Are There Any Reasons to Hope for a
Christward Revolution
in America by the Close of 2024?
Christward Revolution
in America by the Close of 2024?
First of a Four-Part Series
“Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts. There’s turbulence ahead!”
Non-stop political, economic, racial, moral, domestic, environmental, theological, ideological, international turbulences—to name a few!
All of it is potentially existential at the core. For example, we’re still caught in destructive aftermaths of life-or-death COVID. Or look at the dust stirred up last week from the attempted assassination of former President Trump.
However, as disturbing as that is, it is emblematic. Directly or indirectly, 2024 has become a year full of choppy seas, plagued by all kinds of turbulence.
Honestly, in this threat environment, aren’t most of us feeling a little overwhelmed as we try to address our own practical struggles just to make it through the next day? In fact, fearful uncertainty about the future of our nation is a central theme for both the Republican and Democratic national conventions this summer.
At such a moment as this, some may wonder, “How can the question you raise in your title for this four-part series even be relevant to 2024?”
Frankly, no issue could be more relevant! Unhesitatingly and unequivocally, I can say that, for me, the answer to the title question calls for one simple response.
Are there any reasons to hope for a
Christward Revolution in America
before the close of 2024?
Christward Revolution in America
before the close of 2024?
ABSOLUTELY!
This is my goal in this series of four blog posts: I want to tell you why I must ask this question, why I’m so confident of the answer, and what this could mean for all of us as we traverse the coming year together.
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Our God Offers Us a Very Special Kind of Hope
From beginning to end, our God is a God of hope. “May the God of hope [that’s his name!] fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Christ—so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13, emphasis added).
Therefore, as it says here, he wants every Jesus follower to abound—to overflow with, be filled with, and become fluent in HOPE.
Here’s one way a friend of mine puts it: Our God has lots of promises up his sleeves—and he has great big sleeves!
In both Testaments, however, his promises focus primarily on a certain kind of hope.
As for you, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
even now I announce that
I will restore twice as much to you.
(Zechariah 9:11-12, emphasis added)
I will free your prisoners from the waterless pit.
Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope;
even now I announce that
I will restore twice as much to you.
(Zechariah 9:11-12, emphasis added)
As Zechariah tells us, it is the hope of new beginnings—surprising seasons of renewal. This is especially true for those who feel as if they are merely surviving in “waterless pits” (to use Zechariah’s vivid metaphor in the Scripture above)—in other words, digging and digging (for water) and coming up empty time after time. Life feels “hope-less.”
To such ones as these, God promises restoration—in abundance. He intends to restore, the prophet says, “twice as much” of anything we may have forfeited.
Or, to put it another way: He wants to take us to a place we’ve never been before.
Count on the Great “Good” in the Good News
In fact, the “good” proclaimed in the truly good news we have in the Lord Jesus Christ flows not only from his incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection but also from—most of all from—his ASCENSION. Why is that?
The moment our Savior took his place as supreme Son on the throne of his Father’s kingdom, all the promises of God were inherited by the Son. Exclusively his to inherit and fulfill. Permanently his to share with us.
In other words, the hundreds of promises recorded in Scripture all point to Jesus. They are embodied in him and can be enjoyed only in him—not for our sakes alone but preeminently as the way for the Father to carry out his purpose of exalting the Son and reconciling everything back to God through him.
But—and this is the source of such great joy for all Jesus’ followers in 2024—because, as believers, we fully belong to him, the Father pronounces a cosmic “YES!” over our lives and our churches regarding the most intimate, as well as the most profound, implications of every promise encompassed by our King.
As we read in 2 Corinthians 1:19-20 (NIV):
In [God’s Son], it has always been “Yes.”
For no matter how many promises God has made,
they are “Yes” in Christ.
And so, through him, the “Amen” is spoken by us
to the glory of God.
For no matter how many promises God has made,
they are “Yes” in Christ.
And so, through him, the “Amen” is spoken by us
to the glory of God.
Note: The promises are his, BUT they have become ours because we are his. (Read that sentence again!)
This is especially true regarding the vast array of God’s pledges regarding all we are destined to experience out of every facet of our reclamation in Christ Jesus.
Thus, he remains forever the God of the hope of replenishment. Of revitalization. Of renovation. Of resurrection. But all of it is in and only in Christ Jesus.
This is where our hope for an American CHRIST Awakening is anchored!
One Certainty in the Face of Today’s Turbulences
Therefore, we can be certain that, in 2024, the Holy Spirit desires nothing higher than to take believers across this land where we have never gone before with our Savior.
The Head of the Church wants to transform us, individually and collectively, into (again, to borrow from Zechariah 9) “PRISONERS OF HOPE!”—that is, into people so captivated and compelled by our hope in Christ and his victorious, redeeming reign that we’re able to weather any turbulence of the moment while we see God’s kingdom purposes unfolding in fresh ways just ahead of us.
And what is ahead of us? The only hope our nation has in this hour—no matter who is running for president or who is ahead in the polls—is a Spirit-given, Spirit-driven, wholesale waking up among Christians in every part of the nation to the spectacular supremacy of God’s Son today in the life of this nation. This is what I call an American CHRIST Awakening.
Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.
(Ephesians 5:17)
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.
(Ephesians 5:17)
An American CHRIST Awakening refers to the hope of God’s Spirit coming in power to invite God’s people in our land to be reintroduced to God’s Son for ALL he is. This includes the Father helping us rediscover every promise made ours in our Lord Jesus—promises for which he redeemed and destined us, promises to be experienced in all of his fullness now and forever.
I’m talking about the kind of hope we might crystallize with the increasingly popular term “Christ Awakening.” The fact is that a premiere blessing received when any promise of God is fulfilled in Christ is the reawakening of God’s people to more of the fullness of Christ.
Consequently, we should be eager to enter this election season defying the din of the world’s taunts and fears, verbal and even physical violence, by anticipating a rousing, heaven-initiated reconnection and reengagement with the reign of our Lord—unleashed among believers everywhere.
At the same time, we should boldly proclaim to one another the hope of this Christ Awakening, stirring one another to prepare for it without reserve and with full resolve. Sort of like this:
“Get out of bed, Jerusalem!
Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight.
GOD’s bright glory has risen for you.
The whole earth is wrapped in darkness,
all people sunk in deep darkness,
But GOD rises on you,
his sunrise glory breaks over you.
Nations will come to your light,
kings to your sunburst brightness.
Look up! Look around!”
(Isaiah 60:1-3, The Message, emphasis added)
Wake up. Put your face in the sunlight.
GOD’s bright glory has risen for you.
The whole earth is wrapped in darkness,
all people sunk in deep darkness,
But GOD rises on you,
his sunrise glory breaks over you.
Nations will come to your light,
kings to your sunburst brightness.
Look up! Look around!”
(Isaiah 60:1-3, The Message, emphasis added)
Listen. Carefully.
Read again Isaiah’s last statement: “Look up! Look around!”
As we abound in hope with a spirit of watchfulness—especially hope for an American CHRIST Awakening to emerge before the close of 2024—we do need to prepare for what’s coming right now.
We need to live on our tiptoes as we pray for the Father to bring to pass that era when “the whole Body of Christ becomes wholly alive to the whole vision of the whole Christ”—another definition of the Christward revolution.
As Jesus exhorted the seven churches of Asia in Revelation:
- Are we listening to what the Spirit is saying to the churches of our own nation?
- Are we resisting the negative prospects recited by politicians and pundits as we turn our eyes and our EARS toward Jesus, setting our attention on what is happening at this moment around and from his throne?
- Are we letting the Spirit of God drive our agenda for the coming months, not the platform of a political campaign for president?
The sobering truth is that to do otherwise will take God’s people into a form of idolatry. And if that is where we end up, we are outside Christ. As a result, we relinquish any hope for the future of our nation or the cause of Christ in our nation.
The great, glorious truth in 2024 is this fact: In this hour, all through the Body of Christ, the Holy Spirit is amplifying one overarching truth, revealing to Jesus followers a whole new vision of the unsearchable riches and victories—and HOPE—we have in Christ Jesus.
Here at CHRIST NOW, for example, in consensus with recent data from the Barna and Pew research organizations, our own findings clearly indicate there is a multitude of believers all across our nation who are hungry—hungry to know more of Christ, experience more of Christ, and become more for Christ.
Where the Holy Spirit is taking them with that hunger is summarized by Paul like this:
And the secret is simply this:
Christ in you!
Yes, Christ in you bringing with him
the hope of all glorious things to come.
(Colossians 1:27, Phillips).
Christ in you!
Yes, Christ in you bringing with him
the hope of all glorious things to come.
(Colossians 1:27, Phillips).
How can we respond to this fundamental reality in any other way than by seeking God for nothing less than a widespread shaking and waking of the Church to the greatness and glory of Christ and to the grand purposes before us in him and his advancing kingdom?
- Do YOU see how such a spiritual revolution is already impending?
- Are YOU aware that it is bearing down on top of us right now?
- Can YOU sense how there is nothing the Father designs, deserves, or desires for his people in America more than this?
- Have YOU become convinced that God is able, willing, and ready to bring such an awakening to our land, beginning before the end of 2024—all for the sake of his saving purposes in the Lord Jesus Christ?
These are vital questions. There are others that go with them.
Together, they will form the focus of my next blog post. Be watching for it.
About the Author
Over the past 50 years, David Bryant has been defined by many as a “messenger of hope” and a “Christ proclaimer” to the Church throughout the world. Formerly a minister-at-large with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, president of Concerts of Prayer International (COPI), and chairman of America’s National Prayer Committee, David now provides leadership to ChristNow.com and Proclaim Hope!, whose mission is to foster and serve Christ Awakening movements. Download his widely read ebooks at ChristNow.com. Enjoy hundreds of podcast episodes. Watch his weekly vlogs at David Bryant REPORTS. Meet with David through Zoom or in-person events through David Bryant LIVE!
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