Preparing for a Move of God

God is not through with His church. This is the hour, and Pastor Chris said it as plain as it can be said: we're preparing for a move of God. Not hoping. Not wishing. Preparing.

But there's a catch in that word, and it lands on us before it lands on anybody else. If we're preparing, then there's work to do, and the work is ours.

Quit Looking Out the Window

2 Chronicles 7:14 says, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land."

Notice who has to turn. God put the action back on His people. He didn't put it on the government or the culture or the crowd down the road. He put it on us.

By nature we watch the neighbor. We stand at the window looking across the yard, and we never turn back around and look at our own house. We can talk about people till the sun goes down and comes back up, and nothing in our own life changes.

So let this be a you-and-I message. Quit trying to figure out somebody else in the pew and start asking what's going on in your own heart. Church attendance is good, but it will not cut it. There's got to be some deep heart work.

Sanctify Yourselves, Then the Wonders

God has always prepared the vessel before He filled it. Noah built an ark before the rain ever came. Israel sanctified themselves before they crossed the Jordan. The disciples waited in Jerusalem before Pentecost came.

Joshua told the people, "Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do wonders among you" (Joshua 3:5). Look at the order. Sanctify first. Wonders second. Not the other way around.

We pray for God to send revival, but the Lord is asking whether we're ready for revival. Revival is not a meeting. Revival is the work that takes place in our lives. Most people don't remember a three-day revival by Monday morning, but when you've done the preparation, it doesn't end. You can have revival at your house. You can have revival at work.

A lot of us want the excitement of Pentecost without the preparation of the upper room. Before there was fire, there was prayer. Before there was power, there was repentance. And the greatest obstacle to revival is not the darkness outside the church. It's the complacency inside it.

Search Me, O God

David could have prayed about anybody. Instead he prayed, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23-24).

He didn't say search my spouse. He didn't say search my pastor. David worked on David, and that's why God could use him. Pastor Chris said he prays that way over his own life all the time, because he knows Chris needs work.

So stand in front of the mirror of God's word and ask yourself these, and you don't have to answer out loud:

• When was the last time I truly prayed?

• When was the last time I truly wept before God?

• Have I become satisfied with just routine church?

• Do I worship from my heart, or merely from habit?

Here's the hard part. The Holy Ghost cannot cleanse what we refuse to acknowledge. Hidden things stop holy things. Luke 12:2 says, "For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed," and you don't want that page read back to you at the great white throne when it could have gone under the blood today. God doesn't expose you to embarrass you. He exposes so He can heal.

Fire Falls on Sacrifice

On Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18, Elijah didn't start with fire. He repaired the broken altar first, then laid the sacrifice on it, then surrendered the whole thing. Only then did the fire fall.

We want the fire. We want to prophesy and lay hands on the sick. We just don't want the repairing or the surrender. But fire always falls on sacrifice, and that's why Paul wrote to "present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God" (Romans 12:1).

That reaches how you walk in these doors. There used to be reverence — people got ready before they came to church. Now we roll out of bed and come. Look in the mirror instead of your phone. Iron the shirt or get another one. Cover what needs covering, men and women both, because the person beside you has eyes and doesn't need a problem you could have prevented.

Pastor Chris said that when he was a lost teenager he pulled over at the grocery store to get a beer out of his cooler, not the church parking lot. He did his doughnuts in the grocery store lot. Even as a sinner he reverenced the house of God. This may offend you, but nobody here is trying to offend you. We're trying to help you.

Heaven Is Waiting on the Church

We need less spectators and more seekers. The question isn't whether God can send revival. The question is whether we will prepare for it. Revival is not waiting on heaven. Heaven is waiting on the church.

So imagine what happens if every one of us truly surrendered. Marriages restored. Young people filled with the Holy Ghost. Backsliders coming home. Healings, deliverances, lives changed for good. God is ready.

The altar is open, and God never refuses a broken heart. If there's repentance, make it. If there's forgiveness, give it. If there's something you've been holding because nobody else can see it, leave it there and don't get up the same way you came.

We're preparing for a move of God. So what's keeping you from it?