The road to refreshing revival comes through repentance  “Repentance is the total replacement of one kingdom and its ways in our lives, with another kingdom and its ways. It is walking out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light.

Acts 3:19-20

Now turn from your sins and turn to God, so you can be cleansed of your sins.  Then wonderful times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will send Jesus your Messiah to you again.

In context this scripture was preached by Peter just after the healing of the man who had been sitting at the gate beautiful for many years, then the miracle occurred he was raised off his bed after 40 years. Peter then said this man was healed by Jesus, you remember him! He’s the one you rejected and sent to the cross, but God has raised this man from his bed before your very eyes in the name of Jesus. Therefore repent and turn to God!

What was required was a total mindset change, then once the mindset changed a definite decision needed to be made to walk in the opposite way in a whole new belief system. Then as a result of this change of lifestyle and thinking; came times of refreshing.

Repentance is more than saying sorry

This is my definition: “Repentance is the total replacement of one kingdom and its ways in our lives, with another kingdom and its ways. It is walking out of the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light. It sees a transformation bigger than turning the light on in a pitch black room.” Light displaces darkness when the light is aloud to shine.

Luke said in Acts 3; As a result of this kind of transformation God will send Jesus literally into your midst. Now that’s transformation and that’s what we call revival.

If I get into my car and I drive from Manukau to Mangere (two suburbs of Auckland)   I have changed my position, maybe even changed my view but I still remain in the same city and the same nation. But if I get on a plane and fly to Fiji I have not only changed my view I have changed kingdoms. The way I live will be different; the rules of the kingdom will be different, the authority structure will be different. So to move into transforming glory I need to change kingdoms. Now to change kingdoms I have to walk in the way of the King of the kingdom I am transferring to. In the case of this scripture in Acts 3 the need for repentance was the need to see that Jesus is alive and heals the sick. These people didn’t have a problem believing in God, their problem was seeing a living God; and walking as if the God they believed in was in fact alive.

AGREEING WITH GOD DIVIDES THE ENEMIES KINGDOM

If we want to see revival we need to change kingdoms totally. The Kingdom of God is yes and amen. So when we agree with the Holy Spirit concerning His power, or His love, or His justice, or His glory, or His holiness, or His delivering power we divide the kingdom of the enemy in our life or the life of those we minister to. Jesus said in Mark 3:23 if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. When God delivers he removes one kingdom and replaces it with another Kingdom. For instances when he set Adam out of the Garden he went from being sub-ruler of a kingdom to being subject to the worlds kingdom. When Israel left Egypt they went from Pharaohs kingdom into Gods Kingdom. When Jesus came he didn’t say come join my Church; He said “The Kingdom of God is at hand” its decision time. Even an unswerving devotion to a nation or a leadership is Idolatry because Jesus said “You are in the world but not of the world”

 Psalm 45: Listen to me, O royal daughter; take to heart what I say. Forget your people and your homeland far away.  For your royal husband delights in your beauty; Honour him, for he is your lord.

Forget your Old culture and your own people; you now belong to the King and to His Kingdom. First and foremost in our life is the King and His kingdom. I am no longer a New Zealander first! I am a Child of the Kingdom of Heaven first

So the freedom of the Kingdom of God we desire; has a direct relationship spiritually with how much we have released the kingdom we come from. True repentance releases the old kingdom to the point where the new kingdom overwhelms the old. That doesn’t mean we become religious and plastic in our holiness, it means we abandon ourselves to the purpose of God. If the purpose of God is for you to put a coat of fur on and eat locusts and wild honey then that’s what abandonment to the kingdom looks like for you. If on the other hand God has called you to be president of your country then to be president is abandonment for you. Where repentance preaching has got it wrong in the past is; it has placed a demand that we become religious. God calls us to repent from the kingdom of self and turn the key of our old kingdom totally over to the King of kings. True repentance or deliverance comes as we abandon our lives to Him.

In India I prayed for a young woman who had known success. She was a university graduate, but grief had overtaken her when someone close had died, she was unable to release it to the Lord. The Kingdom of grief in her life became ruler, over time she became possessed by Demonic Spirits. After all she was abandoned to their Kingdom. When I first met her she could not talk but only grunt and growl like a wild animal. Her family had brought her 25km by tractor to receive healing at a meeting I was speaking at. She was brought to the front of the Church and the demons began to shout “Even if 100 Pastors pray we will not leave”  Well they did leave, In the name of Jesus, the last one going with a scream. Because I released a greater Kingdom, in her heart, she received that Kingdom even though she couldn’t speak. And the word of Jesus in Mark 3:23 if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. Was seen and witnessed by all in that Church. The Kingdom of God was seen and declared through her deliverance.

 She was a little afraid and very weak after the event, but restored to her right mind. You can imagine my interest when returning this year as to how she was. The Pastor said “she is totally well and has just got married”. Jesus now holds her heart totally!  All the riches in the world’s kingdoms wouldn’t satisfy her. She is committed in Love to Him. Jesus has her heart totally one kingdom has displaced another. Is she now walking around in a judgemental holier than thou manner? Of course not, she is very humble and acknowledges a greater King. His name is Jesus, She is abandoned to Jesus and the sweetness of that abandoned life touches countless others. That one deliverance has seen countless others delivered because her repentance consisted of one kingdom invading another, not just a few words from the four spiritual laws.

Calvin Miller puts it well when he says “Those who will not praise Him, may bypass the Christ of the inner altar, and know only the Christ of the Theologians.”

Christianity is not a religion; we hear it so often from a myriad of pulpits but we don’t understand it unless we see that what is required is not a set of rules but an abandoned heart to the King, and an abandoned attitude to our role in his kingdom. Your role may be very different from my role, I am not responsible to walk your road nor are you responsible to walk mine, but we had better find out which road we are meant to be on.

Psalm 84:1-2 how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty.  I long, yes, I faint with longing to enter the courts of the Lord. With my whole being, body and soul, I will shout joyfully to the living God.

You see this sort of abandonment is not satisfied with anything less than the courts of the King to whom we have abandoned ourselves. That sort of abandonment is never going to be satisfied with a set of rules or steps to peace with God. Rather that heart will break down every barrier and wall to enter the courts of her king. That is true repentance.

A heart that has come to this level of abandoned true repentance will be overwhelmed with joy. Then wonderful times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord.

O the deep deep love of Jesus, vast unmeasured, boundless free. Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me; underneath me, all around me, is the current of thy love; leading onward, leading homeward, to my glorious rest above. ~Samuel T Francis.

IAN JOHNSON