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"Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: "Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged."
(Isaiah 6:6-7)
A really neat aspect of revivals is how God allows them to spread from one location to the next. I remember in 1995, while I was a student at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, TX, we experienced a fresh touch from God. Pastor John Avant shared what his church had been experiencing in the 1995 Brownwood Texas Revival. (He co-authored a book entitled Revival! that documents this move of God. The revival spread from Coggin Avenue Baptist Church to Howard Payne University to over 100 churches and campuses across the nation.) God showed up in our midst at the seminary that Wednesday afternoon. There was a holy hush, a conviction of sin, and weeping. I stayed for three hours! I was discussing with a couple of pastor friends of mine how someone can leave a place of revival and help spark revival in another location. This is what happened to us at seminary.
More recently, I read about this same thing happening in Alabama. God is moving mightily upon Longhollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, TN. Pastor Robby Gallaty will tell you this revival is from God and a result of people praying to God. They have seen hundreds of people saved and baptized over the last several weeks. The student pastor at Longhollow was the preacher for a Disciple Now event at Cottage Hill Baptist Church in Mobile, AL. Our student pastor at Great Hills sent me this text:
"My brother called me and told me that Gallaty's student pastor preached a DNow at Cottage Hill last week. Before he left Tennessee, the church prayed over him, that his words would be anointed, and that revival would explode at Cottage Hill. The student pastor basically walked up and said, 'Come to Jesus!' And things just exploded."
Exploded in a good way, I might add, as in, people getting saved and getting their hearts right with God.
I long to see this again. Oh, that God would rend the heavens and come down as Isaiah the prophet prayed in Isaiah 64:1. Would it not be wonderful to see what Isaiah saw in his vision in the Temple: the fire of God moving out from one location to another with the same power? We are desperately calling out to God for Him to move upon our church. We live in the fastest growing city in America. Austin, TX is one of the premier places to live in the USA. We need a fresh move of God to sweep across us at Great Hills and all our churches.
Will you pray with me for revival? Pray that God would come in power once again.
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