A Journey to Revival
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your heart, you double-minded… (James 4:8, NASB)
Personal revival and the corporate revival of the church body are two aspects of the same work of God’s Spirit. Today, especially in the West, we have an unusually strong leaning toward the individual, so much so that we fail to grasp the issues that connect the single Christian to the body of Christ. Without grasping the connection between these two we will have a distorted view of the movement of God.
The two extremes are represented by the ideas that revival is either one or the other, either completely personal or completely corporate. Bu true revival is always both. It always draws a connection between the individual believer and the church body, even to the point of considering the broader Christian family.
We must begin on a personal level. However, the first thing we must do is to open our hearts individually to God, to allow him to search us and to test us individually. There is a danger always inherent in too much of an emphasis in our minds on the spiritual problems of others. Any time the thought comes into our minds, “They have a spiritual problem,” we need to quickly fall on our knees before God to confess our own unworthiness, our own spiritual problem.
And we must especially do this if we think, “They (whoever, they are) have a problem but I (or we) do not.” The thing that we should fear more than any other problem is our own spiritual blindness to our own problems. It is, of course, quite possible that we are closer to God than others are, but it is also probable that others are nearer to God than we are. The point is that we should not focus on those who appear farther away than us, rather we should ask how can we become closer.
The danger of a false standard: In all of life measurements can only be correctly evaluated if there is a clear and correct standard. A “benchmark” is a standard that is recognized and understood to be the point of reference that other things can be compared to. In survey work, for example, a benchmark is a site of known and reliable elevation, a point of reference that may be used to identify the elevation of others.
In the Christian faith only Christ is the perfect standard and only He is the One to whom we can properly use to evaluate our own spiritual health.
When my children were small, they would sometimes come home having made a poor grade on a test. I confess it did not happen too often — they were all good students, and they are all grown now. But when they made a bad mark they would often reply that other students did worse than they did. My response was usually something like this, “Are you telling me that your standard is the worst students in the class, that if you think you are just a little better than them that is good enough?” I would then tell them that they needed to aim not to be a little better than the worst, but to be as good as the best, perhaps even better.
But this is a typical human reaction and it shows our pride — to take undue pride in a poor performance. In spiritual matters we may say, “We’re not so bad, after all we do many good things.” Amos wrote a word of warning to the complacent of Israel, “Woe to those who are at ease in Zion And to those who feel secure in the mountain of Samaria” (Amos 6:1). Paul wrote, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).
The people of God, when they are at their worst condition spiritually will typically take pride in themselves, even be critical of others, rather than confessing their own problems. To the church at Laodicea the risen Christ said:
Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.’ (Rev. 3:17–19)
The path of personal revival: Revival begins with the individual letting God convict him of his sins, of repenting from his failures, and letting the life of Christ be the standard against which he measures himself spiritually. The individual must be led by the Spirit to see himself and his life in relation to the life of Christ alone. He must remove from his view the lives of others. He must be very careful of the temptation to say, “I’m not so bad as others.” He must only see the life of Christ and ask himself how far he is from Christ’s perfect standard, and his perfect life.
Revival results in the capacity to help others. Revival does not end with us, nor is it usually only about our own souls being drawn to God afresh. Jesus said:
Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3–5)
