Around the world, the Holy Spirit is placing within the hearts of believers a hunger to draw closer to the Lord.  Some have felt this since they read about a revival in America or abroad, while others have felt frustrated and dry in their Christian life, wondering if this is all there is to Christianity.  Many, while reading their Bibles, have wondered where the power has gone that was apparent in the book of Acts.  I have heard pastors say that they feel equipped with all the counseling skills needed for any crisis people ay face, and can talk with them about the Lord.  However, when they are in a hospital room, ministering to a patient who will die unless the Lord heals him, these pastors sense the lack of real power in their lives.

God has restored His power to the body of Christ several times in the last 150 years.  Many Christians are familiar with names like Kathryn Kuhlman, John G. Lake, Smith Wigglesworth, Maria Woodworth Etter, and John Alexander Dowie.  They were used by God to resuscitate His power in their generations.  But this generation has been void of real power.  There haven’t been any great movements or people that brought signs, wonders, and miracles to the forefront of both Christian and secular circles.

Because of this vacuum, we think it’s normal not to see deaf ears unstopped, sight restored to blinded eyes, and cancers or tumors disappearing under our hands on a regular basis.  We’ve grown so accustomed to the abnormal lack of power in our Christian lives and in the church, that when or if the “normal” shows up, we would think it strange.

What is personal revival?  Revive means to restore back to life, usefulness or effectiveness.  God’s standard for the church is to operate at the level of power displayed in the book of Acts.  The sick should be healed, the lame should walk, the blind should regain sight, the lost should be saved, and the oppressed should be delivered. This is normal.  To have nothing more than a few notable healings, salvations and deliverances is not.  (Read John 14:12.)

 Revival is God breathing life back into both the church and the individual.  He brings us back not only to the level that we were originally intended to function, but also back to a close, personal relationship with Him.  Jesus never needed revival and neither did the early church.  They were never lacking the full demonstration of the anointing.  However, the church today does not look like the church of two thousand years ago.  We need to be revived.

 There are two types of revival; one is corporate and involves the church and the lost in the surrounding community.  Most accounts focus on the corporate revival.  But there is another type that is just as important: personal revival.  Personal revival is different from corporate only in that it happens to you and not a group of  people.   It  brings you back to the manifest presence of the Spirit of God that was so evident in the book of Acts.

The disciples went into the cities, preached the kingdom of God was at hand, healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, raised the dead and cast out demons  (Matthew 10:7-8).  At times, whole households were saved and sometimes, entire cities turned to the Lord because of one miracle!  In Acts 9:34-35, the entire population of Lydda and Sharon were saved because of one man’s healing.

They didn’t just going to an altar and recite a prayer like many do on Sunday mornings.  These people went be-yond that.  They were added to the church and became a part of the work Jesus left them doing.  These first people who followed Jesus were called Christians because people saw them doing the same works that they had seen or heard Jesus doing.  They were the “Christ” people.

When you read the three-minute sermon Peter preached in Acts 2:14-36, you notice that immediately after he finished speaking the people cried out, “What shall we do?”  About three thousand people were saved that day.  That’s about a thousand people a minute!  Read the sermon for yourself.  It wasn’t that great or awe-inspiring.  It was Who was with Peter, igniting the words that came out of his mouth, which pierced the people’s hearts and brought about the conviction of sin.

You can speak the most eloquent sermons, but un-less you have the Holy Spirit igniting your words, you won’t produce lasting spiritual results.  People may agree with you, clap and shout “Amen!”  but  never  change.  The change takes the Spirit breathing over the words He placed in your mouth.   We need to be doing the gospel, not simply reading it.  However, to do the gospel, with power and anointing, we have to live it.

People, both in the church and in the world, need a touch from God.  Could you be the one to bring it?  You may never see a great revival in your city or in your church, but the Lord wants you to experience it personally, because with what you receive, you could impact hundreds of peo-ple in a very short time.
 
 

The man sat perched on his barstool, leaning forward, with his finger pointed at me.  He and I had been debating for almost fifteen minutes.  People around us had begun to notice us, which was no small feat considering the loud music and hundreds of other bar patrons talking around us.

It had all begun rather innocently.  He leaned over to me and asked if I wanted to dance.  I said, “No thank you,” and turned back around.  He continued to stand there and listen as my friend and I chatted about the latest new age phenomenon: channeling.

She and I talked about Shirley MacLaine, and a woman out west that was channeling an ancient spirit that would talk through her and give us “wisdom.”  It was extremely fascinating to me.  I had always had a huge appetite for the supernatural - unless it was about God.  I thought that anything dealing with God or the church was boring and lacked real power.

About this time, the man interrupted us and said, “The woman is not channeling an ancient spirit.”

“Man,” I thought, “this guy is rude and cocky!”  I said,  “You don’t know what you are talking about!   It  has not only been confirmed that this spirit is thousands of years old, but he proves it by accurately talking about things that happened centuries ago.  Can you explain that?  I don’t think so. He also tells people personal things about their lives that no one could have known.”

Interrupting me, he said, “I know all of that.  I’ve read the stories, too.  But I’m telling you it isn’t an ancient spirit.  It’s a demon.”

“A demon!”  I exclaimed.  This guy must be crazy to believe in demons.  They make for good sci-fi movies or novels, but not real life.  Obviously, he is not as “enlightened” as I am.   I turned my barstool around to face him and the debate was on!

I discovered he was a backslidden Christian who had been in a full gospel church for years.  He told me of testimonies he had heard from missionaries of miracles and healings they had seen God perform in the countries where they lived.  He shared some accounts he had read from books about evangelists like A. A. Allen and Smith Wigglesworth, and of the miracles they wrought by the power of God.

 He argued very convincingly for a long time.  Finally I asked him, “If God is so much more powerful than any other power there is available to man, why did you leave the church?”  He froze and his hair fell across his face as he hung his head in shame.

He never said why he had left the church and I didn’t think  about that incident much after that night.   My friend and I continued to try to find someone in Louisiana or close by that was channeling.  I had no idea my life was about to radically change.

It started one night, not long after the debate, when I went to bed.  It had been a long day and all I could think about was getting to sleep.  My mind never seemed to slow down and get quiet.  Gettingto sleep always seemed to take such a long time.  But on this particular night, I took a quick shower, went to bed and immediately fell asleep.  Then, I had a dream.

I saw a man with people sitting all around him.  They were listening to him speak.  I was about ten yards from them, and I couldn’t move any closer.  It was as if an invisible barrier was between us.

There was a glow that radiated from him and seemed to give light to the whole place.  Although I wanted to look at the people and surroundings, I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.  What struck me most about him was love.  There was so much pure love coming to me from him.  Then something deep inside of me said, “This is Jesus.”

Then, as suddenly as I had gone to sleep, I woke up.  It was morning already, although it felt like I hadn’t been asleep for more than ten minutes.  I got up and dressed, and thought about Jesus.  I drove to work, and thought about Jesus.  I talked with friends, and thought about Jesus.  Everywhere I went, I thought about Jesus.  I could not get Him out of my mind.  I wanted the love I had felt coming to me from Him.  I had wanted to be loved like that all my life, and suddenly it was there.

The day seemed to drag on eternally.  Finally, I got home and although it was only 6:00 p.m., I showered, got in bed and said my very first prayer.  With my eyes tightly shut, I said, “Ok  Jesus, let’s do that again.”   He spoke to me that night for the first time also.  He said, “I came to you; next time, you have to come to me.”

 It would take me another three months to under-stand what He meant by that.  I hadn’t been raised in church, and didn’t have any Christian friends to ask.  One night I was up late flipping through the TV channels and I came across a Christian channel.

The preacher was saying, “You’ve been looking for Jesus, haven’t you?”  Obviously, that caught my attention.  I listened as he explained the meaning of the cross and the plan of salvation.  It all seemed so simple.  Why had I never understood it before?  He invited anyone interested in coming into a relationship with the Lord to repent.  I went to my knees and began to pray from my heart.  Peace flooded my soul and the love I had felt that night in my dream filled the room.  I was changed!
 
 

Once I was born again, I hungered for all there was to this new life I had.  I began going to church and did everything the pastor told us to do.  When he preached on for-giving our enemies, I forgave everyone.  When he motivated us to evangelize, I went out to win the city!  It was so easy; Jesus had done so much for me that I wanted everyone to know about it and experience it personally.

 Over time, I grew in the Word and in prayer and I attained some wisdom to add to the zeal.  One day I received an invitation to speak at a church in Iowa.  I went and ministered, but nothing extraordinary happened.  Then, at the close of the service, the Lord spoke to my heart and told me to pray for the sick.

About one third of the congregation came forward and I began to pray.  When I had finished, a woman in the congregation came to tell me how excited she was.  She had been praying for a girl in the church and believed that she had just been healed.  The girl  had a disease that had caused her to have to have an ileostomy.  This is a procedure done when the bowels are not functioning correctly, and the doctors make an incision in the abdomen to create an opening through which the body can release waste into a small bag.

The girl was young - about 19 years old - and was in love with a boy in the church.  He was also very much in love with her.  He wanted to marry her, but she refused his proposals because she was embarrassed about the ileos-tomy, and didn’t want to be a burden to him.  He told her he wouldn’t marry anyone else, and if he had to be her boy-friend until they were both 75 years old, then that’s what he would do.  I thought that was endearing, and prayed that the healing was complete.

About 6 months later, I went to check my mail.   Mixed in with the junk mail and bills, there was a crisp, ivory envelope.  The return address was an address in Iowa.  Curious, I opened it and inside was a beautiful wedding invitation.  God had healed her, and they were getting mar-ried!  Although I was not able to attend the wedding, I was thankful they were finally able to marry.  There were other miracles that Jesus did that day and it transformed that en-tire congregation.  They became hungry for the daily, life-changing power of God.

One afternoon, several months after returning from Iowa, I was driving home.  I was about to turn left, when the Holy Spirit told me to turn right.  (Let me take a mo-ment to say this: immediate obedience can never be under-estimated.  There are times, like in this story, that if you hesitate or wait until later, you may miss a divine appointment.  When the Lord speaks to you, don’t question or try to reason it out in your mind.  Only obey His instructions.)

I turned right and He began giving me directions as I drove.  He didn’t tell me where to go from the start.  He gave  me  direction  as I was going.   Finally, about  twenty minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of a large apartment complex.  He led me to an apartment door and I knocked.

A frail voice responded to my knock and told me to come in.  I knocked again; hoping someone would come to the door.  Since no one living there knew me, I preferred being invited in.  But again, the voice urged me to come inside.  I opened the door and walked into the living room.

What I saw shocked me.  The living room furniture was gone and there was only a hospital bed, a TV, and a chair next to the bed.  There was a woman lying on the bed - her face was ashen and her eyes were dark.  The closer I got, the darker the room seemed to feel, even though several lights were on.

Fumbling for something to say, I said, “Hi, my name is Michelle.  I was told to come here and pray for you.”  She never did ask me who had asked me to come.  She hesitated for a moment, then nodded her head and I took her hand.  I had just begun to pray when I felt her pulling her hand from mine.  Looking up, I saw she was crying.

Without a word, she reached over to the other side of the bed and pulled a plastic bag from between the mat-tresses.  It was filled with various kinds of pills.  My gaze went from her, to the bag, and back to her again.  Quietly, in between sobs, she managed to get her story out.

“I don’t know why you came, but I was planning to commit suicide today.”

She had been diagnosed with Gardener’s Disease.  It grows inside your body like a vine, strangling the vital organs.  It is very rare and her doctors told her that no one had ever survived it before.

She went on to tell me about her two small children and what their lives were like.  She was a divorced woman and had no one who could help her in the house.  She couldn’t cook for the kids, carry them to bed, or drive them to school anymore.  As she continued to pour out her pain, she cried harder and harder.

Stopping her, I took her hand and said, “I have nothing to give to make you feel better right now.  But I do know someone you need to meet: Jesus.  He is the Savior, Healer, and Deliverer.  He is the One you need.”  I proceeded to tell her all that He had done in my life in the time I had been saved.

The more I talked, the calmer she became.  Hope seemed to enter the room and dispel the gross darkness.  Thirty minutes later, she gave her heart to the Lord and entered into the Kingdom of God.  I asked if I could pray a prayer of healing for her.  She agreed, so I prayed for her and left.

I visited her several times over the next couple of months, bringing her teaching tapes from church and helping her with the kids.  One day I knocked on the door, and there was no answer.  I continued knocking, until a neighbor came out and told me she had moved.  I didn’t know where she went and thought I’d never see her again.

Almost a year later, I went to visit my sister to see her new townhouse.  As I was leaving, I saw a face that looked familiar.  I paused and looked again at the woman.  Where had I seen her before?  She was walking down the sidewalk.  I drove over to her and got out of my car.  As she turned and looked at me, a small gasp escaped her lips.  She said, “Michelle?”

I was speechless and couldn’t move.  Breaking the silence, she said, “God healed me!”  We laughed, hugged, cried and thanked God together for an hour.  And she was not the only family member who was transformed; her two kids got involved in children’s church and gave their lives to the Lord as well.

He is so faithful!  Again, I want to stress the im-portance of obeying even the slightest prompting of the Spirit.  Even when it seems crazy…like driving around the city and going to an apartment to pray for someone.  We need to understand that God sees the full picture when we can only see a small brush stroke.

In showing me that signs, wonders and miracles are for today, the Lord created a hunger in me for it to be an everyday occurrence – both in my life and within the church.  We need to go back to His plan for our lives and live that life according to His design.  It’s time to begin to bear the fruit that Jesus bore.  Are you ready?