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The problem with religion is that it will never allow you live in the NOW of your salvation, but has you living off some past experience or looking forward to some vague future blessing! The Word of God is quite clear that everything has already been abundantly provided to enable us to live in Revival NOW!

2 Chronicles 7: 14 – 16 14 If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.

These verses begin with a very small word – IF. This is God speaking by the way – and God says “IF”. Some people don’t think that word is part of God’s vocabulary. After all, God is sovereign – and so surely God doesn’t have to use words like IF, surely God can do what He wants!

And so He can. But God in His sovereignty has sovereignly decided that in His dealings with man He is going to give man personal responsibility.

And so God has limited Himself in His dealings with man – He doesn’t do anything until man does something first! He does say something – but He doesn’t do anything. God has given man FAITH (Romans 12: 3) – faith which is activated through hearing and applying what God says.

When man begins to apply what God has said, then God acts.

Here in 2 Chronicles 7: 14 God uses this word “if”, and He says “IF My people who are called by My name” – He’s talking about His people – “IF My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray, and turn from their wicked ways, THEN I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” When? THEN! As soon as His people respond to His Word!

He goes on in verse 15 and 16, and He says “NOW” – “NOW My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For NOW I have chosen and sanctified (set apart) this house, that My name may be there FOREVER; and My eyes (My attention) and My heart (My concern) will be there PERPETUALLY.”

When something is perpetual it is there eternally; it lasts forever; it is CONTINUAL and UNINTERRUPTED!

Jesus said, “I will NEVER leave you, nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13: 5) – He was saying, “I will be with you perpetually!”

So if there is a problem with “revival” right now, the problem is not with God. God has not sovereignly decided to turn off the tap – to turn the flow on and off when He sovereignly feels like it! But He has left the ball very firmly in our court, and He has said, “IF My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray…”

So what has that produced? We have a lot of people chewing carpets – we have a lot of people slinging snot around – trying to “humble” themselves and get into a place where they can be worthy to receive the blessings of God.

But God said something else. He said, “You’ve got to turn from your wicked ways.” Repentance is a “turning” – it is a 180-degree turnaround. Repentance is about walking away from death and walking into life; it is about walking out of darkness and walking into light; it is about walking out from under the power and dominion of satan and walking into the kingdom of God; it is about walking out of sickness and walking into health; it is about walking out of bondage and oppression and walking into deliverance and freedom; it is about walking out of anxiety and walking into peace; it is about walking out of poverty and walking into prosperity; it is about walking out of fear and torment and walking into faith that works through love; it is about walking out of religious formality and walking into revival! When God says, “If My people will turn”, that is what He is talking about!

Romans 2: 4 says, “The goodness of God leads us to repentance.” The revelation of His goodness causes us to turn – to abandon the death and the darkness and to pursue His goodness!

And so when people stop their unbelieving thoughts and their “evil thinking” – their bad thoughts about the Lord – and instead begin to believe in the goodness of God and in the fullness of His provision, THEN we are really going to see something happen! Because God says, “Revival NOW!” He doesn’t say, “Revival in five years”, He doesn’t say, “Revival in ten years”, He doesn’t say, “Revival in forty years” – He says, “Revival NOW!” As soon as His people BELIEVE in His GOODNESS they walk into REVIVAL! And as long as they continue to believe in His goodness they continue to walk in revival! Perpetual revival!

“NOW”, He says, “My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.” What has happened? What has changed? The prayers have changed!

Hebrews 11: 6 says, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

In the first chapter of Romans we read of people who exchange the truth of God for a lie, and so are “filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful.”

What a list! Paul then goes on to say that although these people are aware of the righteous judgement of God, that those practising these things deserve to die, yet they continue to do them and also approve of others who do the same things!

As you move into Romans chapter two the spotlight turns toward the church – “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things…And do you think this, O man, you who judge those practising such things, and doing the same, that you will escape the judgement of God?”

For years I puzzled over this – does this mean that the church is full of homosexuals and sexually immoral people, etc? And so I sought revelation and wisdom from the Lord. He gave me the answer from the next verse of Romans chapter two – “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

What the Lord showed me was that we are inexcusable when we despise the riches of His goodness – when we reject His provision for sin, for sickness, for oppression, etc. That is when we fall into the same category as the homosexuals, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the deceivers, the backbiters, the haters of God. Psalm 14: 1 says, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’”. If we start to believe that God is not good all the time then we exchange the truth of God for a lie – that maybe He hasn’t made provision for all of our needs. When in the midst of a physical attack on our bodies we cry, “There is no healing for me,” what we are really saying is “There is no God who is good all the time!” – we are saying there is no God who heals the sick every time, all the time!

If we are in financial straits and we say, “There’s no help for me” what we are really saying is, “There is no God who supplies seed to the sower and bread to the eater, there is no God who has always provided for the righteous and has never left his seed to beg for bread!”

Some time ago I met a young man who said that he was involved in a new Bible study outreach called “Beggar’s Bread”. He said, “We are just beggars reaching out to other beggars.” An objection rose up in my spirit and so I said to him, “Excuse me, but that’s not right. If you are born again, then you are not a beggar – you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, and Psalm 37 verse 25 says, ‘I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread.’”

Later in the conversation with this young man who was a student and also worked a part time job, he rather excitedly reported that he could probably now qualify for Social Security. Now, praise the Lord for social security for those who would have nothing without it, but it is hardly a goal to be aspired to! And so another objection to this young man’s reasoning arose within my spirit. I said to him, “The reason that you can get excited about social security is because of the way you have been thinking of yourself as a beggar – you need to repent of that mindset and come into your inheritance as a child of God.”

I am relating this incident because the young man left our encounter with the words, “I think we will have to come up with a new name for our Bible study.” What happened here? There was a turning from “wicked ways” – from a “lie” to the truth of God’s goodness!

Jesus said that He was anointed to preach good news to the poor. Does that mean that He came alongside them and said, “Hey guys, look, I’m the Son of God and I’m poor too!” No! Jesus came to the poor and He ministered to them from His money bag, and then He shared with them the good news that they didn’t have to be poor anymore. He shared with them that they were on God’s heart – that God loved them, and had made provision for them.

It’s time to repent of our wicked ways – our despising and rejecting of God’s goodness! We need to repent of the fact that too often we are not a demonstration in the earth of the goodness of God – simply because we have exchanged the truth of God and of His goodness for a lie that says God is not good all the time!

We are talking about Revival NOW – God is the God of the NOW – He is the great I AM!

Let’s look at John 10: 10 – 11. The first part of verse 10 reveals the devil’s mission statement – he comes solely to steal, to kill, and to destroy. However, in the second part of verse 10 we have Jesus’ mission statement – He has come so that we may have life and have it more abundantly – a super-abundance, an excess, an overflow, a surplus, over and above, more than enough, profuse, extraordinary, more than sufficient LIFE! A never ending, continual, perpetual overflow of LIFE!

In verse 11 Jesus goes on to say, “I AM the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.” That is how we can have life. Jesus gave His life so that we could share in HIS LIFE! The life that we now enjoy is not the natural life that we had before we were born again – we now have a supernatural life, resurrection life. We died with Christ and have been raised again with Him to walk in newness of life – resurrection life!

Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” – Galatians 2: 20

Our new life is not inferior to our past life – it is superior!

Often we try and “humble ourselves” in the wrong way. We think of “humbling ourselves under the mighty hand of God” as grovelling in the dirt with a “worm” mentality. But the person who is truly humble is the one who is completely submitted to God’s will for their life – the person who thankfully and gratefully accepts who they are in Christ with all the privileges, and who walks in the abundance of God’s provision every day!

Sometimes people think that if they declare who they are in Christ they will become proud – but when the Bible says to “humble ourselves under God’s mighty hand” it means you can come boldly into the presence of God just as a child runs to his father! We don’t need to come to God on our bellies – God is BIGGER than us, and He is always going to be bigger than us – we can’t outgrow God! Anyone who attempts this will discover the same as lucifer did – that God resists the proud! Some folks are so proud of being “humble” that they never receive anything from God, but “God…gives grace to the humble.” Where do we get this grace?

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” – Hebrews 4: 16

We can never outgrow God – He will always be God and we will always be us! Very often in the Bible when you see people coming into the presence of God they fall on their faces. God is so awesome that falling down in His presence is a very natural reaction, but God doesn’t stand on their heads and rub their faces in the dirt just so that He can remind them of who He is – He says, “Get up!” or He lifts them up! Sometimes we thought that if we could just bury our faces in the carpet a bit deeper, then maybe, just maybe we could be acceptable to God. But God lifts us up – He says, “Get up – I want to pour My life into you, I want to bless you so that you can go into the world and be a blessing!”

It’s Revival NOW!

2 Chronicles 7: 15 says, “NOW My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.”

God said this at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple. But now, we no longer go to worship God in a temple building. According to 1 Corinthians 3: 9, 16 – 17 and 6: 19 – 20, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and so NOW God says, “My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place.”

Jesus said, “Whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” – Matthew 21: 22

He said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” – Luke 11: 9 – 10

He said, “Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name I will do it” – John 14: 13 – 14

He said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you…ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” – John 16: 23 – 24

The Holy Spirit has opened up a cry on the inside of us – Abba, Father!” How can we say that we don’t have Revival NOW? Only through unbelief! To “revive” means to “bring back to consciousness, or life” – how can we say that we need this when it has already been done!

“And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins…God who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” – Ephesians 2: 1, 4 – 6

How much more do we want? So much talk and energy that is expended in “praying for revival” is just a distraction – all we need to do is walk in who we already are! To pray for “revival” is a denial of what God has ALREADY done in Christ!

“We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” – Ephesians 2: 10

The works are already prepared – all we have to do is walk in them! These signs shall follow those who BELIEVE, those who GO into the world to preach the gospel – “They will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” – Mark 16: 17 – 18.

And the Lord works with them, confirming the word through the accompanying signs! Now that is REVIVAL! And it’s for NOW!

God says, “In this temple” – that’s you and me as we go about our daily lives, our family lives, in the workplace – God says, “My ears will be attentive to prayer made in this place.” If we will pray the prayer of faith – “God, Your Word says this – I believe Your Word is Your will – let Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!”

And God will reply, “Yes! All of My promises are in Christ yes, and in Him amen – and you are in Christ, so yes – and amen, let it be done according to My Word!”

Too often prayers have been hindered because we prayed wrong! We prayed, “IF it be your will…” – but God says, “Have you not read, have you not heard what My will is? My Word is My will – you can pray My Word!”

Some people don’t live by faith – they live by “if- faith”. God’s Word is settled – He has categorically stated, “My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips” – Psalm 89: 34.

Jesus said, “ Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word (rhema) that proceeds from the mouth of God” – Matthew 4: 4.

We have to learn that our life comes from hearing and applying the Word of God. The word rhema is used here in contrast to logos. Logos is the message; rhema is the communication of the message. Logos is the Bible in its entirety; rhema is a verse from the Bible. A good example of the distinction between logos and rhema is found in Ephesians 6: 17 – “Take…the sword of the Spirit which is the word (rhema) of God.” Here the reference is not to the Scripture as a whole, but to a particular portion which the believer wields as a sword in his time of need. We need to hear what God is saying to us in any given situation and act on it.

Then, and only then will we walk in revival NOW, and we will walk in it perpetually. Otherwise, we will be like a dog chasing his tail, or like Israel in the wilderness – wandering aimlessly for forty years, every so often passing the entrance to the Promised Land, but failing to enter in. God says, “If My people…will turn…THEN…”

When is THEN? NOW!

How long will NOW last? PERPETUALLY!

Be blessed as you walk in Revival NOW!