Holy Spirit Our Starting Point of Revival

Like the person floating on a raft in the ocean, without knowing it, they are drifting further and further away from the shore, we to can spiritually move farther and farther away from God. We don’t even notice it when we put ourselves on spiritual autopilot because we’re still going through the motions of “doing” our devotions, going to church, telling God our laundry lists of needs and lifting our hands in worship just to name a few, all done without any passion for the One who is to be worshipped. Only when we realize our worship has grown cold can we take the first step to revival. Over the next dew days we will be looking at how we can allow Holy Spirit to stir that smoldering coal back into a raging fire.

Today’s verse reminds us only God Himself through Holy Spirit can restore our passion for Him and our Savior Jesus. Which in turn restores the joy that only salvation can bring, because it reconciles us back into relationship with Abba Father. It takes us back to that moment when old things pass away and everything becomes new. When we know something happened deep inside us and life will never be the same again. The second part of this verse becomes very personal for it tells us it’s not about us holding on to Him, but that He is holding on to us. Although our love for God may have cooled, His love for us has never changed. All we have to do is get change our perspective by placing our focus back on Him. Notice it says we need to be willing to obey whatever He asks of us. When we understand that the Hebrew word for obey actually means to listen, to pay attention, to submit we realize that obeying isn’t blind following of rules, but rather an interactive relationship with Abba through His Son Jesus.

Personal revival then comes when we realize we stopped listening for direction, we no longer were given Him our attention and therefore couldn’t submit to His lead and went our own way. But praise God, in order for our relationship with Him to be restored all we have to do is ask Him to stir that passion and for Holy Spirit to fan it into an all consuming flame. May today be the day we ask the Lord to restore that burning passion for Him once again and set our hearts and souls on fire.