God is still moving
God has done it, and is still doing it. May he do it again, and do it in us.
This week my social media filled with reports about a chapel service at Asbury College in Kentucky. It started as a normal service like the many others they have held, but when it was over no one wanted to leave. It became clear that God was working amongst the students and worship continued for the rest of the day.
Since Wednesday the worship, confession, repentance, and more has continued for 5 straight days and nights. Others have been traveling there to be a part and are quickly caught up in what God is doing there. One person called it a “worship-based, Spirit-led, Scripture-fed prayer gathering. ” Go up to the search bar and search for “Asbury revival” and see the pictures, videos, and reports of what God is doing.
It’s been a long time since America has seen genuine revival, but one of the most recent times it happened was at Asbury College also. In 1970 the Jesus movement was fully underway but the revival at Asbury was gasoline to the fire. It happened much the same way, during a chapel service that led to 7 straight days of prayer and worship. Students from there went out in twos and shared about what happened and revival broke out wherever they went. God continued to move through that time for years, calling people to ministry who labored for Christ for decades after that.
History shows us that God works through revival like this. It’s not about lost people getting saved, although that happens. It’s about the believers in Christ being given new life and being “re-vived” and having an unusual experience of the presence of God. There are famous revivals like the first and second Great Awakenings or the Jesus Movement,, but history is full of great movements of God. The Welsh Revival where 100k were saved in a year, Azusa Street that launched a denomination, Hebrides, Shantung that started with missionaries on the field confessing sin, the Civil War, and The Pyongyang Great Revival. Many of the effects of these movements can still be seen today. I challenge you to pick one and read about it and began to pray for revival yourself.
It’s not clear what is going to come of these meetings in Asbury. But history does teach us that when God moves it always spreads. I’ve seen God move on a college campus and in a church, and I pray for it to happen again. I often pray for God to renew us, for revival to come in our church and town, and for God to bring people back to him.
God is still moving. May he do so among our churches this morning. I pray that when services end today that people don’t want to leave, want to keep worshiping and reading the Word. Pray today for the word of God to spread, and for the preacher not to just have wise and eloquent words but a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.
God has done it, and is doing it. May he do it again, and do it in us.