A Revival Movement Starts With One Person
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<The Lord said to Solomon,>“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”’ (2 Chronicles 7:14); ‘For this is what the high and exalted One says— He who lives forever, whose name is Holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.’ (Isaiah 57:15)
Ashbury University has been blessed by having two Spiritual revivals (in 1970 and in February 2023). However, they do not have a monopoly on such events. We find in 2 Chronicles 7:14 the Lord telling Solomon that revival can come anytime and can come within one person. While the ‘gist’ of the conversation holds that if a nation (in this case, Israel) seeks the Lord in humility and repents from sin, the Lord will forgive them and heal them and their nation, it is also true in a singular standpoint, per Isaiah 57:15 – if ‘My people’ is a party of one, and that one person calls upon the Lord in humility and repentance, God with forgive them and heal them, bringing them into the Family of God or restoring them from their sin if they were already in Fellowship.
We all – even Believers who have accepted Jesus – sin; often we are immediately convicted and repent on the spot by action of the Holy Spirit, sometimes it takes a Spiritual 2×4 to the head (think Nathan dropping a ‘truth bomb’ on David about his tryst with Bathsheba) to get repentance to occur. In either case, the one who is contrite or remorseful is usually one who has not been in tune with the Holy Spirit within them and needs personal revival by turning to the Lord to have Him ‘jump-start’ the Spirit and renew the energy the person once had for the Lord.
Our Spiritual ‘battery’ can drain, due to illness or events or general lethargy, and sometimes this will lead us into looking for solutions outside of the guidance of the Lord. However, when we come to realization that the solution is not one from man (or one we can self-generate) but must come from the Lord, we can then turn to the Lord and get that ‘jumpstart’ from Him by realizing He and He alone is the solution to our circumstances.
A revival of thousands, as is the case of Ashbury University, started with a revival of ‘one’, and when the one publicly acknowledged their personal revival, that triggered a chain reaction like a nuclear pile going into critical mass, and exploded into having others come to the realization they needed to step up and come back into alignment with Jesus, some coming to Him for the first time. This is what started the phenomenon at Ashbury University, led by the Spirit starting with ‘one’ and spreading to ‘many’.
Don’t wait for the public revival; every day we can re-energize our Spirit by ensuring we stay in tune with Him. Be the example to those around you, whether they are Christians or secularists. We need more revival of the Spirit, locally, regionally, nationally, and globally; be the spark!
