Updated Thursday, March 20, 2008

Distance from God equals distance from revival

By Norman Jameson

BR Editor

People looking for secrets to personal and church success at the "Revive Us Again" Great Commission Prayer Conference in Cary March 14-15 were simply directed to the Bible they carried in with them.

Speakers addressing the 400-500 participants at Hope Community Church in Raleigh directed them through scripture, teaching the way God reveals Himself there.

J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Durham, who is in increasing demand at such events because of the rapid growth of The Summit and its success in reaching students from three nearby nationally prominent campuses, said, "No one is more surprised than me over the successes of our church."

He attributes the growth from a few hundred to 2,500 in the past six years to the fact that, although he burns with passion to reach his city, "God's passion to reach our city is much greater than my own."

"God's passion to save is measured at the cross," Greear said. "God's power to bring it about is measured at the grave."

He told participants that his primary role as pastor is "to help people learn to believe in the goodness and love of God." Coming to that belief, he said, connects people to "power unbelievable," the very power of creation.

Growing a church depends not on a pastor's skill nor on revival services that produce a spiritual high that may soon fade, but on God's power.

He said the difference is like that of balloons filled simply with air and those filled with helium. Those filled simply with air quickly sink and need someone to keep "smacking them" back up. Helium-filled balloons stay aloft because of what fills them. When Christians are filled with belief in God's love and connected to His power, they will be able to "stay in the air" on their own.

"Religion" is what keeps us from the power of God because, "It gives us a sense of worthiness and keeps us from fully trusting on the compassion of God," said Greear, who indicated that religion treats faith as a pinata and Jesus as a whacky stick used to assault heaven for goodies.

Engaging in banter about the value of flocking to conferences looking for keys to success, Greear said, "Success comes not from emulating the successes of another, but from connecting to the power of God and the plans He has for you."

Nationally recognized speakers continually shed any expectation that they carried with them a success formula to the conference.

Henry Blackaby, author of the multi-million selling "Experiencing God," immediately connected with the audience when he said while traveling he heard of the tragic murder of UNC-Chapel Hill student Eve Carson.

"What did you do?" when you heard that news, he asked. "What did the people of God do? Did they pray? Did you go to intensive, intercessory prayer?"

He mentioned international tragedies like the tsunami in Sri Lanka and the civil war and massive starvation in Darfur and said he has "cried out to God, is there something I can do?"

He said God arranged meetings at the United Nations at which he met the ambassador from Darfur, a Christian who was about to resign his position overwhelmed with discouragement. Blackaby encouraged him with a word from God.

"Don't ever ask me to show you my will in your life and then (do) business as usual," Blackaby said.

He asked rhetorically, "Why does revival tarry?" With thousands of churches in our large cities and tens of thousands of believers, why is there no revival?

"Is it because we do not have a heart?" he asked. "We don't even know what's on the heart of God."

"How far away is revival in North Carolina?" he asked. "As far away as the hearts of God's people are from Him."

"Prayer for Jesus was not an option, and it became the pattern for evangelism and discipleship. It must become that today for true spiritual awakening to occur," he said.

Richard Owen Roberts, 76, is infused with power at the pulpit after walking almost feebly to the platform. He declared that "Multitudes in our churches do not have anything that looks like the faith of Peter or anyone in the early church," and that many who occupy pews do not have true faith.

Referencing 2 Peter 1:1-11, Roberts called for a rigorous examination of their own hearts in relationship to the activity of saving faith to discern if they were "blind or shortsighted in their understanding of true faith in the living God."

"Regeneration is the work of God, not man," he said. He believes the Church is "in trouble" because it teaches "decisional regeneration," or that persons "believe themselves to be Christians apart from the work of God or as a result of something they do like praying a prayer or signing a card."

Roberts said scripture is the only true means whereby the Spirit of God does the work of regeneration. The faith of Peter and Paul "is the very same type of faith each Christian receives, and every person who receives saving faith receives the same kind of faith as the Apostles," Roberts said.

Logan Carson, a professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, admitted that he knows "the bubble of anticipation will burst" among students excited about the ministry.

Preaching from Nehemiah 1:5, he pointed out that Nehemiah fasted, prayed, and wept before he did anything else. He said, "Spiritual leadership is powerless and ineffectual without the reading of the word of God and prayer, and we should remember that Jesus was in constant contact with His Father - especially when he was about to make significant decisions."

Carson connected the lack of true spiritual power to the lack of personal prayer. "When we get busy and prayer is not a part of our lives, it will become apparent that a disconnection has taken place to everyone around us," he said.

Carson prescribed a habitual pattern of prayer as the antidote for overcoming sin in the minister's life or else "he will quickly fall away."

"Each speaker brought before us the sheer inability in and of ourselves to do any lasting spiritual work apart from prayer and an unwavering obedience to the way Jesus trained his first disciples," said Chris Schofield, director of the Office of Prayer and Spiritual Awakening for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina. "We always stand in need of correction when we think that worldly principles can trump the leadership model of Jesus. We must remember this truth as we seek to train a new generation for Christ."

(EDITOR'S NOTE - Douglas Baker of the Baptist State Convention's Communications office contributed to this story.)