Saturday, April 17, 2010

Real revival real repentance real spiritual life

Interview with pastor Bill McLeod describing the genuine revival in his church in Saskatoon, Canada in 1971, making clear that consistent and persistent and lengthy prayer over a long time, years if necessary, is the price we have to pay if we want God to come and genuinely revive us spiritually.

One thing that was impressed on me by this message was the Lord's principle that he who has will be given more and he who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

This helps inspire me to be persistent in praying for revival. The more I pray the more I can expect to be able to pray, and even perhaps to be given the true gift of the spirit of prayer eventually.

This wasn't a stated part of pastor McLeod's message but it is implicit in what he described happening to himself and to his church. It happened with himself as he started out praying for revival for two hours in the morning and then the Lord increased the burden and he spent more and more time in prayer. It also happened with members of his church as the pastor came up with assignments for them to do to get them praying and after some time of doing that some of them started to find that they were praying spontaneously for longer and longer periods. It took five years of this before revival came.

And it came with melted hearts toward one another in love, brokenness, mended relationships, a sense of the immediate presence of the Lord convicting of sin, all of that bringing in more and more people as the Spirit Himself was doing the work and not human flesh. Genuine revival. Spirit-wrought revival. Far from being trumped up by the flesh, the flesh was killed that the Spirit might live and reign.