Rain Down Revival

Our dear friend Beth Moore, who will be speaking at the Awaken NOW Conference next week, shared these thoughts a few days ago on her website. I believe she has expressed very well the heart-cry of every concerned Christian and church leader. I pray we will soon witness the birth of the next Great Awakening – perhaps even next week! – James

Words blazed in my soul this morning with such force that I had to scramble to my feet to find paper. I’d prayed a few minutes earlier out on my front porch for true revival: for such a groundswell of souls saved that we’d have no earthly explanation, and for believers to be flooded by the Holy Spirit in such a way that our souls would be purified with a holy, selfless, unstoppable fervor. I have prayed those kinds of things before but this time I called upon the Lord with my whole heart to rip away this ceiling that seems to be over our heads. The Holy Spirit is moving with breathtaking force in parts of the world and in segments of the church. Why not among all of us? And why not now? We love Him, too!

So many of our pastors, leaders, evangelists, and teachers are crying out for it. We see glimpses of it. We feel it pressing on the walls of many of our churches. The paint is beginning to crack. We sense a change coming. The roof shifting. We know the sun of righteousness is rising on a different kind of day and the horizon beaming with a new shade of color on young and old, on rich and poor. On all who would let Him lift their chins despite their sins, for our redemption draws near. I feel the stirring of a fresh work of the Holy Spirit in my own congregation and sense that He’s ushering us step-by-step and person-by-person and Sunday-by-Sunday to a place of open-armed willingness for whatever He would give us. For many of us who have felt the breezes of revival stirring, we can’t often define how the Holy Spirit is working or explain the difference between one gathering and the next. All we know is that there are times when we are left to say, “Only God could do that.” We taste it. It’s on the tip of our tongues but our throats are still parched.  Our voices may be hoarse and our volume weak but, at the sound of His yes, the mute would find speech.

I cried out this morning for Him to remove the obstacles that hold us at bay on the damp edges of a mighty torrent of revival when, before us, is the deep. We have seen drops of rain but, if we’re willing to be honest, most of us know that we have not yet seen what the living Lord Jesus Christ is capable of doing when He has a mind to pour His Spirit out on millions and wreak the holy havoc of true revival (another Great Awakening) with innumerable souls. We have blamed our government and every secular institution possible when revival has ever remained a matter between God and His own people in the pages of Scripture. They are not our problem. We point fingers at our pastors when many of them have nearly broken their backs trying to drag us to revival. We hold worship leaders responsible for our own small worship and say that it must be the songs.

My heart burns with a sense that part of this ceiling over our heads is our demand that God must bring awakening and revival within our means, keep our rules, and respect our boundaries. If Christ is to do what He longs to do, we must relinquish all our expectations and formulas for revival. Lest we think we can’t leash a work He’s willing to perform, the words of Matthew 13:58 and Mark 6:5-6 won’t peel off the gospel page. We keep getting together and rehearsing for a revival He’s not yet fully attending. Why? Why does He wait?

I think one reason is that we are afraid for Him to do whatever it would take. We are scared of the uncertainty of revival (a real Awakening). We don’t trust God with the work of His own Spirit. He might embarrass us. Or make us change our minds. God won’t work contrary to His Word but many of us must admit that it is not His Word we are worried about Him working contrary to. We are worried about Him working contrary to our tastes. We are worried that He will not use our methods. I said we. I have done the same thing. I want Him to work in a way that makes me feel comfortable. But maybe a true outbreak of revival is not comfortable. I don’t know. I can’t say I’ve ever seen what I believe God may want to do in our day. Meanwhile, numerous gatherings of believers dwindle and die or rust for the sake of routine. Generations are falling away as revival clings to our doorposts. It’s there. It’s close. But why won’t it come on in? We feel it. We hunger for it. Why does it delay? Perhaps there are many reasons why revival waits and we could write more blog articles and list the possible hindrances and deliberate over them and mull over them and debate them and exert more and more energy while we have less and less time.

Or maybe we could say today,

Lord, if Your time is now – and it’s the only time countless millions have – remove the obstacles, whatever they are. Shove them out of the way and COME, Lord Jesus, with a torrential downpour of Your Holy Spirit.

I’m just looking for anyone out there who would be willing to echo a prayer something like this one. I bring it to you in humility, lacking much, wanting much. I do not wish to put words on any tongue detached from a heart. Vocabulary is meaningless without volition. If this is not you and if these sins are not yours and these aches find no place in your soul, you are not who I’m talking to. But this is me and I wondered if it might be anyone else, for where two or three are gathered in His Name, crying out for a cracked-open heaven, that ceiling that we feel shifting over our heads could shatter to our feet. I’m tired of giving God an inch and expecting a mile. I want to go with Him wherever He’s going.

Most glorious all-powerful, merciful God,

Your Son died for more than these. We thank You for what You’ve already done but we beg You to do infinitely more. Look upon this ailing planet, pulsing with the hopeless, helpless, the hiding and the dying. You have willed that people would not die in their sins but be saved and redeemed through Your Son, Jesus Christ. You promised that the Cross was big enough for us all, with stakes pointed northward, southward, eastward, westward, reaching everlasting arms to the ends of the earth. We know what Your Word says You can do and we confess to You that many of us have not yet seen it with our eyes but we feel it stirring in our souls. Hosanna, Lord! Save now!

We who are willing confess to you our sinful arrogance. We have prescribed to You by what means You, the solitary Healer, should heal souls and You have refused to sign Your Name to our prescriptions. We say to You this day, write Your Name across our sky and bring revival! Save by whatever means brings You glory. Bring it any way You like but bring it, Lord. We free You from using our methods. We free You from using our denominational names. We free You from using our buildings though we welcome You to them. We free You even from using us, though we cast ourselves before You at Your complete disposal and beg that You would. Use none of us. Use all of us. Use whatever people and whatever means honors You most but do it, Lord. Please do it!

We confess to You our appalling narcissism in asking You to mirror us. We confess to You our over-sophistication and snobbery. We confess to You that we are terrified of Your Holy Spirit. We confess our pathetic arrogance for having forbidden signs and wonders when there could be no greater sign and wonder than a tidal wave of salvation rolling on our dry banks. Oh, Jesus, that we would not leave You to marvel that You could do so few miracles among us because of our unbelief.

We repent this day for not trusting You with what revival (an Awakening) should look like. We repent this day from prioritizing our dignity over Your downpour. We confess to You that we have torn pages from our Bibles and handed them back to You and demanded that You work through what was left. We confess to You this day that the tent pegs of Scripture are vastly wider than our imaginations and our expectations.

Lord, if souls are saved by the thousands of thousands and millions of millions, we pledge to You this day that we will not, in our sectarianism, pick apart the process and reason how it was not legitimate. We are ready even if it’s messy. Even if, atop the beautiful feet carrying the good news, are bruised and broken bodies of willing evangelists.

Open Heaven. Rain down, Holy Spirit. We repent for having asked You to respect our boundaries. We bow now to Your boundless Spirit and make room over our lowered heads for You to fall upon us with power and might and a firestorm of Your great affection. You have loved us so. You have loved us well. Scar our hearts with Your Cross and love through us, Lord. Oh, Holy Spirit of the Living Christ, come without limit. We have known You were able but begged You to be willing. All the while, we have been disabled because we have been unwilling.

To what conceivable degree we could have held them in our hands, we turn the reins of revival (Awakening) back over to the Rider who is Faithful and True and we plead that You would not let them rest on the neck of that great horse but that You’d bid him run.

Whatever, Lord. Do what You want but do it now. Do it here. You have no peer. Make Your name glorious. Save now. We avail ourselves.

O God, I avail myself.

In the holy name of Christ our King. Amen.

Savior, Savior, Hear my humble cry;

While on others Thou art calling, do not pass me by.

 

Please pray for the answer to Beth’s heart cry to begin at the Awaken NOW Conference next week, July 18-20, at Gateway Church in Southlake. Pray for Beth Moore and all of the speakers to deliver God’s truth faithfully and fearlessly. – James Robison

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21 comments

  1. Tears stream down my cheeks as I utter this prayer to God from a heart that is longing to be a part of a great revival in our land. Deep calls to deep for the re-aligning of my own heart to submit to Holy Spirit having His way no matter how He chooses or what that looks like or what will be required of me ……..I feel it pressing the walls of my own heart…..the walls that need to come down so He can fully and freely come in…and fully and freely flow out this world in need .. Today I say it again Lord, remove the ceiling in my own mind and heart…that I might see the unseen and hear the unheard and be amazed like I never have before at Your redemptive love and power…….

  2. Dear Beth Moore,
    You are right on with your message that we need revival in the USA but also in Canada. I am praying your prayer for revival but I want to warn you of something! REVIVAL CAN BE MESSY! I believe that we are going to see such ann outpouring of the Holy Spirit that our present churches are going to be overflowing with newborn Christian converts!! They will come from the back streets, the highways and the byways. They won’t smell very good, either but can we turn them away??!! NO! We have to be ready to go asnywhere the Spirit directs us ..anywhere!! 45 bikers come to your church , smelling to high heaven . They are filthy but have been LED by the Holy Spirit. Do we stay away from them or do we greet them with the love of Jesus ??? This is what the Awakening of Souls will be like! We must humble ourselves before our Lord and say from our hearts, ” use me Lord in whatever way you desire from me.”
    Thank you Beth for stirring something deep down inside me that I have not prayed in many years . I will forwardyour message to many Christian believers !

  3. Bonnie Reddington

    Dan and I are praying with you for God to break thru our “heart -sicknesses” and bring the healing,refreshing,Holy Spirit
    upon all of us. I need it badly in my spirit. We are Christians, but we need reviving. At present, we are vacationing in
    Vermont(a very liberal state) and we find ourselves yearning for revival. We live in Texas, but try to come northeast
    for the hot summers we have in Texas. Know that our mighty,precious and all powerful Jesus will rain down buckets
    of revival on all of HIS church. Forgive me and all of us for our “indifference we have had as a nation. Come Lord Jesus
    and bring your people to a state of humbleness and repentence. We worship you O God and Heavenly Father and
    desire your intervention upon America and your people. Thank you for this awesome prayer. We’re in it with you and
    all of God’s saved people.
    Bonnie & Dan

  4. Very timely, I agree totally that we are thirsty and hunger for a ‘real’ move of God in the body of Christ. I stand in agreement with your call of revival. God bless!

  5. I stand in agreement with your prayer for revival. I want to share with you that I am attending a Holy Spirit Seminar at a church in my local area this week. Today 7-17 the Lord opened the flood gates over His people as we worshiped! A word was given that God sees that His people are spiritually dehydrated and it is time for us to spend time in His presence and drink. The order of the whole service was changed in a moment in the atmoshere of His glory. I do not know if you will see this before your conference begins but I just want to say…He has heard the crys of our hearts and He is answering! Go into your conference with expectancy! Have a glorious time in the Lord!
    Praise Him ..He is gracious..He is Holy..He is merciful..He is forgiving ..He is faithful…He is compassionate..He is full of lovingkindness..He is worthy…oh so worthy of all glory and honor…………..
    Thank you Father!

  6. Thanks you James for printing Beth’s prayer for revival. I pray that the Holy Spirit will totally have His way during the awakening conference from June 18-20. I pray for Beth Moore and all the other speakers that they will speak God’s truth both faithfully and fearlessly. As a result of this that revival will sweep right across America and all over the world.

    L.Agius (Sydney, Australia)

  7. The Holy Spirit is moving with breathtaking force in segments of the church? So allowing same sex marriage and the continued late-term abortions and we are to believe that things have had a positive result in the past five years? Hummmm, many of my God fearing friends and myself don’t see our preachers standing up for the Word of God in the pulpit.

  8. This is the cry of my heart. We will be at the conference. Come Lord Jesus. We need You.

  9. I add my prayer voice to Beth’s and I will be repeating this prayer for Revivial to begin first in our hearts and then in the hearts of many others. I have been praying daily for the Lord to open up the hearts of those who do not know Him for them to come to not only know who Jesus really is but to come to accept Him as their Lord and Savior. Lord, hear my cry and I join my voice with Beth and James and Betty Robison and all others who are praying and crying out for your Spirit to ran down on us.

  10. I have prayed so long for America’s great awakening. Sometimes all I can do is groan because I can’t find the words that my heart is feeling. Beth Moore has put my groans into words. Thank you, Beth.

  11. Amen and amen my sweet Momma in the faith!! Praying with you in Texas:)

  12. sylvia Englishman

    Amen.

  13. Beth, Thank you! This is our prayer as well. You are not alone. Come, Lord! Send Your Holy Spirit and Rain Down on us. We need revival in our country today. We need You no matter how You want to work. Expose sin! Save souls! Love through us! Grow us! Awaken us! Reveal Who You are to us! Glorify Your Name!

  14. Dear Beth,

    I was in tears crying out to the Lord in agreement with your prayer!

    Have a blessed conference and may the Lord pour out His spirit as in Isaiah 44: 1-5

    Cheree

  15. YES, LORD JESUS, LET IT BE SO!

  16. Sipra Raychaudhuri

    Dear Beth,
    I am in total agreement with you. I feel the stirring in my spirit. Come Lord Jesus come.
    May You be Glorified and Exalted in the Awaken Now Revival conference as the Holy Spirit guides us in the Most Majestic Way . Hallelujah !! Praise God. Amen.

  17. Great word

  18. “We feel it pressing on the walls of many of our churches. The paint is beginning to crack. We sense a change coming. The roof shifting. We know the sun of righteousness is rising on a different kind of day and the horizon beaming with a new shade of color on young and old, on rich and poor. On all who would let Him lift their chins despite their sins, for our redemption draws near. I feel the stirring of a fresh work of the Holy Spirit in my own congregation and sense that He’s ushering us step-by-step and person-by-person and Sunday-by-Sunday to a place of open-armed willingness for whatever He would give us”

    I promise you that I am so happy to see this article!! I have been feeling for months a change, but not sure what He wants me to do. No clear path yet! but this has made me sit up and take notice! I hope and pray that my church, our church, and its people can be used to help lead this revival!!!

  19. Thank you Beth for putting into words what I’ve felt in my heart and long for!

  20. Virginia Stewart

    James…

    THANK YOU FOR YOUR POST (:))

    May I print out a copy for my personal spirit to be able to pray with you?

    Thank you….

    Virginia Stewart