INTRODUCTION: Scripture reading: Acts 2:1-21

We are living in interesting and exciting times. There is a very real sense that God wants to do something great and wonderful in our time. So much has happened and we have been through so much. The reality is that God wants to do more and I believe He wants to visit His people in a special and significant way.
The question is: if God was to touch us and use us in a significant way, would we be ready? A 100 years ago, God touched a small group of people in what has become known as the Azusa Street Revival.

WHAT GOD DID!
In this revival people were touched by God and His presence. People were filled with the Holy Spirit. People began to speak in tongues. Many different and strange manifestations took place including healings. People were saved, delivered and changed. From all over the world people began to converge on this small little church. Lives were touched and eternal destinies and callings settled. As a result of peoples lives being touched and changed, Christianity and the world was affected. It led to the birth of the world-wide Pentecostal movement. It even touched South Africa through the Ministry of John G Lake and gave birth to the AFM/AGS denomination in South Africa (one of the larger and significant denominations in the country). People's lives were changed, many were saved and the reality of a living God who wants us to know His touch on our lives, became a reality to many. This all happened on this day 100 years ago, the 9th April 1906.

WHAT GOD WANTS TO DO!
Now here we stand 100 years later and we must ask ourselves: ' What does God want to do in our generation?' I believe that God wants to do it again. I believe that God wants to move, by His Spirit again, and that people will be touched and changed and that the world will be influenced as a result.

FOR THIS TO HAPPEN WE NEED TO ALIGN OURSELVES WITH GOD!
What does it mean to be aligned with God? The definition of the word align is: to be in or come into precise adjustment or correct relative position. To bring into line. To be in the proper positioning in relation to each other. This is exactly what needs to happen with each one of us. It reminds me of a place along the rugged coastline of Scotland where two jagged sections of land jut out into the sea. Both were a danger to ships. Both needed lighthouses. As a compromise, they erected two lighthouses; one as a complete operating lighthouse and the second one as a lighthouse only with a mirror in it. They adjusted it so that the functioning lighthouse would shine onto the other mirror in the second lighthouse, which was set to reflect the light of the first lighthouse out to sea. It worked perfectly.

HOW CAN WE ALIGN OURSELVES WITH GOD?

1. Desire what God desires.
Our own agendas need to be dealt with. In a very real sense we must lay aside our own desires. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray: 'Let Your Kingdom come'. This needs to become the cry of our hearts. Ambition and self must be dealt a fatal blow. We need to die to self and come alive to God! LET YOUR KINGDOM COME!

2. Avoiding the trap of sin.
Deal with sin. Be ruthless! Don't entertain or tolerate sin in any form. Be aware and alive or alert to God. The devil, our adversary, is walking around like a roaring lion with the intention to destroy and devour us so that we will never enter into what God has prepared. One of the traps he uses is the trap of sin. If he can only get us caught up in sin he knows it will trip us up and keep us back from pressing into what God has. Seek to live a life of right standing with God.

3. Be correctly positioned.
Just like the story of the lighthouse mentioned above, we need to be correctly positioned. Get connected with others who also long for God's touch and visitation. Find a church that has a passion to touch God and to be touched by Him!

4. Stir up your hunger and your thirst for more of God.
God is looking for those who are hungry and thirsty. God seldom uses the satisfied and contented individual. Expose yourself to the right things. Read the right books, listen to music that stirs your heart and does not simply tickle your ears or merely entertain you! Find other Christians who have the same longings and desires and connect with them.

5. Don't steady the ark!
When God begins to move we must be careful not to steady the ark. 'Steadying the ark' can involve interfering and trying to help God. It is normal that when God moves, the first thing well-intentioned people call for is structure! We must help this thing, we must not allow disorder, we must formalise and harness this thing so that it will lead to a harvest, is the type of things often heard. But it can also include being critical, judgmental, being hard-hearted or stiff-necked. With every revival or move of God there are strange things and fleshly things that can and do happen, but we must not throw the baby out with the bath water! John Wesley prayed the following prayer after the revival had died out for a time: 'Oh, Lord, send us the old revival, without the defects; but if this cannot be, send it with all its defects! We must have revival!' In the Azusa Street revival, whenever they tried to steady the ark, the Lord stopped working!

6. Give the precious Holy Spirit right of way.
The Holy Spirit is the one who has come to make this all real to us. During the Azusa Street Revival the one song that was sung the most was the song 'THE COMFORTER HAS COME'. The Holy Spirit is the one who is sent as the comforter, the one who comes to make Jesus real to us. The Holy Spirit is the one who has to be given the right of way in our lives, our meetings and our churches. The Holy Spirit will not force us, but He will wait for us to give Him the right of way and then He will move. As long as we want to do it our way, or as long as we do what seems good unto us, the Holy Spirit will withdraw, until such time that we open the door for Him and give Him room.

7. Ask God to do it and to use you!
This is the last thing but it is such an important issue. We need to ask God to move! The Bible tells us that we have not because we ask not and we need to start asking and believing that God wants to use us and that He wants to move. Ask God for His fire, so that you will never be the same again. Ask God to move in our midst and in our lives in a way that will touch and change us and revive us again. Ask God to use you! Ask God to touch you! Believe Him for it and let's expect great things from God!

Evan Roberts, from the Welsh revival said the following:

While the fire of God is falling,
While the voice of God is calling,
Brothers, get the flame.
While the torch of God is burning,
Men's weak efforts overturning,
Christians, get the flame.

If in utter self-surrender,
You would work with Christ remember,
You must get the flame.
For the sake of the bruised and dying,
And the lost in darkness lying,
We must get the flame.

For the sake of Christ in glory,
And the spreading of the story,
We must get the flame.
Oh, my soul, for your refining,
And your clearer, brighter shining,
Do not miss the flame.

On the Holy Ghost relying,
Simply trusting and not trying,
You will get the flame.
Brothers, let us cease our dreaming,
And while God's flood-time is streaming,
We will have the flame!