An expired passport found in a drawer, in need of renewal. A navy pair of bedroom slippers thrown in the trash after a year of use, too worn to restore. A beach house that needs to be rebuilt after weathering a hurricane. We will always be in a state or flux of revamping, rebooting, and reinventing our lives, our selves, and our surroundings. But will it ever stop?

John Eldredge wrote, “The renewal of all things is meant to be the center of our view of the world, our hopes, and our tangible expectations as we plan our lives going forward. The phrase bucket list comes from the expression “kick the bucket,” the day we give it all up. A bucket list means those things we hope to do before we die. Meaning, it’s now or never, baby. Bucket list mentality is very revealing and even more tragic, because it betrays our belief that this life really is our only chance.” (All Things New, pg. 50)

On the evening of Tuesday May 3, 2016 heart surgeon, Dr. James Zellner, was on a mission after he completed my open heart surgery. He got on the elevator and waited until it stopped on the lobby floor of Memorial Hospital. The doors opened and off he went, looking for my wife. He had some shocking news to share. When Zellner found her in the waiting room he said, “Your husband did not have three blockages, but five. If I didn’t bypass his diseased arteries with healthy ones from his right leg, there is no way in heaven anyone could have resuscitated him, if he had fallen over with a heart attack.” My bride cried, thankful for the divine repair.

The reoccurring message heard on all media outlets today is that our earth also needs repairing. And this side of heaven, another reason we need reviving spiritually as well as the earth, is because of what Paul wrote, from his book Romans,

“For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved.”  (22-24a, NLT, emphasis mine)

Wait a minute. Christians still…sin? Uh…yes. That’s why Paul described our longing to be released from sin–it was still an issue then and it’s still an issue now. And that is why, when I was a boy and a teenager, revival meetings were a thing in the local church back in the late Sixties and through the Seventies. Those services were for Christians–in need of spiritual rejuvenation and recharging.

But then those gatherings stopped, at least for the most part. Fast forward to the much talked about February 2023 revival on the campus of Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. The New York Times called it “Woodstock for Christians”. And in the movie world, The Jesus Revolution released to thousands of theatres on February 24, 2023. What is going on?

From watching the reports on Facebook and Instagram about the revival in Kentucky, one question popped in my mind: Can you replicate what the Spirt of God is doing in another part of the country by bringing it home, in hopes it also occurs here?

I think the tendency is to forget that real revival is 100% Holy-Spirit driven, no matter what man plans or desires. Well, how does the Spirit of God move? John responds, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (3:8, NIV) There is no formula.

But revival begins with you and me before the mass gatherings. Pray for revival for yourself first and then-this country. 2 Chronicles 7:14 provides more specifics: “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.” (NLT)

Maybe we need to be shocked to action, startled to repent, dumbstruck to change. Max Lucado sucker punches his readers in his book, Glory Days, “Imagine what would happen if a generation of Christians lived out of their inheritance. Men and women would turn off Internet porn.” (pg.22)

Why not pray for one or more of the following “re” words that speaks to you and your situation:

Renewal. Restore. Rebuild. Revamp. Revive. Repair. Reinvent. Rebirth. Regenerate. Rejuvenate. Recharge. Reevaluate. Resuscitate. Reboot. Rewire. Repent.

pics courtesy of pexels.com and “Nelson & his Nikon”

Click the picture/video below to watch “We are One” by Michael W. Smith from The Jesus Revolution-movie.