About

Welcome to REVIVE, a gathering place of original and curated content for talking about God.

We create and curate articles, studies, videos, images, social campaigns that aim to share the good news about God’s character and government.

Every kind of person is welcome. Even if you don’t believe in God, we believe that if you give us a chance and interact with the us on this site and in one of our gatherings, you might be surprised by what you learn about Him. We encourage you to share your story and perspective with us too, as long as it’s done respectfully.

Please subscribe to our blog RSS by clicking on the link at the top of the page.

God? Which God?

Well, that one Richard Dawkins so eloquently describes as such, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

We just think He’s wrong, is all, and we want to show why.

DIE TO REVIVE

REVIVE is a project is calling everyone to die. Not literally, but spiritually, psychologically and emotionally. Die to their old self, old ideals, old conceptions, old perspectives, old sins. REVIVE aims to reveal the true character of God; to lead people of all ages, christian, non-christian, to a close encounter with the most beautiful person in the Universe. God brings healing and restoration desiring to be friends with all of us, and our goal is to be the catalyst that helps people fall in love with our wonderful Savior.

Dying to the old implies dispelling the myths about God. In many minds, there’s no reason to follow a God who’s judgmental, arbitrary, vengeful, authoritative and unforgiving. Others really can’t accept even the fact that God is real. And to you specifically know this: you don’t have to. If the least you do is learn to appreciate the teachings of Jesus, who was called God by His followers, your life will radically change.

Healing our minds:

“Heal me O Lord, and I will be healed.” Jeremiah 17:14

The ancient scriptures in the greek new testament talk about a change of mind. The word in our language is “repentance”, and we usually associate that with remorse, sadness and grief, but the word in greek is METANOIA. Meta – after/behind; Noia – thinking/understanding/brain. The scriptures literally ask people to leave their current thinking behind, change their minds, to be healed of old conceptions, of our old sins and old life and REVIVE hopes to inspire you to do just that.

Living out the heart of God:

We believe that Christ’s life has showed us we were meant to love others, regardless of how evil, how sick or horrible they are. That process is very hard, but understanding that dying to self is the first process in the journey, let’s strive to have the heart of God as opposed to our own. That means we should serve others, as Christ served others. REVIVE wants to embrace local communities, by standing in solidarity with the oppressed, the poor, needy, sick to help rid their pain and suffering.

Our hope is that people fall in love with the true picture of God, which will lead them to fall in love with others around them, and then live a community-minded life helping communities break down social barriers, fight for equality and justice and become a safer, cleaner, healthier and loved place as we help take care of people’s most basic needs. The hope for the future is to create a way to connect people with organizations that need volunteers, those that need our time and effort.

How We Explain the Gospel

Jesus Christ was the full revelation of God in human form, and as the scriptures say, “He always had the nature of God, but he did not think that by force he should try to remain equal with God. Instead of this, of his own free will he gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like a human being and appeared in human likeness.” (Phillipians 2:6-7)

He came into the world to be close to humanity and to serve them first, rather than ask us to serve Him first. He has explained to the world by His actions and by His words how deeply in love He is with us. He is the greatest demonstration of self-sacrificial love and other-centeredness. He stood in solidarity with the poor, needy and oppressed by being born to a family that belonged to the bottom of the social pyramid. He grew up in wisdom and stature, recognizing that the system of religion He came to change had gone off into a self-righteous, privileged and oppressively violent state. He would dispel and disrupt this system, alongside the oppressive empire in which that religion operated by teaching people about the King (His Father) and His kingdom, by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and confronting these powers head on with a non-violent, compassionate, loving but sternly effective manner.

He confronted a religion that felt entitled enough to exclude and marginalize the sick and the poor in the name of divine privilege. He dispelled misconceptions about God that plagued religious leaders. Such misapprehension led these leaders to burden people with rules, regulations and painted a horrifying picture of God to them.

He demonstrated He is forgiving, caring, loving, patient, kind and just. He said His Father is exactly the same way, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30). This emphasis on making His radical life and actions equal to God’s, the very God that Jews believed they knew and recognized, infuriated them. They eventually schemed with the empire to nail Him to their instrument of public intimidation, torture and death: a roman cross.

His followers, His killers and oppressors were astonished to discover that His tomb was empty, three days after He died. Angels proclaimed to a couple of women disciples present at the tomb that God had raised Him from the dead. The very person the empire and religious system sought to silence cannot be silenced. The very person they sought to paralyze is on the move and the kingdom they wanted to destroy is indestructible. Albeit, the kingdom grows subversively like a mustard seed. This seed was one of the smallest seeds of the region that grew into massive trees and disrupted any ancient garden. He commissioned His followers to make disciples of this King and recruit new residents to this kingdom and let it grow exponentially.

Another equally important, if not more important, aspect and dimension of the gospel is the spiritual realm. Rev. 12:7 says, “and there was war in heaven”. Paul, one of Jesus future followers, a converted Jew, previously a leader who violently persecuted and killed Jesus followers, said, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph. 6:12)

One of these spiritual forces that the Scriptures paint as “the prince of this world” (Jn. 12:31), “the god of this age” (2 Cor. 4:4), is (the) Satan, the accuser, the adversary. The Jewish scriptures painted a picture of this adversary as the serpent in the garden who deceived Eve into believing God was a selfish liar (Gen. 3:1-5). He did so because he wanted to be like God and take God’s place in the cosmos (Isa. 14:12-15; Ez. 28:12-19). He is the angel that confronts God’s character and judgment in God’s own throne room (Job 1:6-9). He’s the one that “accuses us day and night before God.” (Rev. 12:10)

The very same Paul said this about the cosmic implications of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the anointed one (Christ/Messiah), “For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Col. 1:20). According to Paul, peace came to heaven after these amazing events transpired.

Satan’s power was defeated, for Christ had taken back to Him this world which he claimed to be the prince of. Satan’s lies were unmasked, for God was not selfish, vindictive, angry and a liar. In fact, those are the very attributes of the accuser himself.

The church also explains how this subversive kingdom message cleanses us from sin (1 John 1:19) and how we receive “forgiveness of sins”. More than merely breaking the rules, sin is a sickness, a virus, a condition that needs healing. In fact, the word used in the original greek language for “salvation” from sin is the same word for “healing”.

All the lies, deceitful practices, violence, oppression, be it individual or systemic are all part of a state of mind that make us enemies of God (even when we think we’re already friends with him). Forgiveness can imply both a change in the heart of the violated and the heart of the violator. God can let go of the ills committed toward Him (which almost always come from a false understanding of who He is), but it also can mean that we, the sinners (violators) are affected by the forgiveness.

REVIVE believes the Scriptures paint a picture that the heart of the violated (God) has never changed, but ours (the violators) are the ones that do: “¹³ For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col. 1:13-14)

If God is the one who rescues us from the dominions and powers of darkness, and that redemption here is defined as forgiveness of sins, it implies that through that rescue and through that redemption, we (the violators) change.

His true friends are the ones that truly know Him (John 15:15), the ones who pledge allegiance to Him and who join with Him: “¹⁷ Anyone who is joined to Christ is a new being; the old is gone, the new has come. ¹⁸ All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends and gave us the task of making others his friends also. ¹⁹ Our message is that God was making all human beings [better translated, the world] his friends through Christ. God did not keep an account of their sins, and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.” (2 Cor. 5:17-19 GNT)

The gospel therefore are the evidences presented in scripture that demonstrate the truth about God, from his life to his death and resurrection and how through it all we can say that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (2 Cor. 5:19 NIV).

That is the truth of the gospel. However, there’s an even greater twist. Truth is not merely a collection of facts or doctrines/teachings. Jesus Christ defined truth as Himself.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life;” John 14:6

We agree with this statement that the truth is a person, and not facts or doctrines. By looking to the person of Jesus, we can learn about God, the Father and make a concious choice on whether we like this God and want to live in His kingdom.

We also believe in the full authority of the ancient scriptures that teach us about this wonderful God. The word of God holds the key to really finding out the truth about Him, and our aim is to study it and practice it in our daily lives.