3 Essential Steps in Personal Revival
Octavius Winslow (1808-1878) was a British nonconformist minister and contemporary of Charles Spurgeon. Winslow lived a life of faithful ministry, leading congregations in Warwickshire, Bath, and Brighton.
In addition to his work as a minister, Winslow authored multiple books and hymns. In Personal Declension and Revival of Religion in the Soul, Winslow writes,
For every poor, self-condemned, heart-broken, returning soul, there is a lingering affection in the heart of the Father, a welcome in the blood of Jesus, and therefore every encouragement to arise and come to God.
Acquaint yourself thoroughly with the real state of your soul as before God. As the first step in conversion was to know yourself to be a lost, helpless, condemned sinner; so now, in your re-conversion to God, you must know the exact state of your soul. Be honest with yourself; let there be a thorough, faithful examination of your spiritual condition; let all disguise be removed, the eye withdrawn from the opinion of men, and the soul shut in with God in a close scrutiny of its worst state. Your minister, your church, your friend, may know nothing of the secret state of your soul; they may not even suspect any hidden decline of grace, any incipient backsliding of heart from God. To their partial eye, the surface may be fair to look upon; to them your spiritual state may present the aspect of prosperity and fruitfulness; but the solemn question is between God that judges not as man judges - by the outward appearance only - but who judges the heart.
Discover and bring to light the cause of the soul's declension. "Is there not a cause?" Search and see what has fallen as a blight upon your soul, what is feeding at the root of your Christianity… You did run well; who did hinder you? - what stumbling-block has fallen in your way? - what has impeded your onward course? - what has enfeebled your faith, chilled your love, drawn your heart from Jesus, and lured you back to the weak and beggarly elements of a poor world? You set out fair; for a time you ran well; your zeal, and love, and humility, gave promise of a useful life, of a glorious race, and of a successful competition for the prize; but something has hindered. What is it? Is it the world, creature love, covetousness, ambition, presumptuous sin, unmortified corruption, the old leaven unpurged? Search it out. Rest not until it be discovered. Your declension is secret, perhaps the cause is secret, some spiritual duty secretly neglected, or some known sin secretly indulged. Search it out, and bring it to light. It must be a cause adequate to the production of effects so serious.
Take the cause of the soul's declension immediately to the throne of grace, and lay it before the Lord. There must be no parleying with it, no compromise, no concealment: there must be a full and unreserved disclosure before God, without anything of palliation or disguise. Let your sin be confessed in all its guilt, aggravation, and consequences. This is just what God loves - an open, ingenuous confession of sin. Searching and knowing, though he does, all hearts, he yet delights in the honest and minute acknowledgment of sin from his backsliding child.
May the poor soul exclaim, "Lord, I come to you. I am a backslider, a wanderer, a prodigal. I have strayed from you like a lost sheep. My love has waxed cold, my steps have slackened in the path of holy obedience; my mind has yielded to the corrupting, deadening influence of the world, and my affections have wandered in quest of other and earthly objects of delight. But, behold, I come unto you. Do you invite me? Do you stretch out your hand? Do you bid me approach you? Do you say, 'Only acknowledge your iniquity?' Then, Lord, I come; in the name of your dear Son, I come; 'restore unto me the joy of your salvation.'" Thus confessing sin over the head of Jesus, until the heart has nothing more to confess but the sin of its confession - for, beloved reader, our very confession of sin needs to be confessed over, our very tears to be prayed over, so defaced with sin is all that we do - the soul, thus emptied and unburdened, is prepared to receive anew the seal of a Father's forgiving love.