Desperation for Spiritual Revival & Reformation

Are You Desperate To Experience The Glory Of God?

Revival is no more and no less than returning whole-heartedly to your first love of Jesus. Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will obey me." As you let God's Spirit search your heart, this is a love test. The good thing about God's tests is that He never lets you fail them. He keeps giving them to you until you pass.

Obedience:

-- Is Jesus Lord of all, nothing challenging His rule in any area?

-- Do you desire holiness above all else? Do you fear the Lord?

-- Do you deal with sin quickly, confessing to God and to others?

-- Will you repent of & renounce often-confessed-but-not-forsaken sin that has a strong hold over you?

-- Will you obey in the smallest detail, completely, instantly, joyously?

-- Will you please God only and not seek to please people?

-- Will you yield to Jesus your greatest love?

-- Will you give up conformity to the world, even to the opinions of your best Christian friends?

-- Will you be identified with all God's children, if the cross of Jesus unites you?

-- Will you go anywhere, do anything, say anything, with anybody, anytime that God asks?

-- Is your answer, "Yes, Lord," to everything He requires?

Honesty and transparency:

-- Will you let God search your motives?

-- Will you be honest, transparent, open, vulnerable, and real before God and others?

-- Will you acknowledge your true spiritual condition, your spiritual bankruptcy, unemployment, and

destitution?

-- Will you let God reveal your hypocrisy and renounce giving any impression of being better than you

are? -- Are you willing to be seen failing? Will you receptively share your failures?

-- Are you dedicated to 100 percent of the truth 100 percent of the time? -- Are you willing to let your

thoughts be read by all?

-- Are you morally pure in thought and deed? Is there anything about you that you would not want to

be shouted from the housetop?

-- Are you unswervingly faithful to your spouse if you are married? Or to purity of your body as the

Temple of the Lord, if you are single?

-- Will you sing songs of commitment (like "I Surrender All") only if they are true, or choose

immediately to let God make them true in your life?

Self and pride:

-- Is your entire life on open palms to God?

-- Will you give up all trace of self and pride?

-- Will you choose total genuine humility, even when it means humiliation?

-- Do you turn away from the adequacy of self-strength and soul-power?

-- Will you repent from dead works?

-- Will you be totally dependent on God alone?

-- Will you surrender all rights?

-- Will you give up your right to be right?

-- Are you teachable? Be honest, are you teachable by anybody no matter how they look, what their

level of education, their church label, gender, color, position, title, status?

-- Will you submit yourself to and/or receive correction from anybody that God directs?

-- Are you willing to be rejected?

-- Are you willing to be misunderstood, to have no reputation without self-justification?

-- Will you give up blaming others, making excuses, pointing fingers?

-- Will you crucify your drive to control, so the Holy Spirit can control?

-- Are you dedicated to edify others instead of put them down?

-- Is there any Christian that you scorn or hold in disdain or mock?

Forgiveness:

-- Will you forgive everybody everything without exception?

-- Have you sought to be reconciled with everybody you have offended and everybody who has

offended you?

-- Will you make restitution in every area of dishonesty or wronging another?

-- Does everybody have a clean slate in your ledger with no keeping account of wrongs?

Dependence:

-- Will you put away confidence in anything you have trusted in according to the flesh?

-- Will you trust, rest in God, wait on Him regardless?

-- Are you grateful and thankful at heart, content in all things?

-- Right now do you have total peace based on the formula "God plus zero equals peace"?

Spiritual desperation:

-- Do you desire deeper intimacy with Jesus, more than any earthly intimacy?

-- Are you desperate about your prayerlessness?

-- Can God trust you to pray His powerful prayers for desperate people?

-- Are you desperate about your own powerlessness?

-- Do you want power with God for His glory alone?

-- Will you give up any ministry, any program, any group, any tradition if it adds to or subtracts from

the simplicity of devotion to Jesus?

-- Are you desperate about your lack of Bible reading?

-- Will you let God give you tears?

-- Will you count all things loss compared with Jesus?

-- Will you give up worthless TV watching, worthless reading, idle conversation?

-- Will you choose greater passion for God's word than for the latest gossip, sports, the telephone,

shopping, entertainment, even eating?

-- Are you sick of using God, His name, His power, to validate your own ends?

-- Are you sick of head-knowledge and a cold heart?

-- Could God entrust you with leadership in real revival? Could God entrust you with 1000, 100, even

10 spiritual babies for you to nurture to maturity?

-- Are you sick of unbelief, doubt, discouragement, defeat, aimlessness?

-- Will you stand steadfast in prayer, for years if necessary, to see God bring the harvest of His glory in

revival and spiritual awakening?

In his new book, Francis Frangipane says, "The most essential commodity for stimulating revival is a tender, open heart before God. Is the door of your heart opened toward God? Can the Spirit of Jesus Christ come in and speak with you? Can you sense both His pleasure and displeasure? For us to become sensitive to divine realities we must live with the door of our hearts open. It is impossible to do the will of God otherwise." (From The House of the Lord by Francis Frangipane, pg 19. © Copyright 1991.)

Meditate on John 14:23-15:16, and let these words of Jesus sink deeply into your spirit. He wants you to live out His glory in the here and now. Commit to pray, "Show me Your glory," until Jesus is revealed afresh to you and is formed in you. (From Prayer Portions by Sylvia Gunter)