Jan 24 — Renewal Through Church Revival

Isaiah 58:8-9a — Then your light shall break forth like the morning,

Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you;

The glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’

Today we shift into our last theme for God’s Chosen Fast from Isaiah 58—renewal.  You could say that we’ve left the best ‘til last but that would not quite be right.  If everything we’ve done is to chase down renewal, or even revival, then we’ve missed the point of Isaiah 58.  We must not mistake the byproduct from the main product.  We are pursuing a relationship with God that is deep, honouring and transformative.  We are after God’s eye, not His hand.  We move from all that has been previously addressed to the “then,” the afterwards, the carry-through.

What is revival?  A history of revivals reveals a presence of God that is intense and intimate.  A presence that needs no propping up.  A presence that impacts the lives of all where God’s tangible presence is.  Revival begins with the church.  To “re-vive” something is to bring life to something that already had it.  A revived church has God’s life in abundance.

The promise of God in this passage is to have His light, healing, righteousness, glory and attention.  The light of God’s truth will burn away the darkness.  Healing will not be something that we pray continually for—it will arrive speedily.  His righteousness will literally be in others faces.  His glory will follow after us.  He will be so present with us that He will immediately hear us call out to Him.  What excitement to know that God has promised this revival!  How great it is to know God desires to dwell with His people in power.

Lord, we need Your revival but it can only be based on our having You.  Like Moses, we cannot settle for simply having angels and signs and wonders—we need You.  Lord, we embrace Your promise.  We know that You are bringing us into that promise and we will not settle for some nice piece of land on the wrong side of the Jordan.  Take us into the promise.

[Also meditate on: Ex. 33; Mk. 16:14-18; Jn. 17:20-23; 1 Cor. 2:1-5; 2 Cor. 3:4-11, 6:11-18; Gal. 3:1-6]