Raised with Christ 8
Death. It’s confronting. LIfe is precious and it hangs by a slender thread. That’s how Adrian Warnock, author of Raised with Christ: How the Resurrection Changes Everything introduces:
Chapter 12: Send a Resurrection, O Lord!
The great news of course is that “God is an expert in revival.” What happens when someone turns to Jesus in faith? A spiritually dead person is united with a life-giving Person.
And with this introduction, Adrian focuses on revivals – when the church en masse experiences more fully the change made possible by the resurrection. Aussie Stuart Piggin is quoted on the nature of revival:
“It is a powerful intensification by Jesus of the Holy Spirit’s normal activity.”
This is a terrific chapter by Adrian. He comments:
- ‘revival’ is available to all Christians individually – it is quantitatively, but not qualitatively different, to our normal experience
- both through the Acts of the Apostles and church history, the Church has grown in fits and starts
- since Acts is Scripture, “it must have a role in forming our doctrine and practice” – right on!
- Acts is a “model account of how church mission should ideally proceed”
- the pattern of revival in Acts is also seen in church history:
- period of intense emphasis on prayer in the church
- dramatic work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers
- inevitable impact on those outside
- whenever a group of people experience a revival, prayer and the Word of God are emphasised.
And these are the subjects of the next two chapters in Raised with Christ.