Though there are terrible struggles in the world today, it is important to remember there are other times in history when the world has been equally distressed--perhaps even times that were worse. Because we don't know when God's marvelous grace and patience with humanity will end, it is imperative we remain hopeful--primed and ready for revival and renewal if God allows it. to happen. With history as our guide, we find evidence for how best to prepare for those revivals and awakenings. Here are ten keys--3 beliefs, 4 traits and 4 actions--Christian history shows are necessary for anyone to be agents of renewal in our cultures.
10. The first change-your-world Christian trait is an uncompromising belief in the Bible as the inspired, God-breathed Word of God, and that its accuracy, integrity and competency has been protected and held intact by a supernatural act of God. Doubt about the integrity of any portion of the Bible leaves the sorting out of truth/non-truth to humans, and that leaves everything in doubt. Why this remains a bedrock trait for revolutionary faith is easily explained: Unless we have God's words to measure our thoughts and intuitions against, we all eventually begin to do what feels or seems right instead of what IS right.
9. Following closely on the heels of a confidence in Scripture, the next thing a c-y-w (change-your-world) Christian must have is a firm belief in the reality of both Heaven and Hell. It isn't necessary to fully understand the nature of Heaven and Hell to be a change agent for Jesus, but one must believe both exist, and that God determines, solely by our response to His offer of grace made possible by the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus, where we each spend eternity. Doubts about eternity shift our focus from the long view needed to see past the travesties, trials, injustices and inequities of this present life. Without a place where God balances out the wrongs and evils visited here in imperfect and unbalanced portions, every idealistic believer in change eventually sees their zeal and commitment shrivel up and die.
8. After Scripture and eternity, the next urgent requirement for c-y-w Christians is a belief in God's ability and willingness to act both naturally and supernaturally in response to the prayers of His children. No spiritual awakening, revival or renewal occurs without prayer as its foundation. This is true because all spiritual change is an act of God and not of humans. Our role is to prepare our hearts to serve as servants in God's labors, and to ask Him to act to change the hearts and minds of those we love-and those we should love but don't.
7. Humility is the key ingredient in all human endeavors for God. Humility is the ability to see clearly the difference between God's perfect Wisdom, Justice, Mercy and Love, and our imperfect attempts to mirror those in our world. The closer we get to God, the more clearly we see His majesty; and the more clearly we see our own sins and failings. It is this state of humility that is necessary if we're to have the hearts to ask for, and participate in, the changes our world needs God to make.
6. Compassion is the next key ingredient. Those who love as Christ commands are moved by an urgency brought about by their absolutely unwavering belief that every human being faces either Heaven or Hell after death-and their compassion moves them to set aside every barrier and suffer any indignity to assure every person gets to hear and seriously consider the offer of grace that changes their lives-and their eternities. Change for any sake other than compassion is manipulation, and manipulation drives people away from Jesus, while compassion draws them near enough to hear Him.
5. Another trait absolutely vital to c-y-w Christians is surrender. All change agents are either "new" or "true", meaning they've spent long years trudging faithfully and carefully forward, growing in grace and knowledge (the true), or else they're new Christians still swept up in the remembrance of the grace granted them from judgment for the sin-stained life they've been leading. God works through sold-out Christians, and not those who are trying to make their faith fit their lives, or their lives fit their faith. "New" and "true" followers of Jesus have declared themselves "living sacrifices" willing to be servants for God's work in and through them, and He honors their commitment by making them the fulcrums of revival and renewal.
3. Prayer is the first and most frequent act demanded by God for followers who would be used by Him for anything. While prayer of any kind is acceptable (for God desires honest communications from us); it is unselfish prayer which most awakens in Him a powerful tendency to act. Every human can pray; therefore, every human is capable of the act necessary to complete the cycle needed to set a household, a congregation, a community, a company, a culture or a country up for revival. No great awakening or revival or renewal in history ever occurred but that prayer was at its' center.
2. Service is the next act required of Christians who would be used by God to change their world. Not service as we humans have come to define it, but rather a service to a singular end-goal: An increased ability for the world to see Jesus-in us, through us-in our labors and in the fruits of those labors. This means, at every juncture of life, a c-y-w Christian will ask God to "show me the course that makes Your Kingdom most visible to those I walk and work with as I serve something or someone other than myself." This form of service sets aside human ambition, and often sets aside human comfort. It is the super-sized version of Jesus' command to think more highly of others than ourselves, and it is best exemplified by Galatians 2:20, and Romans 12:1-2.
It is this set of beliefs, traits and actions, then, which God calls us to when we call upon Him for change. As the writer of Ecclesiastes would likely say if invited to do so, "so it has always been, so it will always be."
--Randy Kilgore
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