
27)

Now we are clothed with Christ, with His righteousness. We have received
the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father". (Rom. 8:15)

The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if
we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ;
if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his
glory. (Rom. 8:16-17)

It is a wonderful truth that now we are at one with the Father and the Son,
and His Holy Spirit lives within us. And yet there is a cost to be paid – not to
become His sons or His children, but because we already belong to Him. We are
‘to work out our salvation with fear and trembling’. (Phil. 2:12)
The cost is ‘sharing in his sufferings,’ the cost of denying ourselves in order
to be faithful to Him. The cost of being prepared to suffer persecution and
rejection from others for the sake of the gospel. Jesus warned that if people hated
Him, they would also hate those who follow Him!

All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will
be saved. (Matt. 10:22)

There is a cost in obeying His command to love others. It involves laying
down your life for them, Jesus says, making sure love for others is given primary
place, even above your own desires and preferences. Such obedience makes you
a friend of Jesus.

I no longer call you servants, for everything that I learned from my Father I
have made known to you. (John 15:15)

What a wonderful privilege to be a son, to be regarded as one of His friends,
because you are obedient to Him. However, you must beware of
misunderstanding this verse. Jesus does not say you are no longer a servant, but
that He will no longer call you a servant, because now you are a son. Sons and
yet slaves, and if slaves then certainly those who serve. Sons of God who rejoice
to serve Him. In the light of what Jesus says, our service will be rewarded at the
Judgement. We all want to hear Him say: ‘Well done good and faithful servant.
Enter into the joy of your Lord!’
However, we can see that to serve Him is not a matter of what we do for the
Lord, but what He does in and through us by His Spirit, expressing the life of
Christ He has given us. As sons we rejoice to serve the Lord by co-operating
with Him, submitting ourselves to Him, so that His life will flow out of us as
rivers of living water, bearing much fruit for the Father’s glory.
So you remain a slave, while yet being a son who is happy to serve. At the
same time, God is your Master, your Father, your Lord. None of these terms,
either about God or yourself, are contradictory; they are complementary!
Through our sonship we have a great inheritance and by our faithful
service we can look forward to a great reward.
In revival you see these three aspects of being slaves, sons and servants,
being lived out among God’s people. Their love for Him is so great that
whatever cost is necessary to be obedient to Him is faced readily. Their love for
Him is greater than their love for the flesh, for pleasing self, and so they
willingly take up their cross daily to follow after Him. However, revivals came
to an end! Why? Because in one way or another the flesh is allowed to re assert
itself! Compromise sets in and slowly but surely things return to ‘normal’. But
what is normal to most Christians is sub-normal to God! We need to see a revival
that will be sustained and can have a telling effect on whole nations!
Thank The Lord

The greater our vision and awareness of the Lord, the more our focus and
concentration is on Him, the easier it is to deal with the issues of our self life that
oppose His purposes and best plans for our lives.
Most Christians want to have experiences of the Lord rather than wanting the
Lord for Himself. It is not wrong to desire experience, but this can be a longing
to satisfy our soulish desires instead of the true longing of the spirit — desire to
know Him, to work in close harmony with Him, to walk on the Way of Holiness
and obey Him out of a loving heart.
All the truths about God and about our place in Him and His life in us remain
true, irrespective of our feelings or experiences. Our faith is in His Person, not in
our experiences of Him. Otherwise when we lacked experience we would have
no faith. God allows our faith to be tested to prove that it is genuine. At such
times, it can seem that His presence is remote, although He has promised never
to withdraw from us. No matter what our circumstances we can always draw
near to His throne of grace and there we can find mercy and grace to help us,
regardless of our feelings.
This is an important aspect of revival: to be living by faith in God,
knowing He is always faithful and accessible no matter what our
circumstances or feelings. For this reason Paul says:

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for
this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thess. 5:16-18)

Where do you live? In Christ Jesus! Where God Himself has placed you! So
this is His will for you! His expectation is that you will be constant in joy, prayer
and thanksgiving!
One thing is certain, if your focus is on yourself, this will prove impossible.
However, you can rejoice in the Lord always because, irrespective of your
situation and feelings, ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever!’
(Heb. 13:8) He is always worthy of praise, always greater than your
circumstances. He is the Lord, the Almighty, and nothing is impossible for Him!
And so it is wise to ‘pray continually’ and to do so with thanksgiving. This is
why you were born to live out your life in the power of the Spirit. It does not
take long to say, ‘Thank you.’ I believe this needs to play an important part in
our daily prayer time, and then to continue regularly throughout the day. At the
beginning of the day I usually say something like this to the Lord:
Thank you, Father, for this new day. It is your precious gift to me.
Thank you that you have placed me in Christ, that today I live in the
fullness of His life. Thank you that He lives in me by the presence and
power of your Holy Spirit.
Thank you that today Christ is in my life, the fullness of life. Because I
live in Him I live in that fullness. Because He lives in me that fullness is in
me.
Thank you that today Christ is my righteousness and my holiness.
Thank you that He is my redemption, that He has paid all my debts so that I
can live in freedom and unity with you.
Thank you, Lord, that you are my peace, that I have total wellbeing in
you and will prosper in every way today because of your grace in me and
your grace towards me. Thank you that you impart your peace to me now
and that your peace will be accessible to me throughout today.
Thank you, Lord, that you are my Healer, that you bore my infirmities
and carried my sicknesses when you went to the cross; that you alone took
the punishment that gave me peace and by your stripes I am healed. Thank
you, Lord, that you are my health in spirit, soul and body, that I receive
your healing now and throughout this day.
Thank you that by your Holy Spirit you will work in me and through me
in every situation you place before me today, that your grace will be
sufficient for me. Thank you that you have poured your love into my heart,
that your love might flow out of me to others. Thank you that today I can
rejoice in you, know that your presence will go with me and that I shall be
able to enjoy the rest of faith, trusting you in everything. Thank you that
you will answer every word of prayer today and that, no matter what the
circumstances, I can be thankful for you always lead me in your triumphant
procession in Christ.
Thank you, Lord, that as I yield myself afresh to you today, spirit, soul
and body, so you will work in me both to will and to act according to your
good purposes that you have planned for me in Christ. To you belongs all
the glory, honour and praise!
This of course is only a summary to give you an idea of how the day needs to
begin with a thankful heart, so that it may continue with thanksgiving. This
keeps our focus on the Lord, not on ourselves, our feelings or what appear to be
problems! The focus is on Christ in us, and that the truth is we are in Him!
 We are told in scripture that we should always pray ‘with thanksgiving’, and
that we should overflow with thankfulness. This is central to our life in Christ
Jesus and in personal revival. The devil wants to distract us, taking our focus
away from the Lord, onto ourselves and our problems. He wants to discourage
us and undermine our faith. We need to take the shield of faith to counteract all
such temptations.
Paul repeatedly said that he thanked the Lord for the congregations to whom
he wrote, even though there may have been problems they were facing as
churches.
You can see that revival is something very different from the unrealistic ideas
that many have. It seems that they imagine the Holy Spirit does everything so
there is nothing for us to do except bask in God’s activity. God’s way is for His
Spirit to work in and through His people. He can only do this if we continue to
walk in the Spirit and keep our focus on Him with humble and thankful hearts.
It is easy to lose ground, and even cause revivals to cease, by taking our eyes
off the Lord and by becoming preoccupied with ourselves again! Better to keep
our concentration on the Lord, to cultivate hearts of thanksgiving that will enable
us to keep a right perspective on everything we encounter in our daily lives.
Even when you have to face truly traumatic events, you can still be thankful
that the Lord is with you, mindful of your needs at that time; that He will see you
through the trauma, just as He has always led you through previous times of
stress and tension. A thankful heart keeps the focus on the victory Jesus has
already won for us, and this is essential when praying for others; that we are not
praying with despair but in true faith in His finished work.
Fellowship With the Lord

Fellowship means literally ‘the sharing of life.’ John affirms that ‘our
fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ’. (1 John 1:3) Paul
says:

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. (2 Cor. 13:14)

We have fellowship with the whole trinity of God; Father, Son and the
Holy Spirit. To live in revival is to enjoy living in this fellowship. Then the Lord
is able to work through us to fulfil His Kingdom purposes.
Fellowship with God is obviously affected adversely by disobedience and
independence on our part. Obedience to the Holy Spirit enables and strengthens
the sharing of our life in God and leads to true fulfilment.
In the new creation we have a different spiritual DNA from the old life.
Fullness of joy and true fulfilment can only be found through obedience to the
Lord. This is now your new DNA:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If
you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed
my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that
my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:9-11)

True joy comes from obedience to the Lord, and that obedience is the
expression of your love for Him. Of course, the Lord has supplied His love to
make this loving obedience possible, so enabling us to live in close fellowship
with Him.
Among a people living in revival, this fellowship is apparent at both the
personal and corporate levels. Because hearts are so yielded to the Lord, His
people want to obey. It is the work of the Holy Spirit within the believer that
enables obedience to the Father and the Son. No longer is there any fulfilment in
seeking to fulfil their own plans, only frustration if they try to do so. Because
they trust the Spirit, the believer’s activities are full of the life, love and power of
Christ.
 In revival believers walk in the Light and in the truth of God’s word. They
recognise that, no matter what the situation, Christ Himself is the answer to the
need. He is Saviour, Healer, Provider. In fact this is the amazing miracle for
every believer. Christ Himself lives in him or her. He is their miracle. Their
attitude to any problem can be: ‘I already have my miracle – Christ in me
and nothing is impossible for Him!’ Therefore it is not difficult to be thankful,
even when the circumstances seem negative. Although this would never be a
person’s natural response, now he or she knows: ‘Jesus is my Saviour and my
salvation, my Redeemer and redemption, my Healer and my healing, my
Provider and God’s total provision for me. Hallelujah!’
There is nothing of spiritual value outside of Christ. He did not come to
change you, but to exchange His life for yours. Now He lives in you, this can
seriously influence the way in which you pray, thanking the Lord that in Christ
you have His provision. There is no point in asking God for what you already
have. It is better to believe that He has given you fullness in Christ, be
thankful, and by faith draw on that fullness so that His life is released in
ways you see to be necessary.
The objective truth is what is outside of you, the subjective that which is
within you. You have fullness of life in Christ. You want to take hold of all you
have in Him and make it real in your daily experience. In other words, you are
one with God, you have fellowship with Him; now you want to use this unity
to draw upon His unlimited resources to enable you every day of your life.
This is where faith and love are to operate together. In love you want to obey
the Lord. You see what you need Him to do in and through you. So you trust
Him to supply. This is why Paul says: ‘The only thing that counts is faith
expressing itself through love’ (Gal. 5:6) Again we come back to Jesus’ key
statement at the Last Supper:

Remain in me and I will remain in you. (John 15:8)

‘Abide in me’ is the objective.’ ‘I in you’ is the subjective. God’s purpose is
for the objective truth to become subjective experience. This is what produces
the lasting fruit in our lives, the objective and subjective working together.
So faith in what Jesus did objectively on the cross enables the believer to
know his sins are forgiven, that the power of sin is broken in his life, that he has
died with Christ enabling him to live a new life, that sickness and other needs
were dealt with when He was crucified. So faith in the objective truth has a
tremendous influence on him subjectively.
The believer knows that he is in the risen Christ; the objective truth.
Therefore he is able to draw on all the works and resources of the glorified
and victorious Christ, to be reflected in him and his daily circumstances. He
can live the new life and does so.
In revival, the work of the cross has done such a profound work in his life,
that he is able to express the abundant life of the risen Christ. The way this
happens never ceases to amaze the revived believer. Whereas before revival he
struggled to obey; now it is his delight. Prayer seemed a burden; now it is a joy.
Before the revival, he was conscious of the cost every time his flesh life was
challenged by God’s Word; now he scarcely thinks of the cost for the Lord’s
commands are not a burden. Now he loves where before he was critical and
judgemental, he trusts where he used to fail through self-dependence. It is as if
he is living in an altogether different spiritual world.
The reality is that he is simply living in the good of his life in Christ,
allowing the Christ in him to be expressed increasingly. He sees that the Holy
Spirit is key to all this and so is ever thankful for such a Gift and is happy to
depend increasingly on Him!
The Holy Spirit, then, makes real in his experience all that he has in Christ.
The Spirit enables the believer to live in close fellowship with the Father and
Son, and so draw on His unlimited riches. It is not that he is seeking experiences
of God, but is seeking God more in his experience, beyond anything he could
have imagined.
Of course, he may have some wonderful experiences of the Lord; this is
common for people living in revival. However, he is not dependent on such
experiences. They are not the measure of his fullness in Christ, but the
outworking of God’s grace.
Because the Holy Spirit lives within him, the life that overcomes all sin,
sickness, the devil and even death itself is in him. In Christ he has eternal life,
God’s own life, life in all its fullness. This combination of faith and love has
such a profound effect practically on his life, for they enable him to experience
fully what was imparted to him in Christ. However he learns that absolute
obedience to the Holy Spirit is necessary if he is to avail himself fully of these
riches.
The Holy Spirit causes the fear of the Lord to become a reality in his life.
He does not want to offend the Lord, even in small ways that before would not
have concerned him. He is keen to know that the Lord approves of his decisions,
even of very practical matters such as the use of his money and time. There is
now a practical consecration of his life to the Lord that was either lacking before
or was only expressed sporadically! What does it say to the Lord if a believer
knows he has been saved from the penalty of sin, but chooses to live a careless
life with little fear of God in his heart?
In revival, the believer is concerned to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God, and
his righteousness.’ (Matt. 6:33) The Lord’s will is his primary concern. He
knows that the Lord will care for his every need if he has a heart devoted to
pleasing Him! Those with a stubborn disposition do not readily embrace God’s
will. Stubbornness is a contradiction both to faith and love, to trust and
obedience. The stubborn believer still trusts his own intellect and abilities
instead of enjoying the ‘rest of faith.’

Anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work. (Heb. 4:10)

To the stubborn one, his gifts are far too valuable to be laid to one side.
Surely the Lord wants to use such admirable qualities! Such a one has yet to
know that apart from Christ he can do nothing. His natural gifts, his entire soul
life, must be submitted to and be subject to the much greater presence and
power of the Holy Spirit within him.
Stubbornness is a form of pride, depending on self instead of the Lord’s
riches and resources within! It is a work of the flesh and resists change, seriously
affecting whatever flows out of that person’s life. It is obvious that whatever
goes on within us affects those around us. The flesh can only reproduce the flesh
in others, whereas the Spirit can bring life to others.
In a revived believer others are readily impacted by the life of Jesus
Christ that flows from the believer. His humility before God and others will
draw others to a similar place of humility. His openness of heart will breed
openness in others. His love will draw others to the Source of that love. His
positive attitude will both challenge and inspire others. And the spiritual power
of God’s Presence that flows from him will readily impact others around him!
And all this takes place in an unselfconscious way!
Because he is walking on the Way of Holiness, seeking to keep close to the
Lord he loves, he can be conscious of the lack of consecration in others. He
readily sees their compromise and failings, and so has to guard against pride,
being ever mindful that all that God is doing in and through him is the work of
the Holy Spirit and all the glory belongs to the Lord. He knows he must avoid
being judgemental or critical, for such attitudes will damage his close fellowship
with his Lord, and he wants nothing to have such an effect.
He wants to remain humble and so continue to receive fresh revelation from
the Lord and to be a channel of His grace to others. He cannot be that if he is
critical or judgemental towards them. The revived believer has a teachable heart
and does not give the impression that he is a ‘know-all’! He is not so eager to
impart knowledge about God to others, but His life! He wants to impart to
others as the Lord has imparted to him!
The believer in revival does not have to make extravagant claims, which is a
sign of spiritual immaturity and insecurity. Like Paul he is aware of his need to
reach out to God for more so that he can take hold of everything for which the
Lord has taken hold of his life! Those who make true disciples are those who
live as true disciples. It is not a matter of how much he has grasped the truth,
but how much the Truth has grasped hold of him.
Every one of us has a choice to trust in the Lord or in self! We possess in
experience as much as we believe we possess of the inheritance given us in
Christ. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and He will declare to us whatever
we have in Christ that we may lay hold of it and live in the good of it!
It is amazing that God sees us already made perfect in Christ. To Him, we are
righteous, holy, saved, redeemed, healed even, because we are in His beloved
Son. So this is how we are to see ourselves. Then we can know that what seems
to be lacking can be made good in us by the Holy Spirit!
Fellowship With One Another

Because we have fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are
also to have fellowship with others who are in Christ Jesus.

If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one
another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John
1:7)

We have already seen how others around him are affected for good or ill by
whatever goes on within the believer. However, just as he makes conscious
adjustments in faith and obedience to facilitate being in close fellowship with the
Lord, so he has to take deliberate steps to enable fellowship or ‘the sharing of
life’ with other believers.
To walk in the light means that your life is as an open book; you have
nothing going on in your heart or life that you need to hide from others, nothing
that would make you ashamed before them. You not only want righteousness
in relation to the Lord, but also towards others. You are conscious that
whatever you do to others you do to the Lord Himself. This is particularly true of
others who are in Christ. To love Him is to love them; to ignore them is to ignore
Him.

We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our
brothers. (1 John 3:4)


This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.
And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (1 John 3:16)

John continues by saying that it is not enough to love with words; we are to
show love by our actions. Christians can easily speak words of love without
giving to others in the way that expresses the reality of that love!

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone
who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love
 does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8)

John has no time for super-spiritual people who are all words and no action.
And there is no room for such super-spirituality in true revival. God’s
people love, rather than simply speaking about loving. They give generously
to others as well as the Lord. They recognise their unity expressed in love has a
telling effect on their witness as the Church. Jesus prayed for all who would
become believers, including us!

I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all
of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I in you. May they
also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John
1:20-21)

In these two verses it is important to note:

The unity Jesus wants between believers is to be a reflection of the

unity between the Father and the Son.
Believers are to know they live in the Father and in the Son.
The result of this unity with God and with one another is that the world
will believe that Jesus is indeed His Son, sent to be the Saviour of the
world.

The fact that believers have such a weak effect on the world around is
evidence that they do not express their unity with God and with one another in
the way the Lord intends. In revival, there is an explosion of evangelism with
many coming to a living faith in Christ, because this unity is being more fully
expressed by believers. Believers have to be careful to maintain that unity;
otherwise the revival can come to an abrupt end!
Where there is unity God commands the blessing. Where there is disunity
His heart is grieved and the witness of believers is damaged. God does not want
to add multitudes of new believers to either disunity or compromise, for they
would rapidly become like those to whom they have just been added!
Love has to be expressed corporately and this is perhaps the most
obvious work of a truly revived people; their great love for the Lord and for
one another. That love reaches out to embrace the lost, the poor, the
desperate and the needy. It has to flow to whoever is around. There is no
way for it to be withheld from anyone. May the Lord raise up such a revival
people in every nation!
The Place of Prayer

A people of love. A people of faith. A holy people. A humble people. A

people of the Word. A people of the Spirit. These are the principle evidences of
true revival, along with the fact that they are a people of prayer!
It is not possible to enjoy a close walk with God unless we are praying
people. You only have to look at the life and ministry of Jesus to see this. He
could testify that ‘The Father and I are one’, that ‘If you have seen me you have
seen the Father.’ He did not take this unity for granted simply because He was
God’s Son. He prayed in order to maintain this unity and His dependence on His
Father.
We know He agonised in prayer for three hours before His arrest, that He
spent all night in prayer on different occasions and we have some of His prayers
recorded in the gospels. We know also that the disciples asked Jesus to teach
them to pray. They obviously realised this was a key element in His relationship
with His Father.
If Jesus needed to be a man of prayer, we certainly need to be men and
women of prayer! In revival the spirit of prayer comes upon God’s people. It not
only becomes natural for them to pray, they have no difficulty in sustaining
prayer for as long as is necessary. They do nothing without prayer, for this would
be to act in selfdependence instead of God-dependence.
As with other aspects of the new life, things seem difficult or even
impossible without the Holy Spirit, but easy when done in God through the Holy
Spirit’s power. This is certainly true of prayer. In fact prayer is a good indicator
as to how closely a person is truly walking with the Lord.
God’s people also pray together in revival. Not conventional (and often
boring) prayer meetings, but with a sense of urgency and from deep within their
hearts. They pray with faith and expectation that they are praying into being
the things they lay before the Lord. There is a keen dependence on the Holy
Spirit to lead and fill their prayer with His life and power. And there is a
great openness and honesty when they pray.
You can attend some prayer meetings where you wonder whether those who
speak are addressing the Lord or one another. It is not like that in revival.
Usually everyone is crying out to God together and with great fervour. There is
an intensity in the way people pray, a determination, a sense that the devil is
being overcome and the purposes of God are being established through the
prayer.

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)

Revival is also birthed out of prayer. Usually this is how the whole process
begins, as happened with the original believers. Jesus had promised He would
ask the Father to pour out the Holy Spirit when He returned to heaven. However,
the apostles and others did not simply sit around waiting for something to
happen, even though it was ten days before the promised Gift came.

They all joined together constantly in prayer. (Acts 1:14)

It was when they were together in prayer that suddenly the Spirit came upon
them and the ‘revival’ began with 3,000 being saved on the first day! NOT a bad
start! What did the new believers do? How did the newly formed church behave?

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to
the breaking of bread and to prayer. (Acts 2:42)

They ‘devoted’ themselves means they gave themselves wholeheartedly to
becoming men and women of the Word, to sharing their lives together, to setting
forth the complete victory of the cross in the breaking of bread; and to praying
together, (‘the prayers’ in the Greek).
We have seen how these are common marks of true revival today. If any of
these constituents are missing, then it is reasonable to question whether what is
taking place is truly revival. The fruit of these things, then, is the same today:

Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs
were done by the apostles. And the Lord added daily to their number those
who were being saved. (Acts 2:43-47)

They also cared for one another, meeting each other’s needs. This is
‘church’ as God intends it to be – an alternative society to the world in
which believers are to live out their lives in faith and loving obedience. For
believers are called to live and to demonstrate the life of God’s heavenly
Kingdom here on earth. And where the Kingdom is manifested there will be the
promised signs and wonders, miracles accompanying the preaching of the gospel
and being evidenced through the prayers of the believers.
 Jesus taught us to pray: ‘Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as
it is in heaven’. (Matt. 6:10) This is really a prayer for revival, for God’s will has
to be outworked in the Church before it can be demonstrated in the world.
Religious tradition is a great hindrance to revival. Conventional Christianity
has lost the reviving fire of the Holy Spirit. Yet not all is lost, for believers have
today the same inheritance in Christ as those first believers! They have the
same Holy Spirit, the same Christ willing to fill every part of their lives with
His Presence, power and love!
If we truly want revival then we will be willing to pray and let God begin the
process in us. Not prayer meetings asking God to send revival, but prayer that
comes from a heart — longing to be at one with the Lord, prepared to repent of
those things of self that fight against the working of His Spirit in our lives.
Prayer with faith that reaches out to take hold of our full inheritance in
Christ, while at the same time allowing Him to work in us the ‘brokenness’,
submission and humility we need. Prayer that leads to practical holiness and the
outworking of God’s will in our personal lives and corporately in the Body of
Christ.
God, the Holy Spirit, is eager and willing to enable such prayer. And
God the Father and the Son are eager and willing to answer such prayer!
The True Series:

The True Series comprises of the following titles:

TRUE AUTHORITY
TRUE CHURCH
TRUE COVENANT
TRUE DISCIPLES
TRUE FAITH
TRUE GOD
TRUE GRACE
TRUE HEALING
TRUE KINGDOM
TRUE LEADERSHIP
TRUE LIFE
TRUE LOVE
TRUE PEACE & JOY
TRUE PRAYER
TRUE PROMISES
TRUE REVIVAL
TRUE SALVATION
TRUE SONS
TRUE SPIRIT
TRUE WORSHIP

All these books by Colin Urquhart and a catalogue of other titles and
teaching materials can be obtained from:
Kingdom Faith Resources, Roffey Place, Old Crawley Road, Faygate,
Horsham, West Sussex RH12 4RU.
Telephone: 01293 854 600 | Email: resources@kingdomfaith.com