The happiest Christians are evangelistic ones.

The unhappiest Christians are the nitpicky kind—the ones who, in the words of Jesus, “strain out a gnat and swallow a camel” (Matthew 23:24 NKJV). They are so busy arguing theological minutia that they miss the opportunity. They are like someone seeing a burning building with people inside, and they are debating what kind of hose should be used to put the fire out.

There is a joy we are missing out on if we are not sharing our faith. John wrote that his personal joy was made possible by sharing with others the message of Christ. “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1:4 ESV).

Jesus said, “There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:7 NKJV). And when the angels came to the shepherds, they brought “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10 ESV).

It seems like some Christians just want to receive and learn, receive and learn. . . That is a noble and biblical thing to do. But if that receiving does not also include giving, then you are missing the point. Does not Scripture tells us that “it is more blessed to give than to receive”?

The believers I know who make a habit of sharing the gospel are happy. Proverbs 11:25 says that “those who refresh others will themselves be refreshed” (NLT). You are blessed to be a blessing.

But before you preach it, you must first live it. Billy Graham wrote:

“We are the Bibles the world is reading.
We are the creeds the world is needing.
We are the sermons the world is heeding.”

We need people today who walk and talk with Jesus Christ—people who, before they even speak a single word, give evidence that there is something different about them.

We need people who, through their godly lifestyles, have earned the right to be heard.

What we need today are people who have “been with Jesus.”

“This bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice . . . she very soon finished it off. ‘What a curious feeling!’ said Alice; ‘I must be shutting up like a telescope.'”

Few of us are tempted today to dream big. Like Alice in Through the Looking-Glass, some of us seem to be helplessly shrinking smaller and smaller, and we run the danger of drowning in our own tears of unbelief or complacency.

All too often we see only through the lens of our limited experience. And yet, most of us would be able to recite verses such as “All things are possible for those who believe,” and “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” So why, with promises like these, are our prayers so insipid?

What are your prayers like these days? In times past, God has torn open the heavens and come down. I desperately want to see that happen again in my lifetime; don’t you? Don’t you want your children and grandchildren to see it?

The Bible and history tell about times of exciting revival. I’ve been reading a book on the history of revivals in our country: the two Great Awakenings, the Fulton Street Revival, the youth revival that happened in the ’40s and ’50s, and I believe I was a part a revival in the late 1960s to early ’70s called “The Jesus Movement.”

And still, there’s a side of me that subconsciously struggles to even grasp the possibility that God might want to do it again. Maybe we don’t see God working in mighty ways because we don’t believe He would. Maybe it’s because we’ve grown so content with the ordinary Christian experience that we don’t bother asking God for anything more!

What would happen if we started praying big faith-filled prayers like Isaiah’s: “Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down!” I know we can’t engineer a revival. We can’t manufacture one, but we can and should agonize for one.

It’s my hope that we’d start right now, today, and join in the prayer effort for revival and begin linking our shields of faith together and begging God to do what only He can!

The immediate focus of my prayers is that God would bless and pour His Spirit out on this great opportunity, Harvest America. We can, even in our doubting, ask God to give us faith to believe in an answer of divine size.

You can join me and thousands praying for the churches to be revived, and for the lost to be reached, through Harvest America. Simply go to pray.harvestamerica.com, enter a loved one’s name, and start praying daily that God would “do it again”!