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Spiritual Awakening

Three Aspects Of Revival

by Rhoda Gayle February 23, 2023

For the past few weeks, the Holy Spirit has been pouring out at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. As news and testimonies arise, many people started to wonder, is it revival? Pastor Jeff Simmons of Rolling Hill Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee shared his thoughts about revival to try to answer this question.

The president of Justice & Mercy International listed three things that describe what a revival is.

(2023). Asbury Revival [Photograph], Retrieved February 23, 2023, from: https://www.premierchristianity.com/opinion/asbury-is-a-new-move-of-god-and-gen-z-is-facilitating-it/14920.article

Revivals are for people of God

It occurs when God’s Spirit falls afresh to His people who truly seek Him in an intimate way. Revival is when the people of God are called back to His heart and it is often marked by worship, prayer, repentance, and confession.

Revivals spark a renewal of the heart

During revivals, there’s a renewal in hearts, churches, and communities. Because we live in a world surrounded by sins, we often get swayed by the cares of the world and drift away from the heart of God. However, God still pursues us with the power of His Holy Spirit. People are convicted of their sins and are brought back to God.

Revival is different from Spiritual Awakening

Though both in revival and spiritual awakening, people experience the incredible outpouring of the Holy Spirit, these events are different. Revivals happen in churches and in small gatherings for a short amount of time. Spiritual awakening impacts people who are far from God and it lasts for long periods of time. It is a movement of God that sweeps across an entire nation or the entire world.

Pastor Jeff believes that what is happening right now in Kentucky and other parts of the United States can be a great awakening. As people of the Lord, let us pray for a Spiritual Awakening to happen and for the fire of the Holy Spirit come into our hearts.

Reference: Jeff Simmons
Header Image: Garcia, Maggie [@pinkinsanity]. Asbury Revival in Auditorium. Facebook, photographed by Maggie Roblero Garcia, 15 Feb. 2023, http://bitly.ws/Ak3i

February 23, 2023 0 comment

Faith

Is California Set for A Massive Earthquake?

by Brian Taylor September 6, 2020

written by Brian Taylor

I’m quite certain, when you saw the title of this post, your immediate thought was that this is no shocker. For many in the California region, they are accustomed to thousands of earthquakes a year. In fact, according to the Unites States Geological Survey, California experiences approximately 10,000 earthquakes per year. Most are not felt and only about 15-20 of those exceed a magnitude of 4 or higher.

What kind of earthquake?

So, why ask the question of whether or not California is set for a massive earthquake? Haven’t there been countless predictions of the “big one” to come and throw California into the sea? Those may be the predictions that others have given. However, I have been feeling that a different type of earthquake is set to hit the California. Prophetically speaking, I believe that God is about to do something so profound and earthshaking, that it will be as an actual earthquake that shakes the land in and around California.

For the past few months, we’ve watched many of the challenges that have been faced in California as they were one of the earliest and hardest hit places by COVID-19. It has become a great hotbed politically, as many have had to deal with radical mandates and restrictions forced upon them in the name of health and safety. At one point, the restrictions seemed to be an attack against people of faith; Christians in particular.

If you have somehow found yourself under a rock or have chosen to avoid the news because all of it seems to be a nightmare of late, you may be unaware that there had been restrictions placed upon churches, where they were unable to gather and worship, or if they were allowed to gather, they could not sing or worship as would be customary. You may have seen the recent reports of some church leaders determined to not settle for these restrictions. At first, many chose to worship outdoors. Pastor John MacArthur and others took to the courts and sued.

I believe that this is just an early tremor to the great quake that is about to come. I believe that the quake and shaking that is coming is unlike anything that has been seen before. I believe that it will reverberate across not just California, but the entire country.

Spiritual Earthquake

In 1905-1915, California became the epicenter of a great shaking known as the Azusa Street Revival. It transformed many churches as they were reawakened to a Holy Spirit Pentecostal and Charismatic movement. In the1960’s through the 1970’s California once again became the site of another shaking. It was known as the Jesus Movement. This time, it was a move that gripped the hearts of many young people who had no previous experience or encountering with church but were in many ways gripped by a sense of being counter-culture.

I believe that these two events are precursors to a great shaking event that will occur, starting somewhere between 2020 and 2025. The shaking that I believe will not just be one of a move of the Church within the Church, but one of the Church and those outside of the Church who acknowledge a great counter-culture shift is needed that is reminiscent of the shift seen in the book of Acts where it was said, “Here are the ones who have turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6)!”

We can see clearly that Azusa was a shaking of fearless faithful men and women of faith to embrace the Holy Spirit. We can see the Jesus Movement awakened the hearts of many non-believer to find a savior that they did not previously know. I believe that this quake or shaking that is coming is a culture shift that will shift the spiritual fault lines of discord between the sacred and secular communities. I believe that a generation of earthshaking culture shifters are about to emerge to transform the landscape of the California region.

Sweeping Across The Nation

I believe that this shift will reverberate across the nation and beyond as it stirs the courage of many who are finding a wholly righteous indignation regarding the injustice that has been wrought. I believe that this stirring is not merely the revival style third great awakening that many have been proclaiming and awaiting, but the emergence of a greater reformation that has been needed for far too long.

Why California? It may be, that because California has been the place where such injustice and darkness has permeated for so long that God has determined that time for the light to break is upon us. It may be that those who have prayed for generations have finally resonated with a present generation and has stirred the ground. Whatever the case may be, I pray that we see this moment as one to press into and prepare.

Richard Ross Compares 1968’s Turmoil to 2020, Suggesting Revival Is Imminent

by Christa August 4, 2020

written by Christa

Richard Ross is the founder of True Love Waits and has been a minister to youth for 51 years. He talked with Christian Headlines for an interview and paralleled 1968’s turmoil to 2020’s. The Jesus Movement came out of 1968. We may be on the verge of a spiritual awakening today.

Richard Ross

Richard Ross

“The year 1968 was one of the most turbulent years of the 20th century. All that took place during my senior year in high school. And yet, that social upheaval became the soil out of which the Jesus Movement emerged,” Ross recalled. “Almost like time-lapse photography of a seed rapidly sprouting, this spiritual awakening among a young generation grew up practically overnight. An awakening that began on the west coast was visible across the nation by 1970.”

He added, “By 1969, I was attending a Bible college. But even there, many students met Jesus—and sometimes were baptized in the school fountain. It was an exuberant time, all focused on Jesus.”

1968 and 2020

Christian Headlines had Ross narrate the similarities of the experiences in 1968 and 2020.

“Both marked by protests that turned violent. In 1968, students led demonstrations continually to protest the war in Vietnam. Both years marked by a bitterly divisive presidential campaign. In 1968, the two parties were full of anger at each other.”

“1968 and 2020—both marked by upheaval related to racial injustice. In 1968, major riots occurred across the nation in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Both years marked by a young generation who felt ignored by older adults. In 1968, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy caused many of the young to feel as if they had lost their voice.”

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“1968 and 2020—both marked by the church reeling from the speed at which the culture turned away from God. Regarding 1968, some Christian historians have called that the year America spiritually died.”

Ross further shared that churches and spiritual leaders should be open to the fact that revival may start among the young. “I believe transformed adults do pray for revival. But they need to stay open to the possibility that the earliest moments of that revival might appear among the young—especially since that has been God’s patterns in the awakenings of history. I often quote Jonathan Edwards, the key figure in the First Great Awakening. He said, “And indeed it has commonly been so, when God has begun any great work for the revival of his church; he has taken the young people and has cast off the old and stiff-necked generation.”

August 4, 2020 0 comment

Articles

Greg Laurie Sees Spiritual Awakening Happening Thanks To Internet

by Christa April 23, 2020

written by Christa

Megachurch pastor Greg Laurie is seeing a spiritual awakening in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. And it is happening through the internet.

Greg Laurie takes Church online

Greg Laurie pastors at Harvest Christian Fellowship in California. The Church has been doing live stream services ever since the stay-at-home order began. 250,000 people watched the first online service. And attendance has continued to increase since then. They have had a 235% rise of participation compared to the first Sunday online service.

“These are people literally from all around the world, from every age and background, who are missing church,” he said. “To the best of our ability, we are bringing church to them.”

Just last Sunday, viewers of Laurie’s online service reached the millions.

What pleasantly surprised him most was the number of people giving their life to Jesus. He has seen 31,000 people respond to the invitation of committing their life to Jesus since the lockdown began.

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Utilizing every means for the expansion of Kingdom

Laurie wrote in Newsweek that many of the online attendees are millennials.

“For decades, the church has been trying, seemingly in vain, to reach America’s youngest generations – millennials and Generation Z – with the Gospel. All the while, we’ve seen headline after headline and pool after poll reminding us that church has been falling, and rapidly.”

“Enter a global pandemic. Could it be that simply by responding as best and as quickly as we could to something no one saw coming, we’ve unwittingly stumbled into part of God’s answer to a generational riddle?”

“Maybe it’s a new piece to an ever-evolving puzzle: how to say something old to a new audience. Just as Paul wrote letters, as Gutenberg used printing press and as Billy Graham used film and television,” he continued. “The church is called to engage the un-churched and under-churched, using whatever useful tools we have at our disposal.”

Laurie admits that he misses gathering with the Church and is hoping to be back with them in the near future.

“But in the meantime, while we are all still sheltering in place, we are seeing something take place that looks an awful lot to me like a spiritual awakening.”

Reference: Christian Today

April 23, 2020 0 comment