A Note to the Modern American Church

The shaking of the old order of things paves the way for the consuming fires of revival.

It is no coincidence that in the last year, so much has happened to shake us up as a country and as a global church. If you have been feeling disoriented, tired, confused, and unsure of what God is doing, you are not alone. But take heart. The shaking is foreshadowing of things to come: a new move of God that we have been ushering in with our prayers.

“What do you mean by that?” You may be asking. In some ways, it doesn’t seem to make any logical sense. Things look like they are getting more and more intense and it’s hard to know who to believe. Even prophetic leaders of the church can’t seem to get it right.

Let me share with you a few personal stories that makes me believe this with all my heart.

I have been contending for a Revival for the last 10 years of my life. I caught a glimpse of revival at the age of 13… Just one taste of it, and I wanted the whole world to experience the same freedom and intimacy that I was experiencing with the Lord. All throughout high school, when I was contending to see Revival happen specifically on my campus and throughout the region of Sacramento, I saw some crazy things take place. I saw the church I grew up in go from being fully against spiritual gifts to experiencing radical miracles and healings, talk of revival in the air. I saw my favorite worship band move to my region because they knew revival was coming to Sacramento. I saw churches in all the surrounding cities around me begin to come together for the purpose of seeing unity and Revival.

But as the years continued to drag on, I became more disappointed with what I was seeing around me. Though the local churches in my region began to talk more about how they WANTED a revival (definitely PROGRESS!), it always seems right outside our reach. Everyone had different ideas of what they thought revival was supposed to look like. People grew weary of the subject because none of their efforts seemed to have as much fruit as what they were expecting, and the hype started to die down to almost nothing over the next few years. I still continued to contend, but I lost sight of what I was praying for. What is revival anyway?

I’ll give you examples of what people define revival as:

1. Revival will come from the younger generation.

2. Revival will come out of homeless ministry.

3. Revival will come out of a prayer ministry.

4. Revival will come through worship.

5. Revival will come through racial reconciliation.

6. Revival will happen through the arts.

7. Revival will happen through a healing movement.

8. Revival will happen when people begin to get emotional healing.

9. Revival will happen when the church gets a big enough building to hold it.

10. Revival will happen when there’s a billion soul harvest and everyone is on the streets evangelizing.

I’m assuming you could probably add to the list. ALL of these things may be good things. But every time that I heard someone put their agenda on what revival looks like, something inside of me felt really off about it. I later realized that the problem that I’ve seen in my community, at least, is that we were putting God in a pigeon hole. We were telling Him the way that WE want Him to move. What’s worse was, nobody could fully agree on what exactly revival is. Likely, it is none of the things that we think, and all of them together at the same time. We can get so caught up in what we think is right that it turns into pride. Pride is sneaky, we don’t see it when it comes in, but the fruit of it is less intimacy and clear direction from the Lord, because “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6). It turns into the game of “Who’s ministry will get hit with the power of God next?” Instead of what it should be: What do you want, Lord? The problem with all of these major points is that each one puts all of the focus on the external fruit that CAN come from a Revival. And if I become too set on what fruit I want to see within revival, then I have lost the true meaning of it.

So what actually is revival? The definition of revive is this: "restore to life or consciousness”. Revival happens when our lives are restored back to the consciousness of the presence of God. Every soul has the same internal desire, we all crave the love that comes from God alone. It is His presence alone that sets us free; each of our agendas in revival don't have the power to do that. When one person’s heart is revived, it becomes contagious, because the very presence of God causes things within the heart to become right again! The fruit of that is healing in communities, mass surrender to the Lord, and powerful miracles.

The beauty of that is, no one ever arrives because God Himself cannot be contained. When we have had our soul’s fill, it makes us more hungry for Him. And there’s so much of Him that it’s impossible to find an end. There is no limit to how deep we can go into His heart. This causes the outward transformations that we each crave to see in the world, and as we can see right now, EVERY sphere of the world is in desperate need for the transformation of God. It MUST start internally, on a personal level, with the Lord. How does this relate to what we are going through right now in the world? If we aren’t aware of our need to be revived, we will just continue around our lives sleep walking. He is shaking us awake right now, and this time we will not be able to return to the old wineskin. The old way is being removed. This is the precedence of Revival. I want to share the story of the first vision I ever got. At the time, I was just learning what it meant to seek the face of God, and had just committed to spending at least a half hour with God a day praying and reading the Bible. I had a prayer meeting with a friend of mine once a week, and we caught the desire to intercede for revival. We didn’t know what the heck we were doing. I was only 14 years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. I closed my eyes, and I got a picture in my head like a movie being unveiled. In it, I saw a big dry field of tall blades of grass. A wind came, sweeping over the entire field and shook the blades of grass violently. Then, I saw God light a match, lighting just one side of the field on fire. Suddenly, the entire field quickly erupted in flames. Then, the Lord spoke to me. “This is Revival. I will use the wind to shake people to remove the sin and the grime that hold people back. Dictators of countries will even turn to me. Once the fire starts, it will not stop. It will spread rapidly across the entire world. And it all starts here, Karina.” I was filled with so much joy and excitement, I wanted to see it happen the next day! But in all honesty, I had no idea what each thing fully represented. I was confused why the wind came first in my vision, THEN the fire. What did those things even symbolize? Why didn't the wind carry the fire across the field? Why did it shake the blades of grass first? So much information was missing. Fast forward to two years ago. I was going through a time that felt much like what is happening to the whole world right now. I said yes to joining a ministry and was immediately plunged into a world of confusion. First, the Lord stripped away almost everything that I felt comfortable with- my job, friendships, a car, and even the things I thought I heard Him tell me. Then, the teachings that I was hearing during that time challenged my beliefs on a very personal level and made me question everything about the way that I heard God’s voice. It was one of the most depressing seasons of my life. (Let me clarify before I move forward: this ministry was NOT BSSM). But in that season, I was driven to find a rock and cling to it. I was desperate for something more solid than anything that I was feeling. I went to the Bible - reading it almost every day for hours at a time. And that’s when I stumbled upon a verse that made me realize what the Lord meant when He showed me that vision. (Context: He is talking about when God spoke to Moses and the Israelites on Mount Sinai - the fear of the Lord that it produced because His voice was so powerful it shook everything around it and the sky was filled with lightning and thunder) Hebrews 12:26-29 “At that time his voice SHOOK the earth, but now he has promised, 'Once more I will SHAKE not only the earth but also the heavens.’ The words ‘once more’ indicated THE REMOVING OF WHAT CAN BE SHAKEN- that is, created things- SO THAT WHAT CANNOT BE SHAKEN MAY REMAIN. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE.’” (Emphasis added) When I first read this, chills went down my spine. My vision from years prior flashed before my eyes and I made a connection that I had never made before. Though painful, all of the things that were shaking in my life were a precedence for the fire of God to come down in my life. I realized that there were things in my life that seemed like they were good, but they were actually not a part of His kingdom, so when my life felt shaken, that’s why everything felt so unstable. It was painful for Him to remove these things in my life, but it revealed to me what I truly needed: Him! I’m not saying that God wants to take everything away from us and make us suffer. That’s not the point of this. What I’m saying is, we will go through seasons where the Lord might remove things from our life that are actually holding us back, even the things we thought were good or from Him. This is not punishment from God. The Bible actually says we are blessed whenever the Lord disciplines us because it’s a sign that we are HIS. Funny enough, I believe the whole world is going through the same season right now. This is a rare occurrence in history when God is on the same subject with all of His bride. This actually excites me! Why? Because for the first time, everyone is becoming conscious of their need at the same exact time. It’s like the field that I saw in my vision. The wind is shaking ALL of us up. But take heart: nothing can be removed from His kingdom. That means that whatever is being removed from us right now is being revealed as not a part of that kingdom. Most of us don’t know what we are praying when we ask for the fire of God to come. IT’S SCARY! The fire of God BURNS. It hurts! It refines us! It burns off the things that are so easy to cling to. And the more pride we have in our heart about being right, the more it hurts. But that’s why He does it, not to hurt us, but to create a deeper dependency on Him. And dependency on the love of God is what the innermost part of our soul CRAVES more than anything we know. The shaking off of the old order paves the way for the fire of God.