REVIVAL THAT LEADS TO AWAKENING – PREACHING JESUS

Acts 2:22-24 – Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a Man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know— this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him from the dead…

I remember one of the main things that happened in my life at my conversion was a focus and an attraction to Jesus. Everything about Him became lovely to me; His birth, His teaching, His miracles, and His death and resurrection. Of course I was saved in the Jesus Revolution and regardless of what one may think about those days you have to admit, it was all about Jesus.

Four years after my conversion I was launched into ministry in New Orleans which ended up in starting a church two years later. It’s funny how easy it is to go from fire to lukewarm. After about sixteen years of pastoring a deep case of lukewarm had settled into my life and ministry. What was the cause of that? Over time I began to preach what others were preaching and began to focus on what I thought a good pastor should preach. My conclusion is that I was no longer preaching Christ. Of course I preached about Him but He was no longer my passion and a form of spirituality had taken over my life. What changed that was an outpouring of the Spirit on my life in 1994. The main things that happened to me in that season was falling in love with Jesus again and as a result I began to preach Christ in all of our services. Here is how Joseph Castleberry says that preaching Christ is critical for revival and for paving the way for another Great Awakening.

“In Acts 2, Peter preached to the crowd gathered at Pentecost about Jesus Christ, crucified, dead, buried, and raised to life again as Lord and Messiah. When revival comes, Jesus becomes the top priority for Christians.  When churches preach Jesus, people get saved.  New believers keep the faith of churches fresh.…When churches keep their focus on Jesus, He will keep showing up in their midst by the power of the Holy Spirit.  When a church gets more interested in things other than Jesus, decadence and decline set in.”

I know in my heart another Great Awakening will shake our country. In the meantime I want to preach Christ and stay in revival. So lets fall in love with Jesus over and over again, this is the only way that we can have a true move of the Spirit of God.