Les D. Crause

Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that the times of revival will come from the presence of the Lord; And he will send Jesus Christ, who before was preached to you: Acts 3:19-20

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6

Relationship - The Key to Revival

We have been considering in The Way of Revival and Healing exactly what revival is. We have come to a better understanding now of what revival is and what it brings. Now we just need to know how to get it. How does revival come? Is there something that we can do to make it come? This is the million-dollar question isn't it? It is no good understanding what revival is. It is no good even wanting revival, if we do not know how to come to the place where we can obtain this blessing from the Lord.

In this chapter, I want to carry on and begin to describe a little bit of how revival comes, and have a closer look at the mechanism or the mechanics of revival, and exactly what occurs when we enter into this revival experience. I am going to look at revival as it relates to our relationship with God, because revival is coming into a place where God is manifest to us, where the power of God and the presence of God becomes more real in our life.

Revival is coming into a closer relationship and interaction with Almighty God. So, if we are to understand how revival comes, we need to understand how God will come into our lives, how He will appear, and how He will manifest in our lives. As soon as we look at that, we begin to take our eyes off ourselves and our circumstances and begin to look to the Lord Himself. We need to understand exactly what we are to expect and how we need approach Him. As you take your eyes and put them heavenward and you look towards God, what do you see?

Here is where the problems begin, because when you begin to look at God you start getting into your theology and you say, "Well, God. What is God? Who is God? Well, God is a trinity. God is a Father and a Son and a Holy Spirit. So revival means I'm coming into a relationship and an experience with God.

"So who am I coming into a relationship and experience with? Am I experiencing the Father? Am I experiencing the Son? Am I experiencing the Holy Spirit? Who am I experiencing, and when and how am I experiencing the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? Am I supposed to be concentrating on the Father alone, or am I supposed to be zeroing in on the Spirit alone? Or should I be thinking about Jesus alone?"

Revival is Not Mentally Comprehended

There comes confusion in the mind, because the mind cannot comprehend God. As we look at the Godhead and we look at the doctrine of the trinity and our understanding of God, we realize that our finite minds cannot fully comprehend an infinite God. We begin to stumble over doctrines and we stumble over the thoughts of our mind. We begin to stumble over ways and methods of doing things. We forget that we are meant to be interacting with someone who is far higher than we are.

I want to try and break it down now and look at how revival comes from the Father, how it comes from the Son, and how it comes from the Holy Spirit. But I want you to understand something very clearly as we begin to look at this. We cannot separate the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

All Interrelated

Although we can see the distinction and can experience each in different ways, you need to realize that you cannot touch the Father without touching the Son and the Spirit. You cannot touch the Son without touching the Father and the Spirit. And you cannot experience the Spirit without touching the Father and the Son. They are one. They are three, but they are one. The human mind cannot comprehend God being three and one. We speak about three in one and one in three, and we get hung up, because mathematics says one does not equal three. Mathematically one cannot equal three, but God defies mathematics, because in God, He is one and He is three!

I am not getting into the Doctrine of the Trinity here. I just want you to try and keep clear in your mind though that although we may be considering one member of the Godhead at a time, realize that what happens in your interaction with one will affect your interaction with the other, because they are all interrelated. When we come to a full experience of the revival power and relationship with Almighty God, you will eventually have to come to the place where you will have to interact with, understand and experience all three. Only when you come to that fullness can you say that you have fully entered into that revival power that the Lord has for us.

Revival From Each

Let's move on now and look at how revival comes from each. I have chosen an order for a reason, but the order that I have chosen is not necessarily the order that we experience God in. I am going to tell you what I have seen from experience tends to take place.

The first interaction, experience or the first contact you make with Almighty God is done by the Holy Ghost. The first member of the Godhead that you ever experience in this life as you begin to enter into and grow in the Christian life, is the Holy Spirit. However, the very first person who becomes real to you is the Lord Jesus. It almost seems like a contradiction, doesn't it? I am going to try and explain what I mean as we go on. But the very first member of the Godhead who becomes real to you, the first one really that is communicated to you, is the Lord Jesus. Why is that? Because the very first experience that we ever have with God is the salvation experience.

Can you see now why I am saying you cannot touch one member of the Godhead without the other? When you are saved and you are born again, you accept Jesus as your personal Savior. But when you are born again, you are baptized by the Spirit of God into the Body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is working to make Jesus real to you. It is the Holy Spirit that takes you and places you into Christ. So although your first experience with God is coming into a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, that experience is brought about by the action of the Holy Spirit.

So the very first member of the Godhead that we begin to have a relationship and experience with is Jesus, but that experience requires the move of the Holy Spirit. Having entered into that salvation experience, we then move on into a greater experience with God, and a greater experience with the Holy Spirit. We then move up into an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus, and finally into a relationship with the Father.

So the ultimate goal in revival is to come to a place where you have an intimate relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost - all three. Until you have reached that point you have not reached the peak of what God requires and is offering you spiritually. Until you have come to that experience and that relationship with God, you cannot truly say that you have entered into the fullness of revival.

So when revival comes, it will come via the Son, via the Spirit, via the Father, and via the entire Godhead.

Revival from Jesus

Let's look first at how revival comes from the Lord Jesus. As I said, the order I am following through is not necessarily the sequence of events. But I will try and explain this sequence as we go, so I hope it is not confusing to you. We start with our salvation experience.

Salvation Experience

The first thing that takes place is that we are reconciled to God. The Scripture says that, 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.' Before you came to Jesus; before you were born again and received Him as your Lord and Savior, you were outside of Christ and outside of God. Your spirit was dead towards God. You did not know or understand Him. You had no communion or communication with God whatsoever.

When you were born again though, your spirit came to life. The Holy Spirit came to dwell within you and to dwell within your spirit and cause it to come to life towards God. It does not mean your spirit never existed before. It does not mean it was dead in the sense of not functioning. It was there. It just could not function towards God. So the salvation experience is the very first revival experience in that it brings you into a restored relationship with God.

The moment you are born again, the functions of your human spirit begin to operate. They have been operating before, but they now begin to operate towards God. The function of intuition, that inner knowing, has always been there before, but it could not relate to God, because your spirit was not in a relationship with God.

The communion function or the ability to communicate with another spirit used to function before, but not towards God. But now you begin to enter into a communion with God in the Spirit, through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Now you enter into a relationship with the Lord Jesus, having committed yourself fully to Him as your Lord and Savior and having received the cleansing of His Blood that He shed on Calvary. Now, through the Blood Covenant that He entered into with Almighty God, you become born again and become part of His family. Now you enter into a relationship with God.

Jesus, the Entry Point to Revival

Jesus is the entry point to God, and a lot of people make a mistake right at this point. When you speak to somebody and say, "Think about God and what do you see? Who do you see?" Most people will see this austere, awesome man, who is very angry, very holy, who is always full of judgment and is ready to destroy with one breath of His mouth.

The moment you say, 'God', we start thinking of this austere man which we know as the Father and which nobody has seen at any time. So we think of entering into a relationship with God and we begin to come to the Father. When people pray, they pray to the Father. They are coming to Him. But the Scripture makes it so very clear when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, the life. No man can come to the Father except through me." The Scripture says that, "There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the Man Christ Jesus."

You cannot touch God, except through Christ. You cannot enter into a relationship with God, except because of Jesus. If you want to reach the Father, Jesus will have to introduce you. If you are to experience the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus will have to impart that to you. Why? Because Jesus is the baptizer in the Holy Spirit.

Peter stood up on the Day of Pentecost to describe what had happened. He spoke to the people and he said, "This Jesus whom you crucified, has risen and ascended, and He received the promise of the Father, this which He has poured forth now, which you can see and hear." Jesus was the one who poured it out on them. So the starting point of revival, the most important entry point, is to come to a place where you have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are many people who are born again that do not have an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. There are many people who experience the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit and have flowed in the gifts of the Spirit but who have not entered into an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is our comforter.

The Comforter

You say, "But I thought the Holy Spirit was our comforter."

I told you, you cannot have one without the other. What did Jesus say in John 14:16? He said:

16 And I will ask the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter

Is there another Comforter? "Another one like me." That is what He was saying.

16... that he may abide with you for ever;

17 [Even] the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see him, nor know him: but you know him; for he dwells with you (that is me), and shall be in you

He said, "Because I am coming back to you by the Holy Spirit."

And just so that I did not misunderstand what He was saying, He says:

18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.

What is Jesus saying? He is saying, "I've been here as your comforter in my human body on the earth. I've been present to be your comforter and your helper. But once I ascend to the Father I am coming back to you again in the Holy Spirit. I am coming back to you in the Spirit to continue to be your comforter."

You see you cannot touch one without the other. Jesus remains our comforter. He remains the One, who is with us, as He was for the early disciples. But He is not with us in physical form now. He is with us in the Spirit. Are you confused yet? This is not a mental thing, it is spiritual. You will begin to understand it more as you to experience more of these things in the Spirit.

Intimacy with Jesus

You need to come into a place of intimacy with the Lord Jesus, and the reason we miss this very often is because we have not come to know Him as a person. We tend to see spiritual influence and spiritual essence as an experience. We tend to see the Holy Spirit as an 'it'; as a 'something that happens to us'. We see it as a feeling, an anointing, an experience, a high, or as power. We do not see Him as someone real, as a person.

Because we have accepted Jesus by faith, we have not come to know Him as a person. We think of Him as being up there in heaven somewhere, and He is interceding for us, and that is great. We can send our prayers up there to Him and we hope it will get to Him. But we do not know Him as a person. What is His address? Where is He living? Our little kids can tell you that one.

"Where's Jesus?"

"He's in my heart."

It is so simple a child can understand it. But as adults we cannot grasp it. He is in your heart, in your spirit by His Holy Spirit, and He is a real person. He is not an 'it'. He is not an influence or a feeling. He is a person, and He loves you, and He wants to come into an intimate relationship with you, far more intimate than you can have with anybody in this world. He wants to bring you into a loving relationship. Why? Because the Scripture says that He is the heavenly Bridegroom and we, the Body of Christ, are the Bride. He wants to enter into a love relationship with you.

Fall in Love

So what is the first stage in revival? It is falling in love with the person you married. That is what it is. There are a lot of people married today who need to fall in love with the person they married. You have been living with them; you have been experiencing them; you have reaped some of the benefits that they have given you. But you are not in an intimate relationship with them. Perhaps you were at some time, but it is not there anymore. Revival is coming into an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus and experiencing His love.

How is that going to take place? It will take place as He pours it into you by His Spirit. The Scripture says that, 'the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.'

Now, you may have been a Christian for a long time, and you may have experienced the power of the Holy Spirit. You may even have had an experience at times and come under conviction as you come into the presence of the Father. But until you come to an intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus, you are never going to know the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Until you come into an intimate relationship with Jesus, you will never be introduced into a personal relationship with the Father.

Enter into the FULLNESS of Revival! This was a excerpt taken out of The Way of Revival and Healing book. Do not just learn about Revival...experience it!