Are you hungry to experience more of God in your life? My guess is “Yes,” since you are reading this article. In this article, I will Biblically show you what true hunger for God looks like and then share three practical ways you can increase your desire to experience more of Him in your life.

Last week, we celebrated 20 years of revival and outpouring beginning with 1994’s Toronto Blessing. One of the phrases that became notorious during that particular era—and is continuing on with great strength—is the simple cry, “More, Lord.” This was not merely some Toronto catchphrase. I can remember watching old videos of Evangelist Steve Hill at the Brownsville Revival, praying over people, and crying out: “More, Lord!”

Let me be completely honest. At first, this “prayer” for “more of God” offended me. How are these people asking God for more of Him? I wondered. Don’t they understand that they received the Holy Spirit when they got saved? They have God living on the inside of them! To ask God for more of Himself is like thinking there is an upgrade from the Holy Spirit—which, of course, there isn’t!

Needless to say, God has opened my eyes since then—big time!

If You Have the Holy Spirit, You Are Not In Lack

If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, hunger for God is not about seeking some new blessing to come out of Heaven. The desire for more of God is not birthed in the place of lack of God; rather, it’s birthed in a perspective of fullness. A “lack” perspective believes that the Heavenly Father is actually holding out on us, placing boundaries and restrictions on how much of Him we can experience this side of eternity. The “lack” perspective—which tends to be popular in some Charismatic circles (ironically)—tries to convince God to “rend the Heavens” and send something new down out of the sky when in fact, the Holy Spirit is more interested in releasing something old out of His church.

What is the old? It is the agenda of Jesus that never changed since the Book of Acts. Souls saved. Nations ushered into the Kingdom. Systems transformed. Bodies healed. Minds delivered. Addictions broken. Jesus actually believed that His church could accomplish the Great Commission, otherwise He would not have given it to us. What fueled His confidence? It was not in our ability, but rather, in His empowering presence. Pentecost.

Jesus was so confident in the Holy Spirit, He has no trouble deploying His disciples to go into all the nations of the Earth, not only seeing people come to faith, but actually witnessing entire nations, regions and people groups discipled. Jesus would not have instituted so great a commission if the Father had planned to hold back a portion of the Holy Spirit.

The Fullness of Pentecost Is Yours to Steward

Consider how your pursuit for more of God changes when you actually believe that God Almighty lives inside of you. Because of Calvary, you have received an eternal inheritance. The presence and power of God are dwelling within your mortal frame. Your lips have been privileged to carry fiery words from the throne room. You don’t follow signs and wonders; they follow you. Everything changes when you embrace a “fullness” perspective. This view actually intensifies your pursuit of more of God, for you are no longer waiting on Heaven to send something down. Instead, you are compelled to press in to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Scriptures to discover how to steward and live out what you have already received.

The moment you were born again, you received everything you would ever need to live a powerful, transformative Christ-following life on Earth.

Paul reminds us that “the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you” (Rom. 8:11).

Be Shaken By a Fresh Filling

Consider Acts 4:23-31, a popular portion of Scripture that people reference about pursuing more of God or a receiving “fresh filling.” To summarize the context, after experiencing a very intense warning not to speak or teach in Jesus’ name, Peter and John return to their fellow disciples, join together, and offer up a unified prayer for boldness in the midst of persecution. One of their requests is for an outpouring of signs, wonders and healing—demonstrations of the outstretched hand of God in their midst.

This brings us to verse 31, where we read “And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” Notice that Pentecost was not repeated. Nothing new came down from Heaven. Instead, the text would lead us to believe that something rose up and was released out of the disciples—those offering up prayers for “more.”

The disciples’ fresh filling with the Holy Spirit directly correlated to the building’s physical shaking. Two houses were shaken after that prayer. The text directly describes the building where they met, but also, their bodies were shaken that physically carried the presence and power of God. Something new rose up within them. Fresh fire. Supernatural boldness. The presence of God was already living inside of them.

They didn’t need an upgraded Holy Spirit; rather, they desired an expression of Christianity that was in greater agreement with everything that Jesus modeled, demonstrated, and promised to them.

There Is More of God For You To Experience  

The song of Heaven as revealed in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8 is all the evidence you need to conclude that there is more of God for you to experience.

Consider the angels’ eternal cry. They don’t sing “Holy, holy, holy” because they have a limited, finite vocabulary. If anything, Heaven’s vocabulary—“tongues of angels”—is infinitely superior to anything we can muster up here on Earth. That must tell you something about the vastness and brilliance of Almighty God. The angels, with every conceivable word and syllable at their disposal, simply cannot graduate beyond “Holy.” I have to believe that even if the host of Heaven were getting ready to move on to some other word or phrase to describe just one aspect of God’s divine nature, an ever-so slight movement on His end would, all of sudden, subject their gaze to an entirely new dimension of His expansive frame to respond to. It’s back to “Holy, holy, holy,” all over again.

The God Who is eternally worshipped by the angels—a choir of Heavenly host that cannot transition past one single word to describe His infinite glory and beauty—is your God.

There is more of Him for you to see and in turn, more of Him for you to respond to in worship. A “boring” Christian life suffers a horizontal gaze. If we were truly lifting our eyes above the mountains and above the distractions of life, intently looking upon Him, our attention would be captured and fascination awakened.

Your Increased Hunger for God is His Promise to Reveal Himself

God is not in the business of awakening appetites within you that cannot be satisfied since He is not a man that He should lie (see Num. 23:19). Your God wants you to experience more of Him so that, in turn, you can represent His nature with greater accuracy and clarity to the world around you.

Where is your appetite for more of God awakened?

The Presence. When you engage God’s presence, whether it is through worship, during a meeting, or alone in your closet, you collide with One Who is limitless, eternal, and infinite. Such encounters awaken us to ultimate reality. The God within you is greater than anything. What you are presently experiencing of Him is only a taste of what is available. This should not disappoint. Only in the Kingdom does this paradigm actually make sense. You “taste and see” that God is good. The present measure of His Presence satisfies, but it also leaves you hungry for more. Only in His world does eating make you hungrier, and this hunger satisfies.

The Word. Start in Hebrews 11 and then 2 Corinthians 3:7-18. The key is reading without any distraction, and by distraction, I mean the religious voice that so faithfully whispers in our ears, “Yeah, but those types of experiences with God were for the special people. The saints. The heroes. The ancestors. The forerunners. The forefathers. They aren’t for you today. Christianity is nothing more than going to church, reading a Book, living a good life, and going to Heaven when you die.” This is the lie of religion. If you genuinely believe in Christ, sure you will go to Heaven when you die, but the shame is neglecting the power of Heaven you can experience today. Scripture reveals what is available to every man or woman willing to say “Yes” to God.

The people listed in Hebrews 11 “Great Hall of Faith” were not extraordinary individuals. They were ordinary people who caught a glimpse of the extraordinary God and were absolutely ruined for the mundane. When we read the Old Testament side by side with the writings of Paul (such as 2 Corinthians 3:7-18), we are reminded that what they experienced back then, we can experience today. And a step further, we have something that those under the Old Covenant did not, and that is the indwelling Presence of God. As a result, we should expect greater levels of glory and encounter.

The Testimony. When you hear or read about the great works and wonders of God, you are challenged by this fact: there is more and real people throughout history have experienced the “more” of God. This is what makes a revivalist. I am truly convinced that continuous exposure to testimony is one of the key characteristics of a history-making man or woman of God. They are not extraordinary. They are everyday people who become gripped by these glimpses of what God has done, and cannot press on with life as normal until they see the God Who invaded the past, invade the present and transform the future. This is what testimony does to you.

We never graduate beyond hunger, for the moment we stop being hungry for more, we have concluded somewhere in our minds that “I have experienced all there is of God.” This is absolutely impossible!

This week marks the 20^th anniversary of the Toronto Blessing, a powerful renewal of the Holy Spirit that has significantly impacted the world and is producing sustained spiritual fruit to this very day. So what’s the secret? Is it possible for revival to go beyond a few years, a season, or even a single generation, and be carried into the future with increased momentum? Toronto reveals that yes, such a reality is truly possible.

I love reading the stories of revival because they show me how available it is. Toronto is a perfect example of this. For the most in-depth and personal accounts on the birth of this powerful outpouring, I encourage you to read The Father’s Blessing by John Arnott and There is More by Randy Clark. Reading it in their own words, you will see that God was not responding to the cries of spiritual supermen, but hungry hearts desperate to experience a “new normal.”

What Was So Special About Toronto?

John Arnott puts it this way: “Many people have asked me what led to this outpouring of the Father’s blessing. They want to know, Why Toronto? Why us? That’s something I’d like to know, too.”[1]

Before the Toronto Blessing, John and Carol Arnott were burnt out pastors, desperate for a fresh touch from God. They had gone as far as they could in their own strength. The majority of their ministry emphasis focused on dealing with demons, overcoming the darkness, and fighting the devil, “instead of receiving more of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power as a main emphasis.”[2] This approach is prevalent in many Spirit-filled churches today, where instead of focusing more on Jesus and embracing the move of the Holy Spirit, we seem to always be dealing with the devil or fighting some demon—as if we are fighting to achieve victory. The truth is, we fight from a place of received victory. Embracing this perspective shifts everything, and is one of the transformative truths that has emerged out of the Toronto Blessing.

So what made Toronto special? Does God pick and choose regions to bless, or not bless? Or, is there a common denominator that attracts an invasion from Heaven? The common denominator was hunger. John and Carol were hungry enough to expose themselves to what God was doing in other places around the world, through other people. They were not becoming conference junkies; they were desperate to catch a glimpse of what they longed to experience as normal in their lives, in their church, and in their region.

This culminated with a powerful impartation that they received from Claudio Freidzon in Argentina. It would be tempting to look at something like Freidzon, whom God had been using powerfully in South America to establish a culture of revival, and conclude this man was some kind of “spiritual giant.” Not so. Read his book, Holy Spirit, I Hunger For You, and you will quickly discover that Freidzon, like John and Carol, was another spiritually hungry person that pursued the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, no matter what it cost.

Heaven Breaks Out

John and Carol go on to invite Randy Clark to minister for a series of meetings up in Toronto. At the time, Randy was pastoring Vineyard Christian Fellowship in St. Louis Missouri. The Arnotts heard that Randy’s church was experiencing a powerful move of the Holy Spirit and that people were powerfully touched by God as he ministered.

Humorously enough, John recounts, “Randy and I were in fear and trembling hoping God would show up in power, but uncertain about what would happen. We were not exactly full of faith—but God was faithful anyway.”[3]

This tells me that God responds to our desperation and hunger, even if there is uncertainty and faithlessness on our end. He is overjoyed by humble hearts that simply desire Him!

Immediately makes me think of what Jesus said in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Those with hearts that are humble and hungry are truly positioned to experience the power of God’s Kingdom.

The result is now history. On January 20, 1994, the power of God fell on the 120 people who were gathered at the Thursday night meeting in the Toronto Airport church. The immediate fruit was incredible. It has been noted that “by the end of 1995, 600 thousand people had visited Toronto from almost every nation on the planet.” In addition, “there were over nine thousand first time conversions in the renewal’s first year.”[4]

While this is all very exciting, it is most significant to note that the revival has been continuing and even increasing in global momentum! Churches and ministries across the Earth trace some of their “roots in renewal” to the Toronto Blessing such as Holy Trinity Brompton (U.K.), Bethel Church in Redding, CA, and Heidi and Rolland Baker of Iris Ministries.

So why is Toronto still continuing after 20 years—and why do I believe it will be a vital stream in the revival that never ends?

Three Keys to Sustaining Revival

1) Revival is not personality-driven, it is God-focused: Toronto was not about Randy Clark or the Arnotts. It was not about any of the speakers who preached from their pulpit. It was about a radical corporate hunger for God that transformed a little warehouse church in Canada to a center for historic outpouring. Are we hungry for God? Not breakthrough. Not blessing. Not keys to improving our lives. Not even manifestations of revival. How much do we simply want to know and experience God and see Jesus receive all the glory?

2) Revival is sustained in a culture of testimony: When we recognize that as God “freely gives” to us, we are called to “freely give” to the world, we become catalysts to carry revival. What have we been freely given? Our story. Our testimony. This ranges from our salvation experience to a healing, deliverance, restored marriage, victory over addiction, encounter in God’s presence, etc. Our testimony is what we offer the world.

As we talk about the supernatural things that God has done for us, our words release new options to the people listening.

They may have never heard that God is a loving Father. They may have never known that Jesus still heals today. There is a good chance that they had not been introduced to the Savior whose blood made complete atonement for all of their sins! By sharing your testimony, you introduce new options to other people and along with those options, faith is released. Testimony declares that the same God who moved for you can also move for anyone else, since God is no respecter of persons. This is one of the key factors that birthed Toronto, as the power of God started to be released as Randy Clark shared testimony of how the Holy Spirit so dramatically transformed his life. From that moment until today, testimony is a key cultural component to the Toronto Blessing. As people would get up to testify, the power of God would powerfully hit them, and inevitably, fall upon the entire congregation. When testimony is communicated from generation to generation, people are constantly talking about and listening to stories of God’s mighty acts. This reminds us that Jesus is alive, and that the Holy Spirit wants to continue to release His power today—through us!

3) Revival is sustained when people practice true repentance. Revival dies without repentance. This is not God’s will. Repentance is the key to living in the sustained, lasting fruit of spiritual outpouring. There are two dimensions to repentance. One, we must confront the chasm of our sin. This confrontation produces true godly sorrow, as we recognize the level of disagreement between our lives and what God has made available. Too many people, however, preach a version of repentance that lives in the place godly sorrow—but never gets out. If we never graduate beyond sorrow, we will not embrace the fruit of repentance.

Sorrow over sin is not designed to produce depressed, condemned believers. It awakens us to the chasm between what we are presently experiencing of God, and what He has truly made available.

The chasm causes us to confess and repent for our sins and pursue God with greater passion. As a result, we begin to experience the river of God. Signs, wonders, and miracles start to breakout. Healing—physically and emotionally—flows in an intense measure. People are dramatically touched by the power of God. We celebrate and enjoy all of this. Toronto surely did. However, the reason why Toronto is still continuing today—on a global scale—is because they embraced the second dimension of repentance. This involved the leaders embracing a “new wineskin.”

Read the testimonies, and you will constantly see people experience godly sorrow over sin. However, as the “new wine” of the Holy Spirit was being released, the leaders had their ears bent toward Heaven, humbly asking God, “What changes do you want us to make in our lives and in the way we do church because of this outpouring?” This is absolutely fundamental if we want to see revival outlive a single generation, region or people group. We must be willing to also “repent” for embracing a certain system or structure over the Holy Spirit. This is not a call to chaos; it is a return to organic Christianity, where rather than taking all of our cues from the latest greatest gimmicks or church growth strategies (many of which are good), we look at how the Holy Spirit has been moving and ask, “How do we continue to host His manifest presence among us?”

Recently, I published an article posing the question: “Is it wrong to pray for revival?” The responses were varied and interesting. One response perplexed me, as the individual seemed convinced that revival was not sustainable. It all depends on how you look at it. The Arnotts did not beg God for something, as if He was some austere Heavenly Father, making His kids squirm. Not at all. The Arnotts sought nothing new to come out of Heaven. Rather, they looked at how the Holy Spirit had already been moving, concluded that if the same Holy Spirit who moved powerfully through Kathryn Kuhlman and Claudio Freidzon was also inside of them, He could release the same measure of outpouring in Toronto! This birthed a radical hunger within them to return to a new normal kind of Christianity. Something so old, it would be considered “new.”

Revival exposes us to what normal looks like from God’s perspective.

The outpourings that we call “revivals,” whether they are initiated by spiritual hunger or pure divine sovereignty, are exciting, yet sobering summons for us to recalibrate this thing called “Christianity” to God’s standard. Toronto is a powerful example of hungry, imperfect people who simply bent their hearts and ears towards Heaven. As a result, they have something truly extraordinary to celebrate 20 years later. Not just a memorial to some memory of the “good ole days,” but a powerful testimony to something that started in 1994 and is continuing today, with no signs of slowing down.

The question: What are we doing about it?

I issue an immediate disclaimer: God is not upset about this! Heaven is not worried. The Father is not pacing the throne room wondering what He is going to do. Our intentions are not even being questioned. The key is stewarding what we received when God, the Holy Spirit, took up residence inside of us.

In Spirit-filled circles, the cry for revival is certainly a popular prayer. In essence, we are giving voice to Isaiah 64:1, Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
that the mountains might quake at your presence (ESV). This is common language, particularly when we join together for intercession on a local, national, or global level. We pray, “Lord, rend the heavens and come down!” I have prayed this several times, as it truly reflects the cry of my heart. I want to see the presence and power of God touch the world in a fresh new way. I want to see the spiritual landscape shifted, thousands ushered into the Kingdom and entire nations transformed. The Message Bible gives some powerful clarity on what the expression of “rending the heavens” actually looks like: Oh, that you would rip open the heavens and descend, make the mountains shudder at your presence.

Is Isaiah 64:1 an appropriate prayer for us to be praying—or has it been fulfilled? I want to take you on a fascinating journey from Jesus, to Pentecost, to present-day Christianity. My prayer is that we would catch a fresh glimpse of the inheritance we received and take our place as the generation that lives like we are truly indwelt by the presence of God.

Jesus, The Answer to Isaiah 64:1

Jesus Christ fulfilled Isaiah 64:1. In fact, this took place at His baptism. Pay careful attention to the language of Mark 1:9-10, In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. (ESV).

We read that at Jesus’ baptism, the heavens were “torn open.”  Could it be that since that glorious day, Heaven has remained “open for business?” There is surely no mention of it closing back up. Truly, Heaven long-awaited the day when a Man walked the Earth who would be a compatible vessel for the Holy Spirit. Jesus was the Man, since He was the perfect, sinless Son of God. He fulfilled Isaiah 64:1, making it possible for anyone without sin and filled with the Holy Spirit to walk in the same supernatural reality, where there is a consistent provision of power flowing from one world (Heaven) into the Earth through those anointed by the Spirit.

Calvary Sustained An Open Heaven

The Cross dealt with the sin issue that prevented humanity from being indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was the example of what the Father desired to produce in every single believer: A lifestyle characterized by the abiding, indwelling presence of the Spirit.

In the Old Testament, people might have received temporary empowerment from the Spirit, but it was always for a season or specific task; never a sustained lifestyle. There was no permanence to His presence and power in their lives because of the chasm of sin. The only remedy to humanity’s great disease of sin was the precious blood of Jesus. Even the most celebrated prophets and honored heroes of the faith could not enjoy the indwelling Presence that we have today. Truly, the blood of Jesus kept heaven open even after Jesus left the Earth. His redemptive work made it possible for people throughout the ages to receive the Holy Spirit and walk in the same power that He did, bringing His Kingdom to the Earth.

Pentecost Released An Open Heaven

Calvary dealt with sin and made it possible for every believer to live under an open heaven, where the power and presence of God was not seasonal, but sustained. Pentecost was the glorious byproduct of Calvary. Heaven was not simply opened; its power was released and deposited into every believer gathered in that upper room. And this power was a person—Holy Spirit.

Consider Acts 2:38-39, as this brings us right into the modern era. On the tail-end of Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, the emboldened apostle replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (NIV) The promise of Pentecost was never meant to be exclusive to those in the upper room, the Christians living during the first century, or for the church prior to the closing of the Scriptural canon. It is for all whom the Lord would call into redemption.

Sovereign Outpourings

I absolutely love revival history. It is healthy for us to be stirred up by the great revivals and outpourings of yesteryears. You know—those moments in history where God seemed to sovereignly break in and move with unusual power. At the same time, it is unhealthy for us to throw everything up to “sovereignty,” hoping that should God feel like it, He will send us another “sovereign outpouring.”

I propose that the sovereign outpourings of both past and present were never intended to make us dependant on some situation where God randomly showed up at certain times in history, and released some special, sovereign blessing.  Everything that appears sovereign must be carefully studied, for every outpouring of God contains vital keys that were meant to transform Christian culture and unlock a lifestyle of sustained revival. The problem that prevents this is our tendency to get so caught up in the passion, excitement, and manifestations of revival that we miss the foundational things God wants to show us. Yes, we celebrate His supernatural during that season, but also, we must ask the Holy Spirit to show us how to carry revival from one generation to the next.

What begins as an outpouring in one generation should continue as a lifestyle in the next.

Healing Revivalists

Finally, I think of the season of the healing revivalists/evangelists, beginning with historic figures such as John G. Lake, Alexander Dowie, F.F. Bosworth and continuing on with Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, Jack Coe, T.L. Osborn, and others. God unusually graced these men and women to represent Jesus through the healing ministry. They became voices of revolution, reminding the world that the power of God was still very much alive and moving. Again, it is easy to simply look back with celebration on these individuals, memorializing the great exploits that were accomplished under their ministries. However, there is more.

What God accomplished through these ordinary men and women is also meant to be a divine summons for an entire generation. What they walked in is available to all whom the Lord our God will call. These were not extraordinary men and women; they were ordinary people anointed with an extraordinary Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit that you have living inside of you. The key was stewardship. Kingdom history is made by ordinary, imperfect people who recognize that heaven is open over them, that God lives inside of them, and they live as though these Truths are in fact reality.

The cry for revival is truly noble. How wonderful to know that what we are looking for is not merely some experience, it is a Person. In fact, we do not need to convince God to send something new out of Heaven, for He has already filled us with the glorious catalyst for global revival. Revival is not going to come out of heaven; it is going to come out of a people who truly know Who lives inside of them.

Holy Spirit lives inside of you. Instead of crying out for something else to fall upon us, let’s ask the Holy Spirit to flow through us in an increasing measure. It all begins with recognizing Who we received and living as though God is actually in us and with us.

The men and women who live like this will truly shape history. Will you take your place?