Ripe for Revival

I have severally stated that you can only revive what is dead. That is the actual meaning of revival; bringing something back to life. In Kiswahili it leaves no doubt. 

It is different from resuscitation which is helping someone that is almost dying from death. 

I have said again and again that it is a contradiction of terms to be speaking about a revival season when it is the living being revived. It is even worse when the living are demonstrating how alive they are when they talk about being revived. 

But today I feel I can confidently state that we are at the doors of revival. 

The other day, the National Council of Churches of Kenya strongly advised the government against opening places of worship for the fear of the spread of the virus. 

Now I want you to imagine hospital administrators standing at the gates of their hospitals to prevent people from getting in to prevent sickness getting into the hospital! 

Yet this is even worse. 

These senior clergy are for all pretenses supposed to be speaking for God. 

How can they say that God is scared of the virus, since that is what their announcement amounts to? 

What God are they talking about? 

And we are talking about spokesmen, since that is what their titles imply. 

What I see is that these spokesmen are speaking from the mortuary since to them God is incapable of taking care of His people when they are doing what He has commanded (Hebrews 10: 24, 25). 

Their God cannot heal as is His name. He has no power over nature since He really has no control over a simple virus. 

I can therefore confidently say that the church they represent is dead for all intents and purposes as it is completely different from the church we find when we read the Bible. 

Jesus said that the gates of hell will be unable to stay the growth and spread of the church. These supposed representatives of His are locking the gates of the church so that the virus does not kill it. 

Isn’t this the clearest evidence that we must have revival or we will get buried? 

And it is not only in Kenya that this is happening. 

Trump says that churches are an essential service and many church leaders call him reckless and uncaring. 

Yet we have no qualms boasting of being children of faith, even showing off that heritage to whoever cares to see.

The visible church is dead, completely so. We are practicing a religion that is so contrary to what we proclaim. 

I have used NCCK because they were on the media. Yet I know that many other Christian leaders were ably represented in that statement, the only exception being those who are crying for churches to open because its closure has killed their livelihood, which is not much different as ministry for them is a job.

We must be revived. We really have no other option as the people of faith.

But it is important to state something here. The dead stumps must be removed for new shoots to sprout. Dead cells must be scraped off for new life to flourish. 

God is raising a new leadership for His church to replace this deadwood.  

Incidentally that is something He always does in revivals and renewals. 

Remember he had to take Moses from Israel to lead Israel? Remember He had to take Joseph from Jacob to rescue them?

And why did Jesus not take His disciples from the spiritual leadership of that day? 

The reason is similar to what we see now.

At His birth do you remember they were the ones who knew where He would be found yet it was Herod who actually went to look for Him? 

Weren’t they the ones who always fought Him using the scriptures they knew instead of using them to discover Him? 

Isn’t this the same thing these cemetarians are doing in our days?

Revivalists must wake up.

 And as has been in history they will be people bathed in prayer and consecration. They must be people swimming in the scriptures and not interpretations. They must be people totally and absolutely submitted to God and His revelation.

 And of course it will be a new generation, a generation devoid of the fixation with past failures and successes, a generation that has no qualms with being fired or excommunicated from churches and ministries and jobs because they have touched Jesus.

And they will be young men in their thirties, probably a few in their forties whose fire nothing in all creation can quench.

What did God do when He needed the Gospel to get to the gentiles? He raised a young Jew raised in gentile lands.

But He used an older man to walk with him to keep him in greater focus, Barnabas. The same man who disappeared from the picture once his protégé was ‘complete’. Then he picked another one to raise, Mark. I won’t be surprised to hear that Barnabas was the one who nurtured the writing ministry in Paul since even Mark wrote.

I won’t mind if God will use me as a Barnabas to the firebrands He is raising. It is not surprising that He has for years been speaking to me about raising ministers and especially missionaries and that the volume has been growing these past months. And I know I am not alone.

Are you feeling that you will burn to death if God does not use you? Are you tired of all this wrong hype pretending to be spiritual maturity? Are you yearning to experience God as you read the Bible?

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