An Urgent Call for a Life-transforming Work of God
“Something seems to be missing.”
“We’re lacking something crucial.”
“It’s like there’s a big empty place waiting to be filled.”
As I connect with people from coast to coast I hear comments like these, and it’s happening much more frequently. There a growing yearning in many hearts for God to do a deep work of transformation.
Many are asking gently but pointedly, “What will it take to see revival in Canada?”
I share this longing for the missing piece to be fitted into place. My feelings aren’t prompted by nostalgia, but I do have a vivid memory of God moving in extraordinary ways. I remember the exuberant joy of people as we sensed God’s presence flood the sanctuary. I recall faces shining with expectation at prayer meetings, praise gatherings and worship services.
On several occasions in the years of my pastoral ministry, I was privileged to witness God’s power sweep over entire regions by his Holy Spirit. For weeks and weeks, people who barely had any connection to church would be swept into the Kingdom! Some would drive for more than an hour to attend meetings where the Good News of Jesus was proclaimed and where God was miraculously touching hundreds of lives. The people were eager to come to service. Those gathering of believers weren’t about being spectators at performances or concerts. People came to receive from God, and they did!
In one church where I pastored some 25 years ago, we experienced a revival so dramatic that the church sanctuary was filled with spiritually expectant people night after night for five consecutive weeks. All kinds of miracles took place and people from all walks of life gave their hearts to Jesus.
I am not being nostalgic about “the good old days of revival.” Not at all. As I think back to those extraordinary times I am most of all compelled to cry out, “Lord, do it again!” I keep yearning, thirsting, praying and expecting. It can, it should, it must happen again!
Revival is a familiar word in evangelical circles. The definition may vary somewhat depending on how one’s Christian experience has been shaped. But the common understanding is that in revival our hearts are so touched by the presence and love of God that our priorities change drastically.
Historically, revival is understood to be an awakening by the Holy Spirit among the professing believers in the church resulting in a deepening experience of God’s presence, holy living, a renewed vision and zeal for evangelism and missions, unbound generosity towards the work of the Lord and even social reform.
A survey of North American church history reveals that evangelism and missions are direct results of revival. Many of the religious and educational institutions we appreciate today were born from revivals, as is the missionary movement that continues to do God’s work around the world.
It is interesting to note that a constant characteristic of revival is the transformation of the Christian’s heart. In those special times, God’s agenda and purpose for the church supersedes all other plans and programs. His very own passion for people, the saved and the lost, begins to burn in our hearts and change the way we live and give and pray. The primary focus is on God, on His Word and on the people of the world He came to seek and to save.
O that we would see a genuine spiritual revival sweep across our nation! But what will it take? First of all, prayer always precedes a great move of God. Whether in one’s personal life, in a church, in a community, or on a national scale, when God opens eyes to see the glory of Christ, someone has been praying.
If you are among those who yearn to see God’s love and grace poured out on our nation, I can assure you that he has already begun a work—a work in you! As 20th century church historian J. Edwin Orr once said, “When God intends to do great things, he first sets his people a-praying.”
Is prayer the only prerequisite to revival? No. But it is an indispensable ingredient, for in prayer our desires are converted and we begin to yearn for those things that are on God’s heart—a renewed relationship with Him, a church ablaze with love for God and for the lost, a sowing of gospel seeds so that the earth may be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
I invite you, in fact I plead with you: Pray fervently and pray consistently for revival to come to Canada. Without it, we will continue to labour long and hard for very little fruit. And pray as well that the Lord would awaken many more Christians in our nation to the very need for prayer.
Beloved author and pastor A.W. Tozer once wrote, “Anything that God has ever done, he can do now. Anything that God has ever done for anyone, he can do for you. And anything that God has ever done anywhere, he can do here.”
Do you believe Tozer’s words? I do! I hope you do as well. May God awaken our hearts to the urgency of reaching the lost with the Gospel of salvation, now. Please consider these few lines a call to prayer for a national revival and a harvest of souls!
-Denys Blackmore