Five ways to experience personal revival
Contributed by Ed Baswell Thursday, 03 December 2009
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Do you wish to be an instrument in the hands of God? Do you want to see God's power at work through you? Do you long for your prayers to be answered? If you do, then the barrier of sin between you and God must be demolished and a lifestyle of holiness and love for God renewed.
If you are a Christian, you are pardoned and placed eternally in Christ. But, Christians often allow sin to clutter up their lives. To be restored, to experience personal revival, spiritual surgery must take place. In this column, I'm going to share with you five ways to experience personal revival and we're going to start with a passage of Scripture. "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear" (Isaiah 59:1-2).
The first step toward experiencing personal revival is to repent of every known sin. "Remember therefore from whence you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place--unless you repent" (Revelation 2:5). It is necessary to fully repent of all known sin against God. Get on your knees before Him and empty yourself before Him. Those sins that readily come to mind, repent of them, then ask God to bring to your mind sins that you commit that you may not even be aware of. You are seeking personal revival and one of the ways you are going to experience it is to forsake every known sin and ask God to reveal to you others sins in your life.
Step #2 on your way to personal revival is to forsake all questionable habits and activities. "For whatever is not from faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). What kinds of habits do you have that are sin? Are you in the habit of using foul language? Are you addicted to food or sex or drugs? Ask God to clean up your mouth. Ask Him to help you get free of a drug addiction. Ask Him to help you keep food and sex in the proper perspective.
Step #3 on your way to personal revival is to make right any wrongs between yourself and others. Do you need to apologize to someone in your family? There may be something between you and a family member that goes back many, many years. That may be the one thing, the one piece of business you need to take care of in order to experience personal revival. It's not even important any more who was right or who was wrong, it happened so long ago. In fact, you can't even remember the details of what happened any more. Isn't it time to make things right?
Step #4: commune with God in prayer and be personally instructed through His Word. I Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray without ceasing," and Psalm 119:107 says, "Revive me, O Lord, according to your word." How long has it been since you got away from everything and everyone and spent time with God in prayer? Maybe that's why you're not experiencing joy and satisfaction and fulfillment in your life. You've gotten to the point where you don't have a quiet time any more. You don't spend time in prayer and you rarely ever open your Bible during the week. Ask God to help you renew your commit to prayer and Bible reading.
Step #5 toward personal revival is to trust God to use you as his specially designed tool for revival in others. Once you've taken steps toward personal revival, you need to begin to focus on revival in others. Once you're where you need to be, then you must trust God to use you to bring revival into the lives of others. God can and will use you to make a difference in someone else's life.
I want to encourage you to review these five steps daily until your thinking conforms to holiness and your life is revived and useful. If you weaken in your desire and intensity for holiness, do not give up and return to a half-hearted, selfish life. Repent of your apathy and your lack of love for God. Holiness improves this life and the one to come.
Ed Baswell is a licensed and ordained minister and is the founder of Clarion Ministries, a teaching ministry designed to share Christ via the printed and spoken Word. http://www.nwlanews.com/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=17299 http://www.nwlanews.com Your home for news in Bossier and Webster Parishes Powered by Joomla! Generated: 9 April, 2011, 19:23
Bill McLeod also has an inspiring message on Personal Revival.
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