Revival doesn’t just happen. Of all the revivals I have read about, they all started with prayer. As you begin making preparations to meet with God in significant ways you must pledge to spend time in prayer. In this section I will offer several practical suggestions to help you personally prepare for revival. I will also suggest some things that can be done corporately to prepare for revival.
Personal Repentance
As you begin to prepare for revival you can start in the area of personal repentance. Are there areas in your life where you have strayed from the Lord or compromised your faith? If so, now is the time to put those things away and be renewed in your relationship with the Lord.
[Joel 2:12] states, “‘yet even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘Return to Me with all your heart and with fasting, weeping, and mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments. Now return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness and relenting of evil.” This is the time to return to the Lord as the prophet Joel said, “with all your heart”. Even if you have lived in the squalor of sin for a long time it is time to return to the Lord. He is gracious and compassionate. He is kind and has patiently suffered long with you. Today is the day to repent and turn from sin back to the loving embrace of God.
Another scripture you can pray through is [Ps. 139:23-24] “Search me, O God, know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
Take these days to remove anything and everything from your life that would keep you from experiencing God in a fresh way. Do not put this off or think of cherishing your sin over a fresh start with the Lord. Sin never satisfies. It only leaves us feeling ashamed and guilty. You have been declared righteous in Jesus Christ [II Cor 5:21]. It is time to live up to your destiny in Christ.
Solemn Assembly
There were times in the Old Testament when God’s people turned their backs on the Lord corporately and God called those people to corporate times of repentance. These times were called Solemn Assemblies. Few people today have even heard of them much less experienced one.
Several years ago the Lord led me to lead such a service at the church I served. It was extremely solemn. We looked at ourselves as a church and realized we had offended God by our actions and our attitudes. The church struggled for years with division, selfishness, un-Christ like attitudes in business meetings, gossip, slander, and much more. We started with prayer and the church body had the opportunity to repent of corporate sins.
From that night forward God turned that church around. The church quadrupled in attendance. People were saved. Relationships were restored. Business meetings were always started with prayer and people were civil in their treatment of one another.
I personally think the turnaround in that church happened the night we repented of our sins corporately. There was a night and day difference in that congregation from that night to this day.
Again the prophet Joel speaks to us, “Blow a trumpet in Zion. Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly. Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing infant. Let the bridegroom come out of his room and the bride out of her bridal chamber. Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, ‘Spare Your people O Lord, and do not make Your inheritance a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they among the people say, “Where is their God?”’ [Joel 2:15-17]
Prayer
If you really want to experience all that God has for you and your church you must set aside time to begin praying for God’s movement. This will be manifested in two different ways. First, you should pray for God to prepare the spiritual soil of people’s hearts to hear from Him. Many people today have resisted the Lord so long their hearts are like fallow ground. Please pray consistently for the Lord to break up the fallow ground so the seed of the Word of God can get in them to produce the fruit of repentance and revival.
A second thing that needs to be prayed for consistently is the names of lost people. Pray for God to save the lost. A prayer target will be in the prayer room where you put the entire name, the first name only, or the initials of persons you are burdened about their salvation. Over these days of preparation those names will be lifted to the Lord consistently by intercessors. You are encouraged to take a time to pray for those people without a relationship with the Lord.
There will be other opportunities to pray. Each Saturday night leading up to the revival you are encouraged to attend the Power Band prayer meetings. These are prayer meetings where the revival and the names of lost people will be lifted up between now and the start of the revival meetings.
Men are being encouraged to attend the Mighty Men of Prayer meetings on Friday mornings at 6:30 a.m. The primary focus of these prayer meetings is again to pray for God to move and bless with His presence and power at work in the lives of people.
Fasting
The scripture admonishes us to include fasting into our spiritual disciplines. Jesus commented on fasting in [Matt. 6:16-18]. “Whenever you fast, do not put on a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they neglect their appearance so that they will be noticed by men when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you fast anoint your head and wash your face so that your fasting will not be noticed by men, but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”
Let me define fasting for our purposes as the absence or denial of something with a spiritual goal in mind. Our goal obviously is that God would send a true revival to our community. You need to determine the level of your fast and not tell anyone. You can fast from whole meals, certain kinds of foods, from television, etc. One time I heard about a girl who fasted from texting for forty days.
To have a successful fast what you need to do is take the time you would have spent eating, watching television, playing video games, etc and use that time for additional prayer. Many people use the excuse they do not pray more because they lack the time. By fasting you will have more time to spend in prayer for revival.
A Few Last Words
These are just a few helpful suggestions that might aid you in your personal preparations for revival. Like I said these are only suggestions. The more you give yourself to preparation the greater chances you will meet with God in meaningful ways during these days of preparation as well as during the revival itself.
I now invite you to go on a forty day journey with the Lord. At times you will be challenged and at other times greatly encouraged. Before you begin this forty day journey won’t you take some time and ask the Lord to give you the endurance to finish? Please cry out to Him to make your heart tender and receptive to His Word. Ask the Lord about what type of fast He wants you to do and commit to do that. These will be exciting days and days of anticipation as the revival dates loom closer.
“Lord, I lift up my brothers and sisters who are about to embark on this forty-day journey with You. None of us knows what to expect. We only know You have called us to this and we are looking forward to meeting with You and being drawn closer to You. Holy Spirit, I ask You to convict us of sin and to reveal truth to us. I ask You to even now to begin working on the hearts of the lost and drawing them to Yourself. We need You. We expect to meet with You in meaningful ways, Lord Jesus. I ask You to give each pilgrim the will, the desire, and the discipline to finish this journey and give You their best efforts. We trust You for the amazing results that will follow. In Christ’s name, Amen.”
Matt Edwards
May 26, 2010
Seminole, TX
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