Revival Leadership: Vol 1: Zerubbabel: Rebuilding the Temple

By K. Bobie Amankwatia DMIN.

A variety of books on spiritual leadership exist written by respected authors with unique insights and perspectives. This book on revival leadership is no exception. Dr. K. Bobie Amankwatia, having served in several ministry capacities, including youth leader, senior pastor, church planter, Bible college teacher/administrator and Christian counselor for over 40 years, brings a fresh perspective to this important subject. He explores the leadership principles that helped Zerubbabel usher the Jews from the doldrums of brokenness, desolation and discouragement back to their ancestral home. There they reclaimed and maintained their inheritance with renewed vigor and faith in their God. Today’s body of Christ can benefit from these principles.

Some of the principles addressed in this book help leaders set priorities, move in faith and conviction to accomplish the seemingly impossible, and confront challenges to ensure harmony in times of revival.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781973677727

K. Bobie Amankwatia DMIN.

K. Bobie Amankwatia DMin., is a dynamic Bible teacher and conference speaker. He has an earned diploma in Theology, BA in Ministry, MA in Counseling and Doctorate in Ministry. He has served in various ministry capacities, including youth leader, senior pastor, church planter and Bible college principal and teacher. He authored the book, Phases of Revival, and several evangelistic tracts.

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Copyright © 2019 K. Bobie Amankwatia, DMin.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-7771-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-7773-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-7772-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019916560

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/10/2020

I

dedicate this book to the precious memories of my beloved father, mentor, best friend, and my only role model, J. B. Amankwatia, and to my loving and tender-hearted mother, Dora Amankwatia, whose unwavering love and prayers continue to steer the course of my family today.

Also, to the loving memory of my spiritual mother, prayer partner, and encourager, Jayne Hymburger, who graciously embraced me and my family as her own. She lifted me up in prayer daily till the day she took her last breath on earth.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1    The Need for Revival

2    Leaving Your Comfort Zone for Unfamiliar Territory

3    Prayer: A Right Priority of Revival Leadership

4    Putting Faith into Action

5    Laying a Sound Foundation in Revival Times

6    Readiness to Battle the Enemy

7    The Waiting Period

8    The Anointing Oil

9    Steps to Experience a Fresh Anointing and Renewal

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My deepest gratitude to my darling wife, Tonya, and my amazing sons, Scott and Daniel. Their support and encouragement stirred within me a deep sense of urgency to put into writing the spiritual insights the Lord has given me on revival leadership.

I must say thank you to my precious sister, Rebecca Robertson, for her continuous prayer and support to see me through this volume.

I want to give my special thanks to my pastor for over fifteen years, Jim Brashear. His loving pastoral care continues to impact my family and me today. His unwavering support for world missions greatly ignited the flame to write this book, after I taught on the subject during a missions trip to Africa in 2005.

INTRODUCTION

The church needs a deep spiritual awakening. The question is whether or not the church today has the kind of spiritual leadership available to usher the people of God into a Christ-centered renewal. Revival Leadership addresses this question at a very critical juncture for the 21st century church and society as a whole. Even the quality of nurturing required to raise leaders to play the all-important role to bring about moral and spiritual renewal, sanity, and healing to the nations appears to be extremely lacking. The church, which is to provide spiritual leadership to steer our morally and spiritually depraved society into an awakening, is itself rapidly declining in its desire and hunger for the things of God.

The church, in fact, appears to be in a state of oblivion. Consequently, the church is being driven deeper and deeper into worldliness. For example, it is becoming more and more satisfied with its financial and numerical build-up at the expense of spiritual renewal. In addition, the church has become self-centered with a false sense of self-sufficiency. This has oftentimes led to the church losing its evangelistic focus and becoming distant to the spiritual and moral needs of the communities it serves. The dividing line between the pews and the streets of most towns and cities has never been wider. In our homes and schools, parents and educators do their best to provide moral leadership to raise the next generation to fulfil their roles in society. Unfortunately, society, in most cases, has lost hope in the church as moral leaders and as agents of healing and restoration. It seems Christ is verbally proclaimed with little corresponding actions or deeds. Seeing this in his day, Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu, once said this about the church: I love your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. What an indictment!

The answer to this pew-street divide can only be found in true spiritual leadership that will position the church for a mighty move of God that impacts the church and transforms society at large. The Wesley revivals, for example, not only awakened the lukewarm church, but also brought about social and political awakening to England. It is recorded that even workers who had stolen from their factory employers were touched so deeply that they returned what they had stolen to their employers. This was a catalyst to the Abolitionist movement against the slave trade.

In the absence of true revival and moral leadership from the church, people will witness the astronomical growth of crime, governmental corruption, and all forms of social ills. It is, therefore, an urgent obligation of the church to move forward in faith and boldness to change the world through the demonstration of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, a demonstration that would transcend race, color, creed, and national boundaries. Revival leadership helps reintroduce moral and spiritual sanity. Recognizing this leads people to cry out for renewal and revival leadership. The cries have never been louder at any time in the history of the church than they are today. The Lord is ready to unleash an outpouring of His spirit on the church if the church is ready and opened to His spirit.

Revival Leadership affords the church and societal leaders an extraordinary opportunity to examine scriptural principles that could bring about genuine healing and restoration of spiritual and social order. Zerubbabel led a discouraged people from their hopelessness and desolation into vibrancy, unity of purpose, social justice, and true worship that binds brokenness and restores the outcasts of society into the fold. Zerubbabel’s leadership principles undergird this book’s organization and are greatly needed today.

The following leadership principles are covered in this volume:

• prayer as leadership priority

• putting faith into action

• the waiting period in revival times

• readiness for battle in the midst of revival

• the anointing oil

• steps to receiving a fresh anointing and renewal

These principles, as they are addressed in this volume, should enable the reader to identify and apply them in their personal lives, family lives, and their ministries to effect spiritual, social, and emotional healing in their homes, churches, businesses, and communities.

CHAPTER 1

The Need for Revival

If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

—2 Chronicles 7:14

A s believers, our supernatural origin in Christ, legacy of faith, and great victory through the cross demand that we do great things through the power of the Holy Spirit to change our world for Christ. It seems, however, that we are being engulfed in a web of a thick darkness that keeps us from making an impact. The powers of darkness are encroaching upon our world, with the church becoming lukewarm. As a result, men and women are heading into eternity without Christ. Unless there is a divine intervention from on high, as promised by God, humanity has very little hope. Revival is truly needed.

Throughout church history, revival has often been preceded by a period of darkness, in which righteousness gives way to unrighteousness and religious rituals that impede the ministry of the church. Dark periods replace truth with deceit and substitutes holiness with a new morality of sensuality that many have sadly embraced. However, the Lord is never an inactive bye-stander or a silent observer during such times of spiritual decay and moral decline. His remedy for such dark times is to open the heavens and rain His love upon us as we turn to Him in prayer or repentance for forgiveness, healing, and restoration (2 Chronicles 7:14).

God is not angry with His people, even in times of despair and moral degradation (see John 3:16,17). The loving God desires to bring His people back into harmony and reconciliation with Him. A good example is the Welsh Revival under Evan Roberts in 1904. During that time of divine visitation, whole cities were brought to Christ. Nightclubs and bars were closed down, as their patrons heard the message of the cross and turned to the Lord for salvation. The liquor industry incurred great financial losses as a result of the mighty move of God, with men and women turning to faith in Jesus Christ. Crime was reduced dramatically, and Bibles and Christian literature were sold out due to the intense spiritual hunger the visitation of the Lord brought upon the people. It is said that every social event turned into a religious event as prayer meetings sprang up in coal mines, trams, trains, and places of business. This is what a genuine spiritual revival does to the society.

The Church

In dark times, God is not just denied but is also forgotten. Even within the Christian community, God is hardly mentioned during the week. Most reduce God to viral email forwards in their daily lives, while some keep Him on their Sunday morning to-do list, but only for an hour and a half. In an effort to generate a spiritual revival to change this trend, some churches have at times resorted to multiple programs and activities designed to create a level of emotional excitement. But these human efforts exclude the Holy Spirit and can never substitute for true spiritual revival.

In fact, such programs only contribute to the adulteration of the worship of the Almighty God. It is becoming very common, in many circles of the church today, that the messages from the pulpit are nothing more than motivational speeches saturated with some clever saying, clichés, and catchphrases aimed at stirring up emotions, at the expense of sound biblical teachings. Congregants rarely hear the message of the cross (grace), an omission that is extremely devastating. The demonstration of the power of the gospel in the early church was rooted in the preaching of the cross - Jesus Christ and Him crucified (I Corinthians 2:2). A survey has shown that hymnals of some segments of the Presbyterian (USA), Episcopal (Anglican), Disciples, United Church of Canada, and United Church of Christ have deleted songs about the blood and atonement. The charismatic movement seems to be following suit. Contemporary music hardly says much about the blood, atonement, or the cross. The cross is rarely seen on church buildings today. Are we ashamed of the cross, or could it be that the church is trying to be politically correct for acceptance by the world? This kind of move does not strengthen the church but weakens its message. My heart’s cry and prayer to God, is that we do not forget that He has entrusted us (the church) with the uncompromising message of the cross of offense (see 1 Corinthians 1:18–25).

Moreover, integrity seems to be disappearing from the teachings of the church. Many preachers are bent on using their congregations to build up their personal ministries and images, instead of using their ministries to build up the people of God. Many churches today are being managed by some kind of CEOs instead of men and women who are called of God and filled with His spirit. Even some contemporary preachers are largely preaching humanistic philosophy and not proclaiming the uncompromising truth of the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation (see Romans 1:17).

We seem to be heading toward a dark age of unprecedented apostasy. Some denominations welcome conducts and lifestyles that are condemned by scripture (see Romans 1:26–38) as acceptable, even for their ministers and church leadership. The divorce rate within the church is at par or almost surpassing that of the secular society. The era of Eli and his sons defiling the holy things of