"If You Gather, He will Come", by Pastor Kevin Lynch

What's all the hub-bub about revival?

A lot of resources are used to study it, determine what it takes to accomplish it, who's responsible for it, what it looks like, even what it is for heaven's sake.

It seems to me that there are not many elements involved, but perhaps the one missing one, the one that might be the culprit that many miss during their assessments, the one "X" factor of revival is...

...the difficulty, or perhaps the downright inability, to get Christians gathered together and on the same page.

Acts 2:1 (KJV) - "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place."

We'll get them gathered (although there is more and more resistance to that), but will we get them in "one accord" (and no, I don't mean a Honda!)?

One accord means one united mindset. All thinking in the same direction. No one being uninterested, unconcerned, or lukewarm, but all in earnest and united in faith and prayer.

Pull that one off if you can today.

Well, that might be precisely the problem. WE can't pull it off. WE cannot (nor should not) engineer revival.

We can pray for revival, hope for revival, believe for revival, but it appears that before God will move on it He needs to see the one element in place that might be lacking, and that is Christians need to be united and dedicated to it.

No, it's not just saying "Hey come on guys, let's be really praying for revival!"

What could possibly constitute the level of unity where God responds from heaven and "SUDDENLY" drops the Holy Spirit into the midst of us?

Broken and contrite hearts. A heartfelt non-contrived, non-human engineered placebo, where God sees that the heart is broken and turned toward Him with violent expectation.

It took only ten days from when Jesus told them to "wait". They couldn't stand to wait. They couldn't stand to be without Jesus for one more second before God blessed them!

Why no revival? We don't REALLY want it bad enough. Saying we want it doesn't translate to God as REALLY wanting it.

God's waiting for the Church to finally break from its own pompous and self-grandizing entrepreneurial ego and see that it genuinely craves Him!

Then will He see it as a united broken heart that has one desire and one desire only: Jesus! We want to see Jesus! We want to experience every bit of Him and have God fill us through and through! We want to be changed!

Sweep us away from ourselves Lord. Send the mighty rushing wind of cleanness. Send the fire of purifying grace. Make us your Holy People.

That's a lot to want folks. Do you see how radical a change that is? It's a complete turnaround for even some of the finest Christians in our local churches.

It is so radical that few if any Christians will go to their graves having ever experienced anything close to that.

The proof of revival is not how many people you can entertain night after night for X amount of months. It's not how many videos or streaming simulcasts you can put on the web. It's not a stellar lineup of the "big guns" of the preaching circuit.

It's what is the condition of the church months and years after the dust settles. Are the people living holy lives pleasing to God? Have new churches been planted to accommodate all of the fruit of that revival which should always be nothing less than more souls for Christ? Have broken marriages been restored? People freed from addictions and fears?

Has God visited? Has He come and found obedience and fragmented hearts that just cannot survive one minute longer without His presence?

He will. When we truly have it at the utmost center of our desire. It just can't be faked.

Keepin' it Real,

Pastor Kevin <><