0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): We hear the word revival a lot today. Is it a mystery? Is it kind of mystical? Something that happens around us and we don’t know what to do about it? Well, on the next More Faith, More Life podcast, I’m going to tell you something you can do right now to get the power of revival in your church and in your home.

0:00:18 – (Steve Gray): You were made for more than the status quo. I’m Pastor Steve Gray, and this is the More Faith, More Life podcast. This podcast is for Christians with an ambitious heart who want to be more for their family, do more with their career, and see more of God’s promises in their life. I’ve spent many years as a worship artist, minister, nonprofit leader, bold truth speaker, and most importantly, father and spouse. When I was in my early 40s, I was craving more.

0:00:46 – (Steve Gray): More from God and more from life. I’d done everything I was supposed to do. My life was good, but it wasn’t good enough. So I spent the following years diving into the Word of God and searching for the biblical principles that would bring me closer to God and help my purpose and life flourish. That’s what I want to share with you. In every episode, you’ll get practical tools based on real life experiences that you can put into action to redefine your faith and ultimately you’ll life.

0:01:18 – (Steve Gray): So if you’re ready to do more, subscribe to More Faith, More Life and hear an unfiltered biblical truth every week. It’s time to be and experience more.

0:01:29 – (Steve Gray): Hey everybody. Welcome to More Faith, More Life podcast. Today we’re going to talk about revival because I want to be the voice of revival in your life. Well, I hear the term revival. I hear renewal. I hear rumblings of it. I hear about churches where they’re having mostly worship. It’s kind of a worship revival where people are starting to really put more of themselves into worship or they’re having long worship sessions or less.

0:02:00 – (Steve Gray): Quiet, loud, doesn’t matter. But worship is kind of forefront of this more reviving thing. Not so much the Word of God yet. I hope that gets there. I hope it evolves that we want to keep. We don’t lose the worship that’s happening on college campuses or some churches, or worship nights in communities, things like that, that are happening. But I’m looking for a transition into the Word of God because we got to have both and the worship is towards him. But when you get the Word of God, this is what changes us. This gives us the guide to our life.

0:02:36 – (Steve Gray): And the Word is flesh, the Word of Jesus. The Jesus is The word just as much as the worship is part of our kingdom and part of our lifestyle. Okay? So, as you know, I’ve been a leader and a voice of revival. If you’ve been watching and listening for 30 years now and going on to 30 years, and that’s been the label on me, I know how to lead them. I know how to change a church. I would go into travel. I traveled a lot.

0:03:06 – (Steve Gray): Every. Every other week, usually I have these services five days a week, four days a week. And then I’d get on a plane and fly somewhere and do two or three quick services, you know, and. And fly back for the other services. So I was doing a lot all week long. And I could go into a church that if they were hungry for God, if they wanted to see something, and whether it be the church as a whole or an individual, I could go in and see that church transformed in one or two services to where it’s completely different. And after I leave, then the church changed the direction. They learned how to go with God.

0:03:41 – (Steve Gray): And. But a lot of times when I do that, I would see this great change over individuals, too. Not just churches, but individuals, home groups, Bible studies, home church, of course, and then regular church, big and small and. And. And they would listen to everything and it would fire them up and it would make sense. And they love to hear the stories of how God came and like thunder and lightning into this country church or in our church here, and it just exploded to four and five services a week. And all the whole world came, and magazines came and TV reporters came, and it was just, you know, just that.

0:04:20 – (Steve Gray): And they love to hear the stories and they love to imagine maybe that would happen in their life or in their church. And so something would. I’d get there and something would. It would spring up like a fire started in the church. You know, now they’re fired up. They’re trying to follow some of the teachings I gave and some of the lessons I learned. And then you find out that now they start having. Sometimes they would have multiple services, three or four a week, whatever, and they. They try to kind of duplicate it and try it.

0:04:48 – (Steve Gray): And six, seven weeks, the people are exhausted. They’re. You know, they’re. They’ve had enough, and it just kind of wanes and goes back. And people go back to maybe not where they were, but just a little bit more regular church. And you, you. And then they wonder what happened? How come you guys went three and a half years in the country and you went three and a half years in the city twice. That’s a lot of years. That’s seven.

0:05:16 – (Steve Gray): Seven years. And seven’s a great number in the kingdom, isn’t it? That’s seven years of revival four and five times a week, services lasting five and six hours a piece for. How do. How do people do it? How do people. And then people watched from all over the world. People came from all over the world. And you have to be here. You have to be on your mark. You got to be ready. They traveled halfway around the world to come to your church. You can’t just have a regular service.

0:05:43 – (Steve Gray): You can’t let down. And you say, well, we’ll just have a regular service today. You know, we’ve been working hard. We’ve had a lot of church services. And. And so. So now we’re just going to have regular church. And they go, like, what? I traveled all the way around the world to come. This is like my church couldn’t do it. So why is it then that we could have two great moves of God? Three and a half years made history, written about, watched about, seen in 200 countries around the world every week, and response from 200 countries around the world every week for three years.

0:06:18 – (Steve Gray): How does that happen? As opposed to the church that gets something? Maybe. Take me out of it. Maybe it’s just another evangelist or a guest evangelist or maybe even a guest worship leader or whatever. Or maybe they just fire up. You know, the pastor just fires up. You know, he’s all fired up, and the church fires up. And then they try to maintain it, but then it wanes. What. What is that? How come that happens?

0:06:45 – (Steve Gray): What do we do about it? And so here’s. Here’s what’s missing, okay, is it’s really not the ministry of Jesus that’s missing. What’s missing is the ministry of John the Baptist. All right? Because he was asked. Well, they thought he was the Messiah at first. Or are you Elijah come back from the dead? You know, and he’d say, no, no. And they said, well, who are you? What are you? He said, I am a voice.

0:07:13 – (Steve Gray): I’m a voice crying in the wilderness. Make straight in the desert a highway. Prepare the way for the Lord. That means the Lord. The Messiah is coming into his ministry. But before he does, there was preparation. John the Baptist prepared hearts for what Jesus was going to do. Yeah, he would baptize them because he’d say, repent. The kingdom of God is here. Down they go. Up they come. The idea was you’re leaving something behind and you’re bringing a new Life up, but it’s in preparation for the kingdom of God. It’s here, it’s at hand.

0:07:52 – (Steve Gray): And even John the Baptist before Jesus was saying, there’s a new kingdom here. So they weren’t repenting of being bad people. Almost everybody, not everybody, but almost everybody that came to be baptized were. Were God fearers, God believers, God servers, God wanting God. Now the Pharisees showed up, and John the Baptist nailed them. He said, bring fruit that shows you’re repenting. Live a life that shows you’re repenting. Just don’t come. They did it to be, you know, to be part of the club as a show. You know, they just show that they’re with it, you know, and be part of it. But they didn’t come for the right heart.

0:08:28 – (Steve Gray): They came because he was getting attention and they wanted to get, you know, show that they were part of it. But the regular folks that came did not come repenting being bad people. They weren’t coming because they were bad people or drug addicts or whatever, saying, well, I’m going to not do my drugs anymore or whatever. I’m going to be a nice person. They already were trying to live godly lives, but they needed to repent because their lives were all complicated with them and religion and traditions and all that.

0:08:59 – (Steve Gray): And now the kingdom is here, and you’re going to have to change your way of thinking. You’re going to have to change your way of seeing things. Because once the kingdom is here, then it brings kingdom principles, kingdom life, kingdom success, kingdom prosperity, but also kingdom loyalty, kingdom sacrifice. Right. Kingdom love. And it brings that onto the scene. So they needed to repent, to give up when you know it means to turn. Well, you’re going to turn away from some of the religious traditions, some of the way you’ve done things, but you have to turn away from some of your likes, some of your loves, yes, maybe some of your habits, some of your bad habits, whatever.

0:09:39 – (Steve Gray): They need to turn, but they’re turning to something. They’re not just turning away from something. And so today we preach repentance and we get people to turn away or give up something or repent of all the rotten stuff they did, and then go forward without giving total allegiance to the kingdom that’s here and start living kingdom life, kingdom principles. Okay, so the reason I’m bringing this to you is so remember the church or churches where God did a great outbreak in them, right? All over the world, all over the United States, church at little and small, we’re experiencing fire and presence and glory and it was exciting and it was big. You know, it was a big God thing.

0:10:24 – (Steve Gray): And then three, four, five, six weeks, the people are exhausted and kind of drift back. Church is probably still a little bit better, but they drift back. Why is that? Here it is because people want to have revival. They want to see the great things of God. Some do, but there’s no preparation. John said, I’m here to prepare for what Jesus is going to do. And so the churches I go to that just kind of piddled out was because they had no preparation.

0:10:55 – (Steve Gray): And you can do it personally, you can feel in the air today, it’s possible that revival’s trying to rumble in high school campuses, on them, in college campuses, in some churches, it’s rumbling in some politicians, it’s rumbling in some movie stars and actors that are trying to break out and tell you, God, things are happening in my life, or I want them to happen in my life. But if God were to show up now, we’re like, oh, where are you, God? Where are the miracles? Where’s the power?

0:11:27 – (Steve Gray): Where’s this revival stuff I read about in books and things? Well, and you’re trying to hurry God up, but God said you’re not prepared. You didn’t prepare yourself for how huge God is and the changes that happen and need to happen when God comes down. Otherwise, if you don’t prepare for a revival or prepare for a great Jesus movement, then you wear out. It wears you out. There’s a supernatural power and strength and excitement and all the good things that.

0:12:02 – (Steve Gray): There are so much things that happen in a true revival, a real one, not just a three or four day thing or a weekend thing, but one that really changes lives, that you have to be prepared. You have to tell God way before I am willing to make all adjustments necessary for your presence and for your power and for the glory of God and for however long. If we come to church and it’s longer than our regular service, which it doesn’t have to be, but it can be.

0:12:30 – (Steve Gray): If it’s louder than our old service, it doesn’t have to be, but it usually is all these things. And then you have to adjust your lifestyle. So what happened in those churches like they wanted it and now God’s moving and now they go to church more than they ever did. The services are longer, the services are louder and they’re great. But at the same time, they wanted to have time to watch movies, they wanted to go to soccer and they wanted to go to baseball, and they wanted to have their kids to Play T ball or whatever, or swimming lessons. And so what they did is they tried to maintain their current lifestyle while also maintaining that the kingdom of God is now in your church operating in power and presence.

0:13:17 – (Steve Gray): And so we didn’t teach people this, but they did it, who really experienced the power of God. And all of a sudden you’d find that they didn’t want to go to soccer anymore, they wanted to come to church. Even kids, even teenagers, they wanted to be there to experience the presence of God. And so we had to prepare, prepare our minds. If God, if you ever show up in might and power and what we call revival or whatever, you want renewal, a renaissance of the spirit or great spiritual outpouring, whatever you want to call it, just an upsurge of your presence, I will adjust my life to it.

0:13:52 – (Steve Gray): And that’s what I told him. I mean, I wasn’t there at first. I was trying to get there for years and didn’t understand this. And so I was just sort of waiting and asking for God to do something more in my life. I didn’t even call it revival. Just I wanted more of God. I wanted more things to happen. I wanted a more lively church. I wanted more active, spiritual church. You know, I wanted to meet God, and I wanted to help people meet God on a higher level.

0:14:17 – (Steve Gray): But I didn’t know that it took preparation and preparing of the hearts. Otherwise we’re trying to hold on to all the things we love, all the things we like, all the things we do. And now we want God to give us a great outpouring. And all of a sudden, like, we don’t have the strength, we don’t have the time, we don’t have the mental preparation. So, all right, so before the Smith and outpouring, which was a long time ago now, but I started the church believing that God was going to have revival fire spring up in local churches.

0:14:52 – (Steve Gray): Ida was in a traveling ministry at the time and thought, well, if I’m traveling, you know, you go to church one week and you go to another church the next week, another church the next week. I thought, well, even if a fire broke out, I’d be gone in a week and I’m going to miss it. So we decided, what can we do with our life to alter it? And we began to seek God and pray about pastoring, starting going. And so we were going to join the staff of a local church in Chicago, nice, big church and successful.

0:15:18 – (Steve Gray): And maybe then. And that’s when God began to deal with me about this country church that was Closed for four years. Well, when I opened it then, which I told Chicago I wasn’t going to come, even though I got the job, we’re not going to come now. Then I started thinking, revival is going to come. Well, 12 years passed, and that fire that I had been preaching and telling other people still hadn’t happened.

0:15:44 – (Steve Gray): We were fired up compared to some churches, and attendance was good in a country church. The church was full of people every service. And we had three services a week even then. So I went and I was going through St. Louis, traveling someplace back home, I guess, and there was a revival service at a church there. And they were having services in the morning and the afternoon and the evening three times a day for a short amount of time. They had a guest and I went and watched. I didn’t participate. I didn’t get prayed for. I didn’t do anything.

0:16:17 – (Steve Gray): I watched and I said, you know what? It’s starting. This is a sign. It’s starting. And we hadn’t started at our church yet. We were still. I was talking about it, but we hadn’t started. So I went back and started a prayer meeting on Tuesday night. So that means now we’re going Wednesday. We went, yeah, middle midweek service and two services on Sunday. So now we’re going to church three times a week.

0:16:45 – (Steve Gray): Now I’m going to add a service, I said, because revival’s starting in other places and I don’t want to miss it. So we started a prayer service on Tuesday nights. And all we did was pray for revival. The glory of God, presence of God, the manifest presence of God, if you want to call it God coming down among us, the glory, what, all that. We didn’t pray for missionaries. We didn’t pray for money. We didn’t even pray for sick people.

0:17:08 – (Steve Gray): We can do that. One of the other services, but we just prayed for that. The presence, the glory, revival over and over. Now that’s great, because what are we doing? We’re preparing. Well, that went on for two years. We prayed for two years. Years every Tuesday night. And the. It. We had great crowds and sometimes it was the best service of the week. And all we did was pray, except I would play. You might not know. I play piano and sing or been a musician for years. I would play and I would sing and I would worship and we’d worship and we’d pray and we cry out and we’d ask for God’s presence and glory to come and fill us, Lord, and be here among us and bring revival and bring renewal for Two years.

0:17:52 – (Steve Gray): So what was those two years doing? Preparing the way for God to come in or Jesus to come in, in power, which he did then after two years. And that’s when. So two years of prayer. Then the Smith and outpouring explodes for three and a half years. And Time magazine came, Newsweek came. Thousands and thousands and thousands people lined up during the day just to get in the building at night and into the gymnasium at night.

0:18:19 – (Steve Gray): What a whirlwind of the glory and power of God. And the people that came, they just came because they wanted to experience it. But we, that church and those people spent their Tuesday nights in prayer for two years. So a lot of people, they want revival now, but they don’t have any preparation. Maybe they don’t know they should. Maybe that’s what this is about. But then there’s others. If you tell them that, like, oh, well, if I got to go to church, another service, some just go once a week. I get it. They go to an hour once a week. I get it. That’s what people do.

0:18:55 – (Steve Gray): Some churches, and they go in and they sing a few songs. They raise their hands, they do the offering. They have a sermon that talks about their feelings and keeps them going and how to cope with things. And it’s kind of like a group therapy session, you know, and then they go home and that’s it. And then they go about the rest of their life, what they do during the rest of the week, and spend a lot more time on their phone than they do in church and check how many hours a day you’re on your phone and then check how many hours you’re in the. In the. In church.

0:19:25 – (Steve Gray): Well, it’s off balance. And so now, I mean, if. If God would decide to come down in his full glory, his full presence, how are you going to contain that when you got everything else going? So no preparation. So we used. I did it for myself. I said, God, if you ever come down the way I’ve read about in other places, in this greater manifestation of power, not just, you know, God’s everywhere, of course, but in a great presentation of who he is in power and might, I will do everything and anything. I will change everything I need to change, to have it and to keep it. And I meant it.

0:20:02 – (Steve Gray): And I convinced God. I think I convinced God that I meant it, you know, and so when he came, I didn’t have a bad life. Oh, no. You mean we got to come to church more? We’re going to have more services now? Oh, I don’t know. And some. Some pastors, they. They don’t want to give anymore, they don’t want to do anymore. The one service is good enough. And. And whatever they do during the week, it’s good enough.

0:20:25 – (Steve Gray): And so they go, well, I don’t know if I have to, but I did. I prepared. And then the people prepared and they did it. I look back on it, not sure how we did it. There was something supernatural probably going on behind the scenes with God, with these people, because now they’re coming Tuesday night and Wednesday night and Sunday morning two times. So four services a week. And we haven’t even been touched by the.

0:20:52 – (Steve Gray): Struck by the power of God. But. Well, the early church in book of Acts said they met every day, so that kind of thing. But the people did it. How I convinced them or God convinced them or how I don’t know. But they did it. And those two years paid off because then we got to touch the world with the power of God. And people came from all over the world, just name a place, they came. And some weeks, weekend would start, and we might. We might have as many as people from 30 different states and 12 countries, 10 countries, seven different countries.

0:21:27 – (Steve Gray): We didn’t know they were coming. They just came from all over and all over the world, what? And like I said, Time magazine came, Newsweek magazine came, lots of newspapers came. You know, San Francisco Chronicle did articles and everything. And so what pastor wouldn’t like that? And then people came. It’s like, wow. But do you like it enough? Do you want it enough that you would prepare yourself as a leader when or as a regular folks, prepare yourself safe? And so Kathy would get up and I’d hear her in front of before the revival and say, if God were to come down, what would we do? Would we prepare ourselves?

0:22:08 – (Steve Gray): Would we be standing at the burning bush trying to decide what we’re going to do with our lives? Are we going to incorporate this? Or would we take off our shoes and say, this is it. This is holy ground, this is it for me. And so I used to say to him, I knew a church that in the 1950s had services every day for, I think it was five years or something like six years every day. And it kind of went on all day. People would come during their lunch hour and then go back to work and then come to in the evening and wander in and they set up like little cots and stuff in the back of the sanctuary somewhere so leaders could have church. And then they’d just go sleep and they wouldn’t leave church. And then they come back and have church again.

0:22:51 – (Steve Gray): That was what the leaders did because they needed to rest between sometimes. And, you know, we used to tell people that, you know, what would we do if God came down? Would we be able to do it? And so that preparation of their hearts and their prayers and four services a week, and then eventually it was five when the revival finally hit and we did five. Not because you have to do five, but because people came from all over the world and. And they needed to soak and sit in this for a few times. We couldn’t have a one service in the week, and then they sit around and wait for Sunday.

0:23:24 – (Steve Gray): So we had on the weekends and we had, I think, Wednesday we prayed and then we had church Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And people from around the world and around the country, she would show up on Thursdays. Lots of people showed up on Friday, and they stayed the weekend. And then they go back to wherever on Sunday. Some people from the around the world, around the country, they would plan their vacation and they would come to the outpouring to the revival services for their vacation. That and bring the kids.

0:23:55 – (Steve Gray): And the kids loved it too. And it’s an amazing thing. It’s an amazing experience. And now you’re living for the next level. You’re alive right now. The next level is trying to churn and turn and turn and turn the hearts of the people to our Father, to the kingdom, to getting serious about loving God and preparing our hearts. So that’s my key. If you’re a pastor, you’re a leader, you need to start thinking, how can I prepare?

0:24:25 – (Steve Gray): So if it comes and when it comes, or if it comes and it does come, are they going to wear out in five weeks? Are they going to be able to carry it? Are they going to be able to change their schedule? Already they’ve made up their mind, God, you come. I’ll change my schedule. You come. I’m willing to give up this. I’m willing to not do that anymore. Because you’re more important and the kingdom is more important than anything else. Because I want to experience you. I want to know Jesus. I want to know Christ. I want to walk with God like he did with Adam in the cool of the day. I want your presence. I want more of you. All these things is that you then prepare your heart and say, God, you do it.

0:25:05 – (Steve Gray): I’ll be there. If I have to travel across the country, I’ll be there. I’ll go, at least go visit. If I can get it in my church, I’LL do it. If I can get it in my home I’ll do it but I will alter my lifestyle for the sake of your kingdom. If your kingdom will break out in my life and in my church and in my home I will alter it. Then you prepare yourself for, for change to alter to do whatever you got to do.

0:25:32 – (Steve Gray): Prepare the way of the Lord. Did you get that today? Go to https://stevegrayministries.com, and you’ll learn a lot more about this stuff. What you need to do to bring in a real move of God in your church or in your life. It’s kind of a mystery in a way until you start hearing the secrets of revival or the lifestyle of revival, then you start doing them and you can find God wants to come down. He’s already decided he wants to revive us. We have to decide that we want to be revived. Okay, I think you got it. All right, till next time, bye-bye.