The Green Pastures

“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,” Acts 3:19-20

To start I’d like to talk a little about myself. I love music and even though it usually gets a bad rap I really like Christian music and church music. So as a fan of Christian and church music, I was Intrigued by the story of the Jesus revolution and the band “Love song” because I believe that most Christian music and at least church music stems from that band and that revival as a whole. The story of the Jesus revolution is a great story of an entire generation of lost souls seeking God. I love stories like that, generations that are tormented in their longing for a savior finding the one and only savior. Another great story of a more recent revival is the Asbury revival in February of 2023. That one was special cause it began as a normal service where the students decided to stay for 16 straight days of worshipping and praying. This one was on a much smaller scale to the Jesus revolution but it goes right along with it. Both of these were led by the youth. I don’t think we are done with youthful revivals anytime soon. I believe we are on the verge of a massive youth awakening that will put Christianity on the forefront of the culture. 

Turn and Dwell

These two verses show how we can get to that revival. Let’s look at that first verse. 

“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,” Acts 3:19

To have a revival we must be with God. To be with God means we must be constantly turning to Him with our sins. To repent is to pull a complete 180 and run to God. Give your sins to God and He will give His helper, the spirit. The Holy Spirit is the key to revival. Man’s own desires and passions are not going to cut it. As Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:3 “among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” We must turn in the passions of our flesh and desires of the flesh and mind to go from being children of wrath to be God’s children that have desires that are of God and gain the passion for reaching the lost.

So in recap, the first step to revival is to turn to God and dwell in Him. Now, lets look at the next verse. 

Replenishing and God

“That times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus.” Acts 3:20 

In life, God says in the first half of Isaiah 40:31 that even youths shall faint and grow weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. And in Genesis God tells Adam and Eve that they will feel pain and tiredness because of the fall. With that, there is a need of replenishing or said a different way, revival. In the second half of the Isaiah 40 verse it says that those who wait for the Lord shall renew strength. 

So, what do we know after all that? That we are a tiresome people that is in need of replenishing and that the place to find it is in Christ alone. We also know how to go about finding it is to fully turn from sin and sprint to God and staying in Him so He can dwell with and in us. 

Reset and Pursuit

How do we practically go about that in a expectant manner? First we must have hope. There must be an essence of belief when going to God. In Matthew theres multiple stories of Jesus saying “because of your faith/belief you are healed”. My favorite is the one with the centurion. Jesus offers to come to the centurion’s house but the centurion refuses, saying “Lord, I am not worthy to have you under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed”. Jesus’ response? He says that the centurion has great faith and heals the servant. All that being said, have hope and belief in God’s name and it will be done according to His will. 

Secondly, we need to be knowledgable. Meaning. We need to be in the word and in God. Reading the bible and praying to God is never a waste. How are we supposed to lead a generational revival if we aren’t continuously being revived ourselves?

With that, go and meditate in God, all while spreading His good word.