Personal Revival in Psalm 119: Thinking About What It Means to Feel Alive Again

The worship of our lives is seeking after God’s ways rather than our own. We learn that God’s ways are better because our ways typically cause great hardship and tribulation. God forgives us for living by our own ways and bringing such destruction on ourselves and his earth. He shows his lovingkindness to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments (Exodus 20:6). As the psalmist reflects on God’s Law, he returns again to God’s wonderful lovingkindness despite his own sin.

Revive me according to Your lovingkindness, So that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth (Psalm 119:88). 

When the Law mentions God’s lovingkindness, it is quite literally proclaiming the gospel of salvation by grace through faith. There is the rule of Law. There is also salvation by grace. They are two sides of the same coin. Before we care about God’s Law in any real productive sort of way, God saves us and changes our hearts. The psalmist prays for God to revive him personally according to God’s lovingkindness—not according to God’s rules. The psalmist realizes he can’t work for personal revival.

“Revive” in this verse literally means to feel alive instead of dead. The psalmist, though he is technically alive, feels dead because of his suffering. He is asking God to make him feel alive again—to give him a new excitement about his life and calling. I am of the opinion that routines, habits, and disciplined living are good things. Living because life is exciting is also good. Sometimes we get stuck or feel like we are just checking off boxes of things we think need to be done. Sometimes the responsibilities that were once exciting to us now seem burdensome. Sometimes as we age we lose the excitement about life we had when we were younger. We lose excitement in our relationships, jobs, and churches. Sometimes, like the psalmist, we experience suffering to the degree of not being able to enjoy life.

Notice what the psalmist does not say:

1. God, take away this suffering.
2. God, move me to different circumstances.
3. God, give me a new relationship.
4. God, put me in a more sensational church.
5. God, I need a new job.

Getting the next new thing or changing our circumstances doesn’t work because the newness of something only lasts so long. We also can’t avoid suffering in this life. Our circumstances are often out of our control. Instead, when the psalmist asks God for revival, that feeling of being alive again, he asks God to revive him according to God’s lovingkindness.

We typically talk about revival in terms of growing numbers of people coming to Christ. The psalmist is singing about personal revival. How many people today want to experience personal revival? The psalmist shows us what really brings personal revival in the arenas of our lives from church to home to work to school. He shows us the source of our renewed sense of purpose, drive, excitement, life. It’s quite literally the best thing for our personal mental health and sense of being. God personally revives according to His lovingkindness.

That means our happiness and contentment are not based on our circumstances. Instead, they are based on the lovingkindness of God. While we tend to look to ourselves or our circumstances for happiness and excitement in life, God wants us to know it is actually found in Him alone. Everything else will let us down if we think it will satisfy.

When we go back to Exodus 20:6, we see that God’s lovingkindness is his forgiveness of our transgressions. In Psalm 119, the psalmist has constantly been proclaiming that God’s ways are better than his. Psalm 119 is not a psalm of repentance, but the psalmist has repented of his own ways and dedicating himself to God’s ways. The psalmist’s ways brought unhappiness, suffering, injustice, and unnecessary violence as he did things to try satisfying himself. When we live life to satisfy ourselves, we simply aren’t doing what is good for the world. God’s ways, however, bring peace, justice, happiness, and an ultimate end to all suffering at the terminus of this age. That’s what repentance is, a turning from our ways to God’s ways.

If you want to experience personal revival in your life, repent. Embrace God’s ways rather than your own. Resolve not to forsake His precepts. Even in the mundane or suffering, you can feel alive because God gives life, not our small sensational feelings. When God forgives us for doing things our ways, selfishly, we know we can experience revival—even having a love for life we haven’t had before. Age doesn’t even matter. Consider Moses, who gave the best of himself in his 80s during the Exodus and then David, who killed Goliath as a teenager. Both men were men after God’s own heart and lived with the luster of life according to God’s lovingkindness.

Isn’t this what everyone, young and old, wants? Isn’t this why we try to get so much out of life? All along, the church has the answer and people are still trying to win life by following after their own ways. That is why we constantly invite people to repent and believe the gospel. We care about them and know that repentance brings personal happiness, fulfillment, and ultimately worldwide justice and peace. God’s ways are better.

The psalmist doesn’t merely ask for revival in his life. There is a purpose for his personal revival, “so that [he] may keep the testimony of [God’s] mouth.” We know God shows His lovingkindness to those who love Him. For what purpose does God show His lovingkindness to people? What is the goal of our salvation? The psalmist seems to think that his keeping God’s testimony is the goal of God’s lovingkindness. It may surprise you to know that the Bible never tells us that getting into a place called heaven is the goal of God’s salvation or our repentance. The Bible does talk about a place called Heaven as God’s dwelling place (cf. Deuteronomy 26:15; 1 Kings 8:30-49; 1 Chronicles 21:26; Nehemiah 9:27; Job 22:12-14; Psalms 2, 11, 20, 33, 102, 103, 113, 123, 135; Ecclesiastes 5:2; Isaiah 63:15; Lamentations 3:41-50; Matthew 6:9; 10:32, 33; 12:50; 16:17; 18:10, 14; Mark 11:25, 26; 16:19; Hebrews 8:1). The Bible also claims that those who believe in Jesus will have eternal life (cf. Matthew 25:46; John 3:16; 4:14; 5:24; 6:50-71; 17:3; Romans 2:6-8: 6:23; Galatians 6:8; 1 John 2:25; 5:11). When a person is saved, he enters the Kingdom of Heaven, which is in all places (cf. Matthew 4:17; 5:20; 6:10; 18:3; Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17; John 3; Acts 14:22; Revelation 5:10). Never, though, are we told that the goal of salvation is getting people into a place called Heaven. I encourage you to search the Scriptures about that. I believe we do get to be with God forever, but I don’t think Heaven as a place is the goal of our salvation. According to the psalmist, there is something more going on, and the New Testament agrees:

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Referring explicitly to salvation, Paul claims that we are created in Christ Jesus, not to get to Heaven, but for good works God prepared beforehand. Every single worldly religion appeals to a person’s selfishness and lust to live forever. Christ does promise eternal life, but that’s not His primary purpose for saving people. We are saved unto good works—works that literally save the world, bringing it to the justice and peace of God like the psalmist sings about in Psalm 119. The whole Bible is unified in this wonderful message of revival! Worldly religion is filled with people trying to get to Heaven. Worldly religion, even if it calls itself “Christianity” causes some major problems in the world. “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world (James 1:27).” The world doesn’t need any more selfish religion that plays on people’s insatiable need for sensation and stimulation. It needs more Christlikeness, selflessness, and humility. When we experience this kind of revival with hearts of repentance, we will see the fields that are still ripe for harvest reaped and our churches full.

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In this post, you read about God’s reviving work in our lives. You also saw that getting to heaven is secondary to our ability to do good works on this earth. If you have questions about how true Christianity is set apart because it doesn’t play on the selfish desires of people like worldly religion, don’t hesitate to reach out.