Here is the "secret" to tangible movements of God: Unity among Christians.
That's it. God's presence will be powerfully manifest when diverse groups of believers pray, worship and gather together for the purpose of lifting up the name of Jesus. I've seen it happen many times.
America's divisions now threaten our existence. The answer is revival. Revival awakens spiritually dull believers and spreads the Gospel. The Gospel, the message that Jesus saves, changes the world. Even my staunchest atheist friends agree that Christianity has changed the world.
If revival is the solution, and salvation is as simple as "believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31), why is the world not Christian after 2,000 years? Two reasons: Christians' failure to share the Gospel and our lack of unity. Unity can be many things; for Christians, unity is rallying around what's essential to the Gospel and a willingness to release what is not.
I was privileged to have Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, as my Personal Evangelism instructor at Liberty University. Dr. Bright said, "God would not assign the Church a nonsensical task. If He commanded us to 'Go into all the world and preach the Gospel' (Mark 16:15), it must be possible."
Bright explained that if each Christian led one person to salvation in the next 12 months and discipled that new believer to do the same, the Gospel would be spread worldwide in under eight years. Barna Research estimates the U.S. Christian population is now over 100 million. Using Jesus' "Go and make disciples" mission, if revived Christians worldwide made disciples, it would take only three years! Revival can change the world.
Why revival? Why not change through social justice? Social justice is good for a movement or a monument, but revival alone redeems the soul. Redeemed souls restore broken cultures and defeat God's enemy. Many public figures are talking about spiritual warfare. Tucker Carlson said, "The evidence unmistakably shows an acceleration in whatever this dark force is in this country whose only impulse is to destroy, not to improve or create, but to destroy..." He didn't know he was quoting John 10:10.
When we focus on the Gospel, salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, evil loses. Save enough individuals and families from evil, and nations follow. Consider the profound effect of Charlie Kirk's life — one life can change millions.
Jesus said, "By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35). Jesus said the world will believe in Him when they see Him in us. "I pray also for those who will believe in Me…that all of them may be one…that they may be one as We are one…so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that You sent Me and have loved them…" (John 17:20-23). When they see Christians in unity, they're drawn to the Unifier.
Pastors, will you pray with pastors who are unlike you?
To win your city for Christ, will you join Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists, or (gulp!) Catholics? For my Evangelical brethren, you can be Catholic and saved (or Methodist and unsaved). We must never compromise on the Gospel, but can we cooperate for revival?
We all have the essentials on which we agree: Salvation by grace. The divinity of Christ. His bodily resurrection. The Bible is God's word. Jesus is the only way to God. These are the irreducible minimum, "Jesus' essentials." Preferences like guitars or pipe organs, cassocks or hoodies — they won't matter in eternity. Revival, individually or nationally, depends on what you do with Jesus, not the myriad non-essentials. Unity is being one in Christ, not in practice.
Revival benefits the churches and the street only when believers care more about being one than they care about traditions or labels. Revival changed this nation before. By the early 1700s, our young nation had strayed from its Pilgrim roots. The Great Awakening revival changed that, and it affected individuals, churches and the nation.
Revivalist George Whitefield stayed in Benjamin Franklin's home in Philadelphia. Franklin wrote, "From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seemed as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk through the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families on every street." Whitefield's prayer now appears on our currency, "I pray…that they would not live as 13 scattered colonies, but as one nation under God."
Revival brought religion, but also social change. Churches taught reading, especially in rural areas with few schools, because the colonists equated Bible knowledge with general knowledge. Colleges founded in the 1700s, including Princeton, Brown, Rutgers and Dartmouth, taught Bible-based curricula. By the late 1700s, New England had one of the highest literacy rates in the world.
As revival spread, Puritans, Unitarians, Presbyterians, Baptists and Lutherans set aside differences and united around the Gospel. The American colonies became more spiritually, politically and geographically unified, amid religious diversity. The opposite of England's State Church. Unified spiritually, energized believers became a distinctive entity and birthed a distinctive nation. Mark A. Noll, in his History of Christianity in the United States and Canada, wrote: "The Awakening was America's first truly national event."
I don't know what our final major event will be as a nation. I pray it is a revival, and many who do not have the peace and life that comes from knowing Jesus will come to know Him. I know that while we await Jesus' return, we must live as He prayed and we are compelled to do — in unity, as one in the One who loves us. Let revival come. Let it begin in me.
I'm Alex McFarland, and any friend of Jesus is a friend of mine.
Dr. Alex McFarland is an apologetics evangelist who has spoken in hundreds of locations throughout the U.S. and internationally. He is heard live on Exploring the Word, airing daily on 200+ radio stations across the country. The Alex McFarland Show airs weekly on NRBTV, providing Biblically faithful TV and discussion on current events affecting our nation. His newest book, 100 Bible Questions and Answers on Prophecy and the End Times, is available now.
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