Do you want to be healed? 

Jesus met a man one day sitting by a pool known to have healing powers. It was said that an Angel would stir the water, and the first person to enter the water would be healed, so a large group of people waited around this pool all day, every day, for the water to be disturbed. This man, let’s call him Rick, came to this pool every day. Jesus, seeing Rick there, and knowing he’d been coming to this place for a long time, asked him, “Do you want to be made well?” Can you imagine, if you were Rick, who’d been coming here for a long time, being asked that question? If he were sarcastic, maybe he would have replied, You see where I’m at, right. It’s sorta like asking people who attend church every Sunday, “Do you want revival?” Perhaps you’d say, "Well I’m here aren't I.” The fact that people go to church each Sunday, and Rick to the pool, seem to imply the desire for what’s offered there. Why would anyone go to church every week if they weren’t interested in growing deeper in their faith? 

While I wish it was harder to find examples, there was a group called the Pharisees who went to synagogue (Old Testament church) every week, and in Matthew 23:13 Jesus said, ““Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.” They were like people who stop in a doorway to have a conversation, they’re just in the way. These religious leaders thought they were worshiping God, but they weren’t. They were going through the motions. Like Rick, they came to the edge of what had the power to save them, but they didn’t go in. 

Asking if Rick wanted to be made well, or a room full of people who come to Church every Sunday, if they want revival, is like asking people if they want to be successful? Who doesn’t want to succeed? Who would say no to that question? Unfortunately, what we say we want, and what we actually want, aren’t the same thing. If asked, people would say they want to be successful, and sincerely mean it, but how many of those people will make the necessary sacrifices needed to achieve their goal? Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father..” God isn’t interested in what we say, He’s in what we do. Jesus said a tree is known by its fruit, and He holds people to this same standard. Like those two children whose father asked them to come help in the field; one said I will go, but didn’t; the other said he wouldn’t go, but did, and Jesus asks, “which one did the will of his father?”

Saying we want something, and doing what’s necessary to achieve that goal are two different things. This is why the Bible warns against drawing near to God with our words, without examining what’s in our heart. We are called to watch our life and doctrine closely, because our actions, not our words, reveal our heart. Like Peter, we may think that we’re going to follow Jesus to the death,” but when faced with that decision we find that we choose to save ourselves. Life will reveal what our heart treasures most. Our spiritual reality will manifest itself in our physical life.

While I don’t believe a person can lose their salvation, because it can’t be earned, we do find these words of Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:2. “By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.” In the parable of the sower and the seed, only one in four produced fruit, but all four heard the truth. We’re not saved because we uttered a prayer in the past, or joined a church, or gave some money to a good cause. The only assurance of salvation is activity believing in Jesus Christ, and if we think we can believe in Jesus without following Him we should reread the words of James, “Faith without works is dead.” We are admonished in Philippians 2:12 to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. Our salvation isn’t something that we should take for granted. Our work is to focus on Jesus, examining our lives to ensure that what we say we believe, and how we respond to life are the same thing. 

As we walk through the trials of this life we will face circumstances in which we choose to deny Jesus. How do we deny Him? Sin is a transgression against the nature of God. We can dismiss sin as trivial; everyone is doing it, as unimportant, what difference does it make, or we can justify, minimize, and rationalize it. We can promise ourselves; this will be the last time, or whatever other nonsense we tell ourselves. So we go on denying Christ’s claim as Lord of our lives by doing our own thing, moving farther away from God. Romans 1:21 says, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”'

If we deny the light we the darkness grows larger.

The alternative to walking away from God is to feel remorse for denying Jesus, who suffered and died so that we could have light to follow. Do we love Jesus enough to turn away from the things He died to set us free from? We have to weep our own bitter tears of genuine repentance. We must choose to move toward Christ, taking up our cross and following him. The only alternative is to go back into the darkness that leads to death. If we stop short of following Christ we’re standing in the door. We can’t stand still. We either follow Christ onward, or fall into darkness.  We might keep attending church for fifty years, but if we don’t do what Jesus told us to do fifty years ago, we haven’t gone anywhere.

If we don’t believe that we can fall into a lukewarm faith, we have missed the warning to make our calling and election sure. Jesus warns that there will be many that say, look at everything we did for you Jesus, and he will say, get outta here, I never knew you. Receiving the crown of life requires us to be faithful unto death. This isn’t church attendance, or good works, it’s faithfully following the living God as He leads us through the wilderness of personal sanctification. We can attend church every Sunday without being faithful to God, without wanting more of God, without knowing God and walking with Him. We can gather to sing Him praise without our words coming from a heart that actually worships Him. 

The first time I went camping was with the Boy Scouts when I was twelve. We hiked a few miles to our campsite in a wooded area and set up our tents. I woke up the next morning freezing cold, and wet. I could hear the sound of large drops of rain striking my tent. I watched the shadow of the raindrop running down the rain cover. My tent wasn’t leaking. The rain had stopped, except for the large drops that gathered and fell intermittently from the trees overhead. My tent was in a slight depression and water had pooled up under me, soaking my sleeping bag. I unzipped it a little and when I felt the cold fall air on my wet body, I quickly zipped the soggy bag back up. I was cold, but I wasn’t that cold. I layed there for a long time, longer than I should have, knowing that I had dry clothes in my backpack, but also knowing how cold, and difficult, it would be to take off my wet clothes. Life was going to get worse before it got better. Temporarily, I was stuck, I knew what I needed to do. I knew I couldn’t stay where I was, but moving forward seemed worse than staying where I was.

Sometimes, we lay in our own dysfunction because it seems easier than changing. Fear can keep us from taking the step of faith that God requires of us. He calls us to walk by faith, not by sight. Is God convicting you of something that needs to change; a relationship, a habit, or some form of dependency, or addiction; but you can’t let go of it to do it God’s way, because it seems easier staying where you’re at, then it does to change. Maybe we can only see what we will lose, and what it will cost, but if we are going to hold onto Christ we have let go of all that holds us back from following Him.

We are on a journey of faith and there’s no standing still. There are no spectators in the church that God is building. God is leading us to a promised land, He is preparing us for Himself. We can’t get to the place God wants to take us if we’re standing in the door, afraid to take the next step. The social scientists say that, “people change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.” But I like how Samuel Chand says it. “The Father invites us to come into the light. But we’re reluctant. We resist the exposure because we’re afraid the guilt will be too much for us. This is the truth: we won’t ever fully come into the light until we are convinced that the pain of staying in the dark is worse than the fear of being exposed by the light.” 

So how painful does it have to get? How long do we have to lay in our wet sleeping bag before we say, I’ve had enough?  I don’t want to keep going this way because it’s never going to get better until I take that step of faith. We can lay there so long that we forget that we’re miserable, forget that we’re on a journey, and our complacency becomes normal. We keep going to church every Sunday, but spiritually we’re not going anywhere. We’re not growing, we’re not moving, we’re not a light in the darkness. The purpose of life isn’t to be comfortable, we are in a war, we are going through a crucible. 1 Peter 1:6-7 says “…for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” We are on a journey to another place, we are striving toward a goal of standing face to face with Jesus Christ. We are moving in anticipation of His coming, but If we aren’t careful, we can forget why we’re attending church, we can get comfortable in our discomfort, and when Jesus comes He won’t find the Church anticipating His return. It will be as it was in the days of Noah.

Taking the step of faith that God is calling you to take can appear to be more painful than staying where we are. Healing would have radically transformed Rick’s life; if he were healed he’d have to give up his routine, he’d have to get a job and provide for himself. He wouldn’t be able to hang out at the pool all day with all his friends. Is it more comfortable living the life we’re used to, then it is to give up our security and comfort, and step into the unknown? We like predictability. By repetition we learn to be self-reliant. Doing the same thing we’ve always done doesn’t require faith, it’s muscle memory. Doing what has always been done is just tradition. God doesn’t call us to follow traditions, he calls us to follow Him, the Living God. This requires faith. It requires us to trust God for the outcome. It requires us to believe that He is, and that He rewards us when we diligently seek Him. Was it easier for Rick to give up the hope of being made well, because a healed life seemed harder than what he had going on? He didn’t give up coming to the pool everyday, and he didn’t bring anyone to put him in the water. He was going through the motions of a hopeless endeavor, without any intention of changing, and seemed perfectly content to go on this way. He had settled into his routine. He had no expectations of being healed, but he kept going, because that was his life.

Change may mean leaving behind friends that you can’t imagine living without. If though those friends are holding you back from the journey God is calling you to, you can’t afford to stay. Peter tried to convince Jesus that He should never die, and Jesus said "get behind me Satan.” You will have loved ones, who out of genuine concern will try to convince you not to do whatever it is that God has told you to do. “A man's enemies will be those of his own household.” we’ve heard all the excuses people give; our situation is different, if we get married it will mess up our social security income. Yes, we can choose money over God, and keep on trying to save our own lives, but if we want to follow Jesus, we will have to do it His way. It’s not worth hearing Jesus say, I never knew you. If you want to know Jesus, you have to take up your cross and follow Him. The longer we stay in a place that God has called us out of, the longer we justify it, and rationalize it, the harder it will be to move on. We will become lukewarm, spiritually stagnant, dead churches. Stepping out in faith to follow Jesus comes at a cost, and we have to decide, “Is it worth it?” Is it worth everything, because that is what it costs. We must sell all that we own. We must be willing to die. Like Rick, we can keep showing up, without having any expectation of what God will do. We can go to church every Sunday, expecting what we experienced all the Sundays before, because we follow the traditions of men, instead of the Spirit of God. If we aren’t living by faith, we’ve chosen complacency. When all we expect is our past experience, we’ve stopped living in expectation of the power of God. We’ve become like those Pharisees, standing in the door.

Jesus asks Rick, “Do you want to be made well?” He responded by saying, “I have no one to put me in the water, so someone else always enters in ahead of me.” When we’re asked if we want revival, what’s our response? What’s the first thing that comes to mind?  Was it an excuse, or do we just say yes? Jesus tells us to  “let our yes be yes and our no be no. Anything more comes from the evil one.” It’s interesting that Rick didn’t just say “Yes.” But what did we say? Are there prerequisites that lay beyond our control? Sure  revival would be nice, but… Did we just say yes, without hesitation? Rick had an excuse. He had a reason, a justification, for why he couldn’t experience the supernatural work of God. Maybe, we think we aren’t good enough to deserve revival; I don’t pray enough, I don’t read my Bible enough, I don’t meditate enough. While these things are great, I can’t help but hearing the words of Paul to the Galatians; “who has bewitched you, that after beginning by faith you are now trying to earn it by works of the flesh?” Do our lives require faith? Do we justify the absence of God’s presence, power, and leading as the normal Christian experience? Rick sat within feet of what had the power to heal him, yet he believed—with his whole heart—that he would never be healed. He wasn’t even trying. Healing was for others, but not for him. He sat on the back row, believing God still performs miracles—for others. He said he lacked the human resources that he needed for healing. I’m sure we do this too; we look for flesh and blood to save us, but our battle isn’t with flesh and blood, we need the Spirit of the living God.

Do you want revival?

Revival is only available to the church. (Born again believers) If the world lies in darkness, it’s because the light of the church grows dim. The question before believers in Jesus Christ is, “What do you want?” If we want God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven, then we must choose His will above our own, take up our cross, and follow Him. If we want revival, we must stop chasing our own desires, an seek God’s will.

What is God’s will? 

The answer is found in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

““Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

If we aren’t doing these things we aren’t about our father’s business. 

If we aren’t doing things things we aren’t seeking God’s will for us.

If we aren’t doing these things, can we say that we want revival?

How it began

In 2017 I made a commitment to pray—every day—for revival, with my whole heart. This came about as I saw the state of the world around me, and I began to wonder how bad it could get. I also realized how unimportant the things I asked for were. I prayed for a good night's sleep, energy to face the next day, enough money to pay my bills. I prayed for God’s blessings on my life, which stemed from a general desire for ease, but is it God's will that we have an easy (Blessed) life? With all these thoughts swirling in my mind I began to ask God to give me a desire for revival, a real hunger and thirst for His kingdom, a burden for lost souls. What you are reading is an accounting of what is happening as I commit to seek God with my whole heart, and to ask God for the most important thing. 

I believe God will give us anything we ask for that is in line with his will,(1 John 5:14-15)  so I wondered why I neglect to ask for really big, and really important things? Why did it take so long for me to start praying for Him to pour out His Spirit, and to bring dead bones back to life? Why didn't I ask for important things? We can look at history and see that as a nation we are on a steady decline, moving farther and farther away from God. We know that living apart from God produces incredible pain, death, and destruction. Collectively, we stand together as the Church, at the gates of hell, to offer hope to those who need a doctor, but if we take our eyes off of Jesus we offer no more hope than those Pharisees that Jesus warned about standing in the door. They didn’t enter in, nor did they allow others to enter who were trying to. If we, the church, take our eyes off of Jesus, then we are the same as those Pharisees, and those that need hope and healing won’t find the light of life in the church. 

I wondered why it took me so long, but it's easy to forget we have an enemy who's always looking for a foothold in our lives. It's easy to forget that we are in the middle of an epic battle between good and evil, living under a curse, in a fallen world on the brink of destruction. In the last days, due to the increase of wickedness, the love of many will grow cold. That’s the destination we are heading towards. This world is always moving towards that end. It’s always cooling, and moving toward greater entropy, and from where we stand we can see how much time has passed. Perhaps we can look back and see the high point of our own civilization, as it embraced Christianity and walked in the light of the gospel, and mark the spot at which our decline began? Can we see how, at different periods in history, revivals have come and gone, and for a brief time the gospel preserved this rotting world?

The church is called to preserve the world, the way salt keeps meat from spoiling. We are to keep the world, around us, from rotting away. When salt loses its ability to preserve, it no longer holds back the rotting putrefaction, when the salt doesn’t do its job, it’s good for nothing, and this proof is found in the world around us. We are called to spur one another on, to love and good deeds, and all the more as we see the day approaching. This is my attempt to spur on the Church and remind her of our high calling. The only way the world will know God sent Jesus is by our love for one another. It’s up to us to display the power of God at work in us as we surrender to His call and the leading of the Holy Spirit. The older we get, the more we should see this day approaching, but sadly it will come upon many unaware. There is a hardness of heart, and a complacency that holds many captive in the darkness. As the world grows darker, and colder, we must understand that the light the world desperately needs must shines through the church; though you and me. If the world grows cold, is it because the church has taken its eyes off the prize. 

What’s most important?

I came to Christ in my mid 20s. I had grown up in church, and had believed in Jesus, but through my teen years I walked away. I re-surrendered to God at 24, after trying to find my own happiness. I had lived a life seeking what I thought would make me happy, but it only left me empty. After turning back to God I began praying diligently for a wife. It’s what I wanted above all else. It was my highest priority, it was the most important thing to me. I thought, if I had someone, I would be happy. I was still looking for happiness in, and through, other people. I was still looking for people to make me happy, and satisfy my needs, but I thought I was trying to do it according to God’s will. So, I prayed every day, pouring out all the desires of my heart to God. I pleaded with God, and daily reminded him that it’s not good for a man to be alone. I wrote daily in my journal as I prayed for my wife to be. Then, after almost two years of constant pleading—God spoke to me. 

‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭26‬ ‭ says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” 

The Spirit speaks to us through wordless groanings. It appears to me now that if I want to hear what God has to say… I must listen very carefully. I must be still. God is trying to communicate with us, but we’re hard headed, stiff necked, and dull of hearing. We want what we think is best and we believe God should do whatever we ask. One night, as I was praying for a wife, the Holy Spirit brought conviction to my heart through that wordless groaning. As I was praying, I heard, or sensed or something, that I should, "Start praying you will be a good husband.” After praying for almost two years God spoke to me, and his words cut like a knife through the wall of hypocrisy I had erected. Though I had completely surrendered my life to follow Jesus, I was still the same old me. I was a better version of myself, but still motivated by those old prideful desires. I was born again, but there was plenty of the old man left in me. The root of pride runs deep, and its uprooting is an arduous journey. Like Peter telling Jesus that he would never die, I couldn’t see how my desires, though good, were tempered by the pride of Satan. Though I was following God and seeking his will, I was still looking for what I could receive, instead of what I could give. I knew that, “it’s more blessed to give than it is to receive” but I didn’t see that in my desires. I wanted a wife, because I thought that would make me happy. As of that moment, I started praying about what I could offer a wife, and I learned a valuable lesson about prayer. We should pray until we get an answer, until we hear clearly the groanings of the Spirit. 

God wants to give us the desires of our hearts, but we must not ask for things to consume for our own pleasure. (James 4:3) Jesus wouldn’t turn stone to bread to satisfy his own hunger and neither should we. Using God's power to satisfy our own desire is following Satan, not Christ. But, If we continue to pray, even if it’s to satisfy our own desires, God will reveal this to us. So we should pray, without ceasing, for whatever our heart desires, and if our motivation is wrong God will show us. This is evidence that we walk with God. He doesn’t tell us what we want to hear, he tells us what we need to hear. 

As of 2023 I’ve been married for 17 years, and I’m turning 50 this year. Getting older has led me to think about how I spend my time, and if I’m focusing on what’s most important. I remembered how diligently I had prayed for a wife (a good thing in and of itself) and how God had answered that prayer (as selfish as it was). Surely there was something bigger, better, and more important, that I should be diligently seeking through committed prayer. ‭‭John‬ ‭14‬:‭13‬-‭14‬ ‭says “ …I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” How can we take such a great promise for granted? How could I, some day, arrive in His heavenly kingdom with having only asked for a good night's sleep? Do we ask for things of eternal value? Do our prayers refect that we truly understand our present situation, as God says it is?

Of course I pray for my kids, my church, the sick and lost, but is there something better to pray for? What is the best, and highest, thing that I could ask for? Solomon had been told to ask for anything and he was praised by God because he asked for wisdom. Surely we need wisdom to know what we should ask for. Is there anything higher or greater than wisdom? I wonder if I had prayed for wisdom, instead of praying for a wife, would I have arrived at the same end, but sooner? However, in my selfish desire, God still gave me wisdom. ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭8‬ says, “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” Had I been operating from love, my desire for a wife would lead me first to pray for what I could give, rather than what I would receive.

After much thought, prayer, and meditation I landed on revival. The world is a mess and it only seems to be getting worse. The only thing that can save this world is the reviving, life giving, Spirit of God. Do we have not, because we ask not? (James 2:2) I’m shocked at the level of blindness of heart within me. Though I prayed for a wife for years, I had hardly ever prayed for anything of real importance...and I didn't realy desire the way I had desired a wife.  By that I mean, praying for something that benefits others, the same way I pray for my greatest desire. Maybe I prayed sporadically at best, but not with that same commitment, and fever, I had when it was something I wanted. I wonder if we are so used to living in moral failure that we don’t believe spiritual renewal is possible, or having never seen it we aren't aware of what can exist. It’s easy to think this world will never change, that people will never change, because thats our experience, but we fail to see that we are judged by our own beliefs. (Matt 7:2) Are we so defeated that we fail to see the keys to the kingdom are in our hands, that whatever we bind here is bound in heaven, and what ever we lose here is losed in heaven? Do we forget that the key which can open any door hangs around our neck? 

Love does not think about what others can do for it, love only thinks about what it can give. All God has ever done is give! He is a spring of living water that wants to well up within us, and overflow us, that we may be a blessing to others. Only people who have the Spirit of God can give, because they have what never runs out. The more we give of ourselves to the world around us, the more we experience God pouring into us and working through us. Does our attitude align with Love's sovereign rule? I didn’t see it until God opened my eyes, and still I didn’t realize the full scope of it. We see through a glass darkly. Our own pride dims our sight, and colors our perceptions. We must see if the light that is in us is darkness, how great is that darkness? It is The Holy Spirit that illuminates the thoughts and intent of the heart, so we must turn to him. We must see how we are being illuminated by His Spirit.

After many months of praying for revival, God intervened in my view of the world. I thought the world needed revival, because it was so dark, but where would the world find the light that brings revival if it doesn’t shine through the church? I realized, slower than I should have, that I needed to pray for my own revival, and the revival of the Church. The world has no light except that which shines out of the church. If the church loses its light, it is not because the world took it away. No one can take it from us, but we can quench the Spirit, we can forfeit our inheritance, we can choose to walk in darkness. 

If there is to be revival it must come from those who have the Spirit of God living in them. Again, I was looking for God to give me something that would make my life better, instead of thinking about what I could give to him, to make the world better. God so loved the world that he gave his only son. If we will have Jesus, we must take up our cross and follow him. There is no greater love than this, that we give our lives for our friends. Who, and or what, are we dying for? Is it our own happiness and pleasures, or do we lay down our lives for the joy set before us, to see many sons and daughters brought into the kingdom of heaven? 

Judgment must begin in the Church—the Lord’s house—because the carnal mind cannot comprehend the things of God. We want those who can’t see nor hear God to come to Him, but the only way that will happen is if they see Him in us. Those who hear his voice must make the choice, and the effort to enter in. Jesus is the door that is open before us. He says, today, if we hear his voice, and don’t harden our hearts, we can enter. If we stand complacently in the door, not entering in, then we hinder others from coming in, and we’re just in the way. Revival is not for the world, it’s for the Church. As I continued to pray I came to realize that there’s nothing I can do to change the world, or the church, I can only change me. As I looked at my first love, I heard him saying, go back and do the things that you did at first.

In John 5:6 Jesus meets a man sitting by a pool, known to have healing properties. It was believed that an Angel would stir the water, and the first person to enter the water would be healed. At some point this man heard about this place, and made arangments to be brought there every day. At this point he had been coming there for 38 years! Jesus, seeing him there, knowing he’d been in this place for a long time, asked him, “Do you want to be made well?” Can you imagine being asked this question? It’s like asking a room full of Christians, who are attending the church service, “Do you want revival?” It seems like an incredulous question. The question implies that we may come within feet of what has the power to heal us, and then stop there. 

Why would we come to church every Sunday if we don’t want more of Jesus, and if we aren’t pursuing all that He has for us? Perhaps it’s like asking someone if they want to be successful? Who wouldn’t say yes? But saying we want something, and working toward its attainment are two different things. We may argue that we are saved by grace and not by works, but …faith without works is dead. In Philippians 2:12 we are also warned to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” This doesn’t mean we save ourselves, but it does mean those who fix their eye's on Jesus are transformed.  If we don’t believe that we can fall into a dead and lifeless religion we have missed all the warnings given to us, to make our calling and election sure. Jesus warns that there will be many that he turns away from His eternal kingdom because He never knew them. 

Can we attend church each Sunday without wanting more of God, without knowing God and walking with Him? Can we gather to sing praise songs without wanting to see His will done on earth, without wanting to stand in His presence, without longing to hear Him speak? 

Do we believe that God still speaks? Do we believe that more is possible? Maybe we’re so deep in a spiritual rut that we can’t believe anything can, or will—change—until God does something; so we negate our responsibility by convincing ourselves that we are waiting on God to do something, but what does it mean if we don’t think God will do anything, and what excuse do we give? Maybe someday we’ll be transformed in the twinkling of an eye, but are we looking forward to that? 

Jesus asked this, crippled man, “Do you want to be made well?” He responded by saying, “I have no one to put me in the water, so someone else alway enters in ahead of me.” When asked, "Do you want revival?" what’s your initial response? In Matthew 5:32 Jesus tells us to “let our yes be yes and our no be no. Anything more comes from the evil one.” It’s interesting that he didn’t say “yes,” when asked if he wanted to be made well. How do we answer, “Do you want revival?" Is it a—yes, or no—proposition, or do we see so many variables, and circumstances, compounding exponentially, that we think it impossible to know if revival is even possible. Would we offer a resounding—yes—without hesitation, or do we see its coming as something completely in the hands and timing of God? In James 1 we are told that "we have not because we ask not." Can it be that we don't experience revival because we don't seek it, and because we don't ask for it? Do we always have a reason, a justification, for why we can’t experience the promises God has for us? Do we always have an excuse for why we are the way we are? Do we justify the absence of His presence in our lives, or except it as normal. This man sat within feet of what had the power to heal him, yet he believed, with his whole heart, that he would never be healed, because he had no one to help him. I wonder if that was the only thing holding him back? 

Healing would have radically transformed this man's life. If he were healed everything would have to change, he would have to leave behind every aspect of his old life to pursue the new, he would have to leave behind his routine and habits, his friends and acquaintances, and step into an unknown world. It’s more comfortable living a life that we know how to handle, then it is to give up all our security and comfort, to step into the unknown. When we do the same thing every day (for 38 years) we become confident in our ability. We learn to be self-reliant, but stepping into the unknown requires vulnerability, it requires faith. We must walk out of our self-confidence into places we’ve never gone, without knowing how it will turn out. 

Was it easier for this man to give up the hope of being made well and remain in a life where he had learned to function and survive? He didn’t give up coming to the pool everyday, but he didn’t bring anyone with him to put him in the water. He was going through the motions of his hopeless endeavor, even though he had no intentions of being healed. He was still living his life, but he wasn't going anywhere. It was what he was used to. It’s where all his friends were. This was his life. Just like it was in the days of Noah, so it will be when the Son of Man returns. people will just be living their lives, but doing so completely devoid of any thought toward God, and without the expectation of anything ever changing. This seems like a hopeless existence, but for this man, and many like him, this is just life, people are living their lives but their not going anywhere. 

Is it possible for us to go to church every Sunday, with no hope of anything ever changing, without any expectation of the power of God setting us free from bondage? Do we want to be made well? Do we want revival? When I was a child I went on a camping trip in the Boy Scouts and woke up in the morning, freezing cold. I could hear the sound of rain striking my tent and see the shadow of the drops running down the sides of the cover. The rain had stopped, and big drops were falling from the trees above, but it had rained and my tent was in a depression. Water had pooled up around me and soaked my sleeping bag. I unzipped it a little and felt the freezing air on my wet body and quickly zipped it back up. I layed there for a long time, longer than I should have, knowing that I had dry clothes I could put on, but I also knew that things would have to get worse before they got better. I was stuck in that place, and even though it wasn’t comfortable, it seemed better than getting up. Getting out of that wet sleeping bag seemed like it hurt worse than staying in it. I knew I couldn’t stay there forever, I was going to have to move. I was going to have to face the harsh reality of getting out into the cold morning air and stripping off my wet clothes.  If I wanted my life to get better, I was going to have to change, and things were going to have to get worse.

Do you want revival? Often, to reach what is better, things first have to get worse. We hold onto things that make us miserable, because we’re afraid of what life without that security will be like. Maybe God has convicted you to give something up, (a relationship, a habit, a codependency) but you can’t let go of it to do it God’s way, because you’re afraid. Your afraid you will lose what you have. Your afraid it won’t be worth it. Unlike my story of the wet sleeping bag, we don’t know if things will be better, we only know we have to move. We must act on the faith we have. If we use what we have been given we will receive more, but if we don’t use it, we will lose even what we have. We must progress in the journey of our faith or move backwards, there is no standing still. What has God called us to do that requires faith. It’s likely that we will get stuck, and become spiritually stagnant, but these lessons can teach us great spiritual truths. 

Counselors will tell you that, “people change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.” So how painful does it have to get? Like a dog returns to his vomit a man returns to his sin. We forget that we are on a journey. We forget that we are going somewhere. We have a habit of turning back. The purpose of life isn’t to get comfortable here and have everything just the way we want it. We are just passing through. We are on a journey to another place. We must be moving on. 

We can forget why we started attending church, and we can get comfortable laying in our discomfort, because change is hard, it’s uncomfortable, and costly. The work we have to do to get to the next step will be harder than staying where we are. Where we are doesn’t require faith, we know how to do it. Where we are is comfortable, and we don’t like being uncomfortable. Stepping out in faith to follow Christ costs something, and we have to decide if what we receive is worth more than the costs, because it costs everything. We must sell all that we own to follow Christ. What’s holding you back?

Can we live without expecting anything from God? It’s easy to get into the habit of doing life on our own, without expecting outside help. We grow accustomed to our routines and we expect tomorrow to be like today. Like the man who watched others step down into the water before he could, we can become resigned to our place and believe this is all there is. That nothing is ever going to change because I have no one to put me in the water. We can live without expectation. We can place our confidence in the way everything has gone on before. We can walk by sight and not by faith. We can go to church every Sunday, but never enter into what heals us. 

Enter in 

In Matthew 23:13 Jesus says “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter in…” Just like this man, who couldn’t enter into the healing waters, it’s possible for the church to have the truth, but not enter in. Just because we have the truth it doesn’t mean we are following it. Even though God is inviting us to enter into this relationship with himself, we don’t see what’s possible, we’re not looking for more. We may pray for the Lord's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, without noticing that our faith plays an active role in that prayer. We may be waiting for God to do something, but God is waiting for us to respond to what He’s already done. We must wrestle with the word, and surrender our own lives to his will. We must take up our cross and follow Him.