Cry for Personal Revival-Bro Gbile Akanni

Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.(Psalms 80:7)

This is indeed the crux of every revival and in it I find the quiet causes of spiritual decay in anyone's life. Spiritual decay in a soul is imminent when he turns away from the Lord. Spiritual decline sets in whenever a man turns to the things of the world. Even if I should get so occupied with the things of God rather than God Himself, I will still experience the same decline. This last one is even more deceptive. It will bring me into imperceptible decay in the inner man. Every decay is a turning away from The Lord and from His communion. When a man turns his back to the Light of life, he will surely walk in darkness.

Turn us again, O God of hosts...

This is important for me to know again today. Unless God turns our eyes and our hearts again to Himself, vain is the effort of a backslider to turn himself again to The Lord. He would rather descend so fast into carelessness and into the dungeon of sin and darkness. It is easier to descend, to decline and to decay than to ascend, climb and grow in the inner man. Descending and decaying is the way of the earth and the force of gravity only pulls downward and not upward. To turn again upward to God, there is a downward force of gravity, the force of my personal dead weight that I must overcome and yet have an extra energy to ascend up on high to be with the Lord. The power of resurrection must be at work again to turn me again and bring me out of the chain of death and decay.Every reviving of a soul is the action of God in releasing the resurrection power to bring up that soul from the valley and from the dungeon, where it is being chained with addictions of all kinds. The miry clay in the valley is so stuck to the feet of a fallen saint that each step out only sinks him deeper and deeper into the mud. The cry is "Turn us again, O God of hosts". Yet it must be a cry from the heart. Jonah could not have come out of the belly of the fish by himself. He has sunk so deep into the bottom of the ship and into the belly of hell. At the bottom of the bottomless pit, his cry to the Lord was similar to this cry........

And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple. The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.(Jonah 2:2-7)

Jonah had known the blessed presence of The Lord over the years. He knew the beauty of God's shining face on a life and he has experienced the sweet voice of God speaking to him severally to give him direction and instructions for living. Unless you know what you have lost, you would not cry for it with any serious earnestness. The greatest affliction Jonah had was being cast out of the "thy sight into the deep, in the midst of the seas. He was in a horror of darkness. He went down to the bottoms of the mountains and was behind the bars of the earth. Unless The Lord turned His face towards Jonah, who would have released him from behind the bars of the earth? It was God that can bring a life out of that depth of corruption. Jonah turned to The Lord and looked again towards the temple. This was God at work. He used all the billows of the sea and the weeds in the belly of the fish which to Jonah was the belly of hell to turn him again.

I know what it means to lose the presence of God even for a day and all the can of worms the devil releases to overwhelm me in a moment is unimaginable. He sees it as an opportune time to strike with a deadly blow, from which my soul may not recover if God would not intervene. God may use anything to turn us again to cry to Him for mercy but it is His love that would turn my heart again and again to Him lest I continue to descend into the bottomless pit. Father, do not let me grow cold in my love for you. Don't let me go away from your presence for whatever reason. Let not the subtle ministry activities take me away from your bosom. Turn me again O God of hosts. Turn my heart again to the fountain of living water. Create a thirst within my heart that nothing in this world would quench until I run back to the River of living water. Let me lose every comfort and peace anywhere else until I have relocated myself in you and in your bosom.

For Jonah, it was by the instrumentality of his afflictions that he now cried to The Lord and turned his face towards the Holy temple. He would rather go down the deck and sleep a strange sleep. God had to stir up a boisterous wind to trouble the ship just to wake him up to call on God. All others turned to their gods but he would not. When the wind and the storm could not turn the heart and the eyes of Jonah to God, He had to use the belly of the fish to do the job. Jonah thought it was death at once, he did not know that even death would not come to a man whom God wants to deal with. He thought he would just close his eyes and find himself on the other side where there is no knowledge of pains... He was mistaken. God kept death away and provided the belly of the fish with its heat in the midst of water. Everywhere went dark, with inky blackness. He knew what hell the whole world would be when God casts a man out of His presence. O Lord, help me and draw me back to thy bosom and never let me go in Jesus name.
Turn us again O God of hosts is a great cry and The Lord has the right and means to do so in His love. Unless He does turn my heart again, I have no power to turn the steering upward. Every revival comes from God and Him alone.
"…and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved."
This is the strange thing I must learn in every restoration. It is the face of The Lord shining on me that brings life. Just as the sunshine is what every plant needs to grow their leaves and to bring forth their fruits, so will my soul not grow and blossom unless The Lord shines the light of His face upon me. Cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved. O Lord, this is the reality of restoration. It is as you cause your face to shine upon me that I shall be saved from every calamity and every decay.
The Lord's face shining upon me is indeed the source of the spiritual life I can grow into. And it is as I behold His face, with unveiled face that I am being changed into His own likeness from one degree of glory to another. If His face does not shine upon me, I will be stagnant in life and will lose every luster in life. O Lord, cause thy face to shine upon me continually in Jesus name.

Can you say a better Amen!