“[Is] your source of love…white-knuckling it, trying really hard, or is it the love of God for you? What is the purpose of your love? Is it to look good at chapel, to look good to your family? Is it to get love in return from the person that you’re giving love to?” Meerkreebs asked. “That’s not this love we’re talking about…Some of us need to sit in the love of God. Some of us need to taste and experience the power of the Holy Spirit.”
“If you really want to become love in action, you start by prostrating yourself before the love of God. If you want to become love in action, you have to experience the love of God,” Meerkreebs said.
“I pray that this sits on you guys like an itchy sweater, and you gotta itch; you gotta take care of it,” Meerkreebs said. “Become the love of God by experiencing the love of God.”
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To close his sermon, Meerkreebs prayed, “Holy Spirit, if you spoke to anyone…would you produce fruit in this room, in these souls, in these minds and these hearts?”
“Do a new thing in our midst,” Meerkreebs prayed. “Revive us by your love.”
As he departed the stage and students led a closing song, Meerkreebs could not have predicted the measure to which the hope he expressed during his sermon would become a reality—a seed from the Holy Spirit had apparently found fertile soil in the hearts of roughly 18 students who remained in the chapel building to pray.
The longer the students stayed, the more other students began to join them. Soon, worship music broke out.
Later that night, Meerkreebs shared a video on Facebook of the chapel auditorium filled with students praying for one another. Some were kneeling at the front of the stage, others sitting with open Bibles, and still more singing worship songs led by students.
“Praise God! Would you pray with us as they continue? Or if you are near by, come join! So eager to be back after a nap at home,” Meerkreebs wrote.
Two weeks later, the worship service would still be going, and tens of thousands of Christians would flock to the small town of Wilmore, Kentucky, to see what God was doing on the campus of Asbury University.
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While the lasting effects of what has taken place in Wilmore remain to be seen, many are expressing hope that the events of this month are the beginnings of a Christian revival, the likes of which this nation has not seen in five decades.