Revival Is Not a Wish Upon a Star

There’s one part we need to be careful of in that definition of revival—it says revivals are typically seen as sovereign acts of God that cannot be predicted or manufactured.

We’ve got to be careful here, because revival is not a placeholder for action.

It becomes this thing where we go, “Fingers crossed—God will send revival!” Like, “I don’t need to work on my life—revival!” “I don’t need to worry about society—revival!” “God will just send it or burn it or whatever.” But revival is not the wish upon a star or the genie out of the lamp.

You have a choice if you want to see revival in this day and age.

There’s a great example in the book of Esther. The Jewish people were under mass persecution. Queen Esther, a Jew herself, had a moment to speak up and save her people. Her advisor tells her,

“Don’t think that because you’re in the palace, you’ll escape when the other Jews are killed. If you remain silent, deliverance will arise from somewhere else. But who knows if perhaps you were made queen for such a time as this?”

Deliverance will arise. God will still move. He always comes back for His people—you see it again and again through the Bible. But maybe… You were placed where you are for this moment. Maybe God wants to stir a revival in you, that would happen through you, in our city, today. Revival will come.

Go to the end of your Bible:

“There will be no night there, no need for lamps or sun, for the Lord God will shine on them… Look, I am coming soon, bringing my reward with me… I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.”

This is the promise we hold on to: Jesus is coming back. He will restore heaven and earth. So in a sense, we can guarantee revival. No matter what you’re going through, deliverance will arise on that day. Healing will come.

But don’t we want it now as well? Wouldn’t it be great to see a window of that eternal glory in our lifetime? When we look at the world—the people you know—we can’t just sit back, fingers crossed, going, “Revival?”

There’s something we need to do.

We need to be people of the things that precede revival: prayer, repentance, holiness. Revival is not a pseudo-rapture. It’s not an excuse to ignore the world.

Around the 1800s, society was advancing quickly. The church had to decide: do we engage with the changing world and try to redeem it, or do we run from it? That’s when end-time theology really ramped up, especially in the American church. And it became this mindset: “Don’t worry—Jesus is coming soon. We don’t need to fix anything.”

But we can’t think like that. We’re in 2025 now. We can’t just wait for things to get worse. We can’t just say, “It’s fine, Jesus will come soon.” Jesus will come. But in the meantime, He has called us to go now. To redeem now. To speak, serve, and bring His name to a generation that has already run from Him.

We’re not waiting for the end—we’re working for the harvest. So the question remains: Why not now?