For God Alone: Renew Our Hearts
Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down.
Fix in us thy humble dwelling, all thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art;
Visit us with thy salvation, enter every trembling heart.
Breathe, oh, breathe thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast;
Let us all in thee inherit; let us find thy promised rest.
Take away the love of sinning; Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty.
Come, Almighty to deliver, let us all thy life receive;
Suddenly return, and never, nevermore thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing, serve thee with thy hosts above,
Pray and praise thee without ceasing, glory in thy perfect love.
Finish, then, thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be;
Let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee:
Changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place,
Till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.
Charles Wesley, 1707-1788
The Church needs revival; not an evangelistic crusade, but corporate renewal that stems from church members and leaders falling before God with broken and contrite hearts. (Ezekiel 36:26; Psalm 51:17)
For many years, the Twelfth Street Baptist Church in Gadsden, Alabama hosted a School of the Prophets each February. One year, while I served on that church’s pastoral staff as minister of music (1985-1991), Robert E. Coleman was a guest preacher for the School of Prophets conference. Dr. Coleman preached on the subject of revival, both personal and corporate. (This could have been the year that Stephen Olford preached as well.) My heart resonated with Coleman’s messages, and I purchased his book, One Divine Moment, which informs the reader of the revival that broke out on the campus of Asbury College in February of 1970 while he was a member of that school’s faculty. The book begins with the following short paragraph:
‘The unusual revival which came to Asbury College early in 1970 and spread to scores of campuses across America is evidence that God is still at work in His world, lifting men and women out of self-centeredness, secularism, and boredom. ‘ (One Divine Moment, p. 9, Robert E. Coleman, ed., ©1970, Fleming H. Revell Co.)
February 3, 2022 marks the fifty-second anniversary of the beginning of the Asbury revival movement which spread throughout the United States and the world. The first chapter of One Divine Moment describes it as follows:
’Tuesday, the third of February, dawned like any other winter day in Wilmore, Kentucky. A cold wind whipped through the tall, barren trees on the campus of Asbury College. No one could have guessed that soon the little school would be caught up in a demonstration of divine love that would have repercussions to the ends of the earth.’ (One Divine Moment, p. 17)
The need for revival in the Church was evident long before a worldwide pandemic sent parishioners to their couches on Sunday mornings. However, now that many, if not, most churches have opened their doors to the faithful, church leaders are making adjustments; in our case (CityRise.org), adding and advancing Kingdom work as aggressively as time and resource will allow. (Remember, God owns the cattle on a thousand hills - Psalm 50:10, and the congregations within the CityRise network are believing that promise, and many more in the word of God.)
The need for personal and corporate renewal is great, perhaps greater now than any time in history. The following song, based on Helen Howarth Lemmel’s Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (1922) is a prayer for God’s people to keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. (Hebrews 2:12; Psalm 121:1-2)
Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus (Sovereign Grace Music)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2tKVqZZiI4
Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
in the light of His glory and grace.
Turn your eyes to the hillside, where justice and mercy embraced,
There the Son of God gave His life for us,
And our measureless debt was erased.
Jesus, to You we lift our eyes, Jesus, our glory and our prize
We adore You, behold You, our Savior ever true
Oh Jesus, we turn our eyes to You.
Turn your eyes to the morning, and see Christ the Lion awake
What a glorious dawn, fear of death is gone
For we carry His life in our veins.
Turn your eyes to the heavens, our King will return for His own
Every knee will bow, every tongue will shout,
All glory to Jesus alone!
Years ago, poet-musician, Ken Medema composed the spiritual, Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying. The words ring true as I consider my utter dependence on Jesus, my only hope. (1 Corinthians 15:19; Colossians 1:27) Ken’s lyric claims the promise that … Something’s going to happen like the world has never known, when the people of the Lord get down to pray. A door’s going to swing open, and the walls come tumbling down, when the people of the Lord get down to pray.
Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying (Medema, arr. Schrader)
USC Chamber Choir Reunion, William Dehning, conductor
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vsl6nax6Rs
In the nineteen-seventies, Baptists throughout Middle and South America launched an international evangelistic campaign titled, Cristo, la única Esperanza (Christ, the only hope). Recently, a group of artists wrote What Is Our Hope in Life and Death. The authors (Keith and Kristyn Getty, Matt Boswell, and Matt Papa) based their text on the first article in the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563.
What Is Our Hope in Life and Death
www.youtube.com/watch?v=OibIi1rz7mw&t=3s
What is our hope in life and death? Christ alone, Christ alone!
What is our only confidence? That our souls to him belong.
Who holds our days within his hand? What comes, apart from his command?
And what will keep us to the end? The love of Christ, in which we stand.
O sing hallelujah! Our hope springs eternal
O sing hallelujah! Now and ever we confess,
Christ our hope in life and death.
What truth can calm the troubled soul? God is good, God is good.
Where is his grace and goodness known? In our great Redeemer's blood
Who holds our faith when fears arise? Who stands above the stormy trial?
Who sends the waves that bring us nigh unto the shore, the rock of Christ?
Unto the grave, what will we sing? "Christ, he lives; Christ, he lives!"
And what reward will heaven bring? Everlasting life with him
And we will rise to meet the Lord, then sin and death will be destroyed;
And we will feast in endless joy, when Christ is ours forevermore.
O sing hallelujah! Our hope springs eternal;
O sing hallelujah! Now and ever we confess,
Christ our hope in life and death!
A scripture verse many know, and one which I learned as a teenager through a song by Jimmy and Carol Owens, is 2 Chronicles 7:14 - If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
I pray we will fall on our faces before God. As we do, may God hear the prayers of His people, and may His Spirit blow fresh winds over His Church, and heal our land.
© Paul R. Magyar, D.M.A., 2022
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