Live in Revival

Pastor Erik Meares

God is going to do something in the hearts of those who are really hungry and thirsty for Him. He is going to remove things that would keep people from living revival. A lot of people don’t understand revival. A revival is not a crowd of people. It is not signs, wonders, and miracles.  Revival is actually when your heart is totally in love and on fire with the Lord Jesus Christ. When you are in revival, you’re basically on fire for God.

 

Revival is not a sovereign move because God already sovereignly moved when Jesus went to the cross. God sovereignly moved on the day of Pentecost. God’s just looking for someone that would draw near to Him and let themselves be set ablaze with His fire.

 

In Mark 5:21-43, many people were actually thronging Jesus when He was on His way to Jairus’ house. They were touching and grabbing Jesus. But there was one woman whose touch was different. It was the touch of desperation. It was the touch of hunger. It was the touch of faith. When you come to a meeting where the Name of Jesus Christ is lifted up, you must always expect something to happen. Jesus said in Matthew 18:20“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” When Jesus is in the place, blessed are those who will hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.

 

Trust in the Lord

Thus says the Lord:

‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the Lord.
For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.

‘Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.’”

 

Jeremiah 17: 5- 7

 

How many believe that you can just be cursed? Many are afraid of all kinds of curses—generational curses, voodoo, witch doctors, and more.  But you should not believe this if you’re a born-again Christian. Colossians 1:13 says, “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” God is your Father. If you’re in Christ, you are Abraham’s seed. Whoever blessed Abraham was blessed, and whoever cursed him was cursed. So, if you believe in generational curses, it’s actually spiritual arrogance because you are neglecting the power of the blood of Jesus. You can’t do anything on top of the work of Christ. This kind of spiritual arrogance is what keeps real revival from coming.

 

Prayer is talking to your Heavenly Father. If you talked to your Heavenly Father more, you would have to talk to the devil a lot less. If you trust the flesh, your heart departs from the Living God. Have you ever met a Christian that said, “I’m just going through a wilderness experience,” but they’ve been there for many years? This tells you that they are in rebellion in the wilderness. These people were like the Israelites who did not believe that God gave them the Promised Land. Rather, they looked at natural things. When you don’t trust in God and your hope is in man, you’re looking at dry places.

 

Here’s what happens in the area of provision when people’s hearts are away from God:

 

Beware of the Leaven of the Pharisees and Herod

13 And He left them, and getting into the boat again, departed to the other side. 14 Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat. 15 Then He charged them, saying, “Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

16 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.”

17 But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, “Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? 18 Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?”

They said to Him, “Twelve.”

20 “Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?”

And they said, “Seven.”

21 So He said to them, “How is it you do not understand?”

Mark 8:13-21

 

There are so many Christians who are so bound by what’s in their hand.  God’s way is not lacking. He knows how much is in your cup, but He also decides that your cup’s going to run over. It’s going to be more than enough. When you look at what you have in the natural, you can never see the big picture. This can cause spiritual blindness and deafness. It will harden your heart. If God took care of people from Genesis all the way to Revelation, which is in the future, He’s going to take care of you. God is unchanging.

 

Want to know what God’s will for your life is? He wants His Kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven. There’s no poverty in Heaven. There’s no south side of Heaven. There’s no lack in Heaven. For the believer, God doesn’t have any lack planned for you. But if you only look at the problem, you won’t be able to see or hear spiritually. You will walk in fear like the rest of the world.

 

Bear Fruit in Your Life 

 

Let’s take a look at Mark 4:13:

And He said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?” 

And also Matthew 13:7-9:

 

“And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” 

 

If you focus on the cares of this world, you will not bear spiritual fruit in your life. It will choke out the care being provided for you. People who bear fruit are not people full of cares. They’re not people worried about finances. They’re not people worried about the environment. They’re not worried about anything because they trust in God. Those who are fruitful and planted on the good ground are those with an honest and good heart.

 

If you continue to trust in man and in the flesh, your heart is far away from God. You don’t have a good heart. This is why your heart is hard. This is why you don’t see spiritual fruit in your life. If you don’t get in your heart that God is your provider, you will be led astray with false doctrine in these last days. You will be swept away because when you understand spiritual things, you don’t understand them with your mind. God talks to your spirit. This opens you up to all kinds of false doctrine. Then, you will actually fight against the very one who preaches the Gospel of the Kingdom, who has set you free. You will become a Pharisee or a Sadducee.

 

Who is your master? 

 

You Cannot Serve God and Riches

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” 

Matthew 6:24

 

When you can’t believe that God would take care of you when you worry about provision, you have little faith. Don’t deceive yourself. When you worry about the economy, gasoline prices, and other things of this world, you have little faith. God reminds us in Matthew 6:33:

 

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” 

 

There was no lack or poverty until sin came into the earth. That’s the devil’s doing. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy. You are not supposed to worry about anything. You’re supposed to walk in faith. Faith comes by hearing Him by the Word of God (Romans 10:17).

 

You are supposed to seek God first. Not second, third, or after you’ve seen if you can afford something. Not after you got all your vacations or whatever you want. You should pursue the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first for all the things to be added unto you.

 

Do you know that in the Word of God, if a man doesn’t provide for his own household, the Bible says he’s worse than an infidel and he’s denied the faith (1 Timothy 5:8). If you want to know if someone is a good father, look at how they take care of their children. If you saw kids who were all raggedy looking and skinny walking around an apartment complex from door to door and asking for food, you’d want to know who their parents are. You’d think that the children are not being cared for.

 

Your Heavenly Father has a provision and an inheritance for you. A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children (Proverbs 13:22). God is good, and His children are going to be blessed. He knows everything that you need. And He will do exceedingly, abundantly above all that you could ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). If you seek first His Kingdom, all these things shall be added unto you.

 

If you haven’t had all the things added to you, seek the Kingdom of God first. When you wake up every day and say, “Today, I’m building the Kingdom of God when I work.” You are putting God before your own needs. You have to take the Word of God literally or else you will never walk in the fullness of what God has for you. God watches over His Word to perform it. He’s waiting for someone.

 

In life, we’re supposed to go from faith to faith, not from faith to little faith. We’re supposed to go from glory to glory, not from glory to fear. So when you worry, remember Habakkuk 2:4:

“Behold the proud,
His soul is not upright in him;
But the just shall live by his faith.” 

 

The just shall live by his faith. You don’t have to live by what’s going on in the world. You live by faith. The just are those who are justified with God, the righteous, those who are in Christ, in covenant with God. It says in Romans 1:17:

 

For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’”

 

When God says something twice, that’s a witness. That’s an established truth. Hebrews 11:6 says:

 

“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” 

 

Don’t trust in mammon. Don’t trust it when you can have true riches. How you deal with finances is how you will handle the anointing. That’s faith. When you focus on the Word of God and you say that’s the truth, faith rises. Choose to trust in God.

 

You can’t diligently seek God if you trust in man and in the arm of the flesh. Without faith, it is impossible for you to please God. Listen to God’s Word because those He loves, He disciplines. You can get to the place where you can actually please God.