Revival

Race and Revival

/ JSB / 1 Comment

RACE and REVIVAL 

The Moravians stood shoulder to shoulder with native Americans during America’s first great awakening.

Evangelists and abolitionists marked the second great awakening.

Azusa, was led by a one-eyed black man, and embraced nearly every ethnicity on earth.

Like the very first “revival” recorded in Acts 2, all the great nation-wide revivals in America also ushered in grand, societal-shifts toward heaven’s value for race. 

The last bonafide, national revival we had was the Jesus People Movement of the late 60’s and 70’s. One of the reasons it was so pervasive was because it participated in the national humbling of the general populace re: our nation’s long history of racial sin, while casting a broad vision for the multiethnic culture America was becoming. The Spirit of the Lord touched all aspects of our society as a result.

Race was one of the chief issues that Jesus confronted through all four of the gospels. It was a perpetual component of the Acts of the apostles. It was an issue that was repeatedly addressed in the epistles. And it is a sparkling facet of the beauty of redeemed humanity in the book of Revelation.

To be racially tender (even toward Haitians, Afghanis, Central Americans, Canadians, Greenlanders, and Mexicans) is to make room for His Kingdom, even at the expense of our own kingdoms. To love with humility and empathy across convivial norms, and divisions is part of the warp and woof of what it means to be a New Testament Christian. It is to be like Jesus.

At the same time, the way of the devil is to ply self-justification, insensitivity, and a “look out for my own” mentality into communities. It is the way of antipathy, and the anti-cross. It plays on fear, rather than excelling at love. It is the anti-1Corinthians13 way. Neither does it value making oneself poor, meek, mournful, hungry for justice, peaceful, pure, or merciful. The way of the devil diminishes the distinctively deep, and wonderful elements of ethnicity. It is a form of “trashing family” as sure as sexual perversion, divorce and abortion.

With this in mind, with the callous, defensive, insular spirit that’s currently in vogue with so many of our MAGA evangelical leaders, I don’t believe we are “making a way” for the increased Presence of the Lord, and a modern, nation-wide revival. To the contrary – much of the neo-nationalist rhetoric seeks to shift our collective attitude in ways that grieve and militate against the Lord of the nations.

Racial celebration remains one of the most cherished elements marking great surges in Kingdom expansion. And right now, our ways are stained with indifference, unrepentance, and lack of compassion toward our neighbors’ racial wounds and inequities.

O, Father of glory! Give us a considerate, and contrite heart for Your magnificent design for race.

_____________________
JSB • June, 2025

Waking Up to Jesus

/ JSB / 1 Comment

In 1983 Leonard Ravenhill wrote: “There’s going to come an awakening. God Almighty doesn’t care if He sends America bankrupt. He doesn’t care if we have to stand in bread lines. He doesn’t care if our automobiles rust because we have no gasoline… The greatest impediment to this (awakening) will be a Church who refuses to give themselves to prayer and repentance.”

Awakening is a God thing. In our carnal, disengaged state we believers will sleep (and sleep and sleep…) It requires a supernatural response to the Word of the Lord for a soul to be awakened and remain awakened in Christ.

Awakening is also a Church thing. The world can’t wake up. Only those alive in Christ can wake up. The world is dead in their sins and trespasses. The New Testament call to wake up is to the covenant people of God who have had their souls dulled and weighed down by the paradigms, narratives and thinking of the flesh; thoughts that don’t stimulate faith, first-commandment love and the fear of the Lord in our hearts. This happens naturally in a fallen world, and at different times happens to all of us.

Waking up for a believer entails the same response to the Lord as being raised from the dead does for the unbeliever.

• Being Stirred by the Word of the Lord

• Responding with Repentance

• Being Filled with the Spirit

• Taking Up Our Cross

As the Church is awakened, she finds her Spirit-empowered voice:

A. The intercessory voice we use to bring the lost before the throne of God’s grace in prayer.

B. The prophetic voice that arrests the slumbering and those endangered by the crossless spirit of this age.

C. The evangelistic voice that makes clear the powerful message of the gospel, and has the power to raise the dead.

The fact of the matter is, these “voices” all have as their singular, magnificent obsession, a Man; a crucified, resurrected, Jewish God/Man. The declaration and acclamation of this beautiful Man is the ruling passion and preoccupation of awakened voices. EVERY TIME! EVERYTHING ELSE is a shadow, and an expendable extra to the increase of His glory.

Here’s the trick: (And in today’s politically supercharged culture it IS a trick) Don’t let someone (no matter how prominent and/or popular) wake you up to a SHADOW rather than THE ONE WHO is casting the shadow. Our waking up is to HIM – and nothing else; not political power; not deep spiritual insight; not even justice for the poor.

The Holy Spirit is wholly invested in waking us up to HIM. The Bride belongs to the Bridegroom. He’s the One (and the only One) you want to wake up to. There’s more than enough of Him to wake up to to keep us engaged and enthralled – for eternity.

The truth of the matter is, none of us are as “awakened” as we can be. In Christ, there’s always more to be awakened to. He’s that big.

The book of Revelation shows us how the mature apostle John was “awakened” to a new dimension of awe and fear and love for His “friend”, Jesus. Although John had watched Him heal the sick, feed thousands and refute the wisest teachers of his day; although John himself performed miracles in Jesus’ Name; although John was an eye-witness to His crucifixion – felt the earth-quake under his feet – and even walked into his Friend’s empty grave; when Revelation 1 happened to him John still fell “as though dead” at His feet.

There’s no shame in waking up to more of Jesus. Ever. The only shame is for us to assume that we are fully awake to Him and Who He is.

Come. Let’s let the Holy Spirit awaken us, all the more, to the glory of Who He is.

11 Do this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we first believed. 12 The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let’s rid ourselves of the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let’s behave properly as in the day… 14 (Let’s) put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 13:11-12,13,14)

JSB • May 2, 2022

POST-SCRIPT
Living revelation of the beauty of Jesus is THE vital (Matthew 25:3) oil our hearts need in this age. More than a call to believe the right theological truths about Jesus, this is a call to a lifestyle that cultivates an adoring, faithful heart, that’s been awakened to His beauty.

Without being saturated with revelations of the truth and majesty of Jesus, our hearts will be vulnerable to…

the compromising lies of demons,

the rage of humanism,

hostile self-determination,

self-insulating pride,

phobic suspicion,

idolatrous worship,

shame-filled pretense,

and incessant (hellish) condemnation.

These are the true, toxic threats to our culture; dynamics that plague every human heart; liberal, conservative, apolitical, monk, wealthy and poor…

And there’s only one solution: the daily application of the revelation of the Person of Jesus that engenders first-commandment love, and self-crucifying fidelity.

Not a better argument, a more popular opinion, or a more detached and objective spirit…

ONLY life-activated exhilaration over the magnificence of Jesus will keep our hearts alive and loyal to Him through this turbulent hour.