REVIVAL IN YOUR HEART (1)

TOPIC: REVIVAL IN YOUR HEART (1)
TEXT: JUDGES 6:11-13
MEMORY VERSE: “And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the LORD shall rule over you.” – Judges 8:23

One thing that this issue of COVID-19 will do for as many as God calls His own is to spring up revival in their hearts. While leading a prayer meeting of 5 men recently, before now, these 5 men usually gathers every weekend to pray, equip ourselves and ask for God’s intervention in life, family, business and ministry; so I asked and said, with the Coronavirus outbreak ravaging now, if I raise a prayer point that God should change our stories, bless us with goodly cars or fulfills our heart desires, how many will pray the prayer, nobody signified because what matter to us all now as human beings is our lives. And I said, we have read about God in the Bible, but it is time to experience that God in reality. We have been preached to in churches about one invisible God who rules in the affairs of men whether He is real or not; this is the time we will know.

After 40years of peace in the land of Israel (Judges 5:31), the Israelites did evil in the sight of God as always and God punished them by allowing the Midianites to torment them up to the point that they threshed “wheat by winepress” to hide their harvests from their enemies. There was a man called, Gideon, the son of Joash the Abiezrite who threshed wheat by winepress at Oprah, the Angel of the Lord came and saluted him saying, “Hey, mighty man of valour, the Lord is with you.” Like many of us will react when our friends hailed us, “Chairman, money too much and you know that they are only teasing you”. Gideon said to the Angel, “Me, mighty man of valour threshing wheat by winepress? If the Lord is with me where is the God now? Where is the God that was preached to me, that my pastor said, He parted the red sea? If there is God, why am I suffering? Why are these calamities befalling us? Where is the God that was preached to me that He healed the sick, raised the dead? Where is the God of 1930 if truly the Lord is with us? If this is your situation, you are not alone, it happened to Gideon when he could not see the God that was preached to him.

We have found ourselves in the same situation like that of Gideon, many of us are asking if truly there is God why is Coronavirus ravaging the earth and killing people like this? Beloved, it is because God want to show Himself to you or to other people who wish to know this God. We are not desperate enough hence the reason why we are experiencing the less of God in our days. If believers are desperate enough, desire to know this God personally and stop the gimmicks in the church, we will see the God of the Bible and He will rule and act in our days. In our individual hearts, many of us are asking if Jesus Christ actually came to die for us because of the level of suffering in the land. It happened to Gideon, you are not alone.

In those days, men carried revival fire to church but today, we carry fire extinguishers along to church to extinguish the fire. Many thought they can contact the fire from the church, yes, it is possible, but the church is too crowded for the kind of revival God is expecting from us, there are mixed multitudes who quench revival fire in the church. If there will be meaningful revival, it will come from individuals, young or old who are ready to pay the price, not the one who goes to church because of fashion.

The Lord met with Gideon while alone; when others are sleeping, Gideon was busy threshing wheat by the winepress, this is the most difficult thing to do; ordinarily a farmer separate chaff from wheat on a plain ground and press vine in a shallow ground but in Gideon’s case, reverse is the case. The Lord met with Saul who later became Paul on the road to Damascus, Paul did not see Jesus physically during His days but he had an encounter with the resurrected Jesus. But look at what the life of Paul produced, Gideon that did not know God in Judges 6:11, by the time we get to Judges 8:23, he is now talking about God. This is strange. Your heart must be made up if truly you want to see God in your days. If there is going to be revival in our churches, communities and countries, it must first start from individual’s hearts.

“In those days, men carried revival fire to church but today, we carry fire extinguishers along to church to extinguish the fire.”

Central Truth