June 2, 2025

Buy the Opportunity

One of my favorite verses on revival is Acts 3:19: “Therefore, repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

As is often the case, it is challenging for our English translations to fully convey the Greek content of this verse. The phrase “times of refreshing” is loaded with meaning. “Times” is translated from the word kairos, which means “strategic or opportune time.”(1)

Kenneth Wuest, a very literal translator of the New Testament, uses the following phrases to translate kairos: “epoch-making periods” (Acts 3:19); “strategic, significant period” (Acts 12:1); “strategic, epochal time” (Acts 19:23). Using a combination of his words, kairos times are strategic, significant, and potentially epoch-making. America and the nations are about to experience an “epoch-making” revival.(2)

I checked Mr. Webster’s meaning of the hyphenated phrase “epoch-making” to gain greater understanding. He said it means “significant by virtue of ensuing historical developments,”(3) “a period of time characterized by momentous events or changes,”(4) and “a fixed point of time from which succeeding years are numbered.”(5)

That’s what we’re after - “momentous events and changes.” A revival so great it is “historical,” one “from which succeeding years are numbered.” This is how we speak of historical floods, such as the Johnstown Flood of 1889 or the Big Thompson Canyon (Colorado) Flood of 1976. The size of a flood is measured by how often one of that proportion occurs: a 50-year flood, a 100-year flood, etc. We want a flood of the river of God so great that it is epoch-making, even historical.

The word “refreshing” in Acts 3:19 is powerful. Anapsuxis is composed of two words, ana and psucho. Strong’s Concordance says ana means “repetition, intensity or reversal.”(6) Zodhiates agrees, and adds the word “increase.”(7) Psucho means “to breathe, blow, or refresh with cool air.”(8) Here are five definitions of anapsucho or anapsuxis:

• “to draw breath again”

• “to revive by fresh air”(9)

• “to cool or refresh with a breath”

• “to regain strength” 

• “restoration”(10)

Using these definitions, Peter is saying that proper responses to Holy Spirit allow God to breathe on us, revive us, restore us, and give us new strength.

I especially like the concept of intensity in ana. God wants to breathe on us again intensely. Peter was probably thinking back a few days to Pentecost when the breath of God blew intensely, once more filling humans with the Spirit and life of God.

In Ezekiel 37:1-14, dry bones are used to picture spiritual death. When reversing this, God first caused the bones to reconnect; then He put skin on them, “but there was no breath in them” (v. 8). The prophet was then told, “Prophesy to the breath…say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life”’” (v. 9).

God’s life-producing breath is what was released in Genesis 2:7. He breathed into Adam’s lifeless body, infusing it with His life. In Acts 3, Peter probably thought back through history - Genesis, Ezekiel, Pentecost - and prophesied that this life-giving breath could blow again if the people would repent and turn to God.

They did, and God did. Many winds of revival have blown since, and God is ready to do it yet again! He is going to release His breath, another wind, to our generation, and He will do so with great intensity.

Buy the Opportunity!

We must seize the opportunity. Twice, the New Testament tells us to “redeem the time” (Ephesians 5:15-17; Colossians 4:5, KJV). “Redeem” is translated from exagorazo, meaning “buy or purchase,” and “time” is kairos: buy the opportune time.(11)

Indeed, opportunities must be bought; they cost us time, energy, abilities, money,  even our very lives. Those who don’t spend what is necessary and “buy” them, lose opportunities.

When Apple Computer fell on difficult days, its young chairman, Steven Jobs, traveled from Silicon Valley to New York City. His purpose was to convince Pepsico’s John Sculley to move west and run his struggling company. As the two men overlooked the Manhattan skyline from Sculley’s penthouse office, the Pepsi executive started to decline Jobs’s offer.

“Financially,” Sculley said, “you’d have to give me a million-dollar salary, a million-dollar bonus, and a million-dollar severance.”

Flabbergasted, Jobs gulped and agreed - if Sculley would move to California. But Sculley would commit only to being a consultant from New York. At that, Jobs issued a challenge to Sculley: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want to change the world?”

In his autobiography, Odyssey, Sculley admits Jobs’ challenge “knocked the wind out of me.” He said he’d become so caught up with his future at Pepsi, his pension, and whether his family could adapt to life in California, that an opportunity to “change the world” nearly passed him by. Instead, he put his life in perspective and went to Apple.(12)

We are not going to miss our opportunity to change the world! We will buy the opportunity for an epoch-making revival. 

Allow God to increase vision in you until it motivates you to action. Vision is a life-changer, a rearranger, a cause producer. Its hunger can be insatiable, a motivating force creating energy and energizing creativity. Passionate vision moves us from mere mental assent to physical exertion. It separates the hearer from the doer, converts from disciples, and mediocrity from excellence. It is also what separates a ripe harvest from a reaped harvest (see Matthew 9:37).

Let’s once again ask for increased vision and greater passion for a historical, epoch-making revival, and for willing hearts to buy the opportunity.

Pray with me:

Father, we ask You to increase our passion and vision for the epoch-making revival You have planned. Light the flames of passion in the church to such intensity that no price will be too great to pay. Awaken our hearts to seize the moment, buying the opportune time that has been created. Bring greater vision to the church, motivating us to write history.

Breathe on the dry bones of the earth and give them life. Save and deliver, redeem and transform. Make this revival epochal, historic, unlike any other. We believe entire nations can and will be born again in a day. Do it, we pray! Send the rushing, mighty wind of Acts 2. Give us miracles on the level of Acts 3 that cause millions to be saved. Blow Your breath all over the world.

We ask these things through Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Our decree:

We decree that the life-giving breath of God is bringing an epoch-making revival to earth again, and this cannot be stopped!

Click on the link below to watch the full video.

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1. James Strong, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990. ref. no. 2540.

2. Kenneth Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation. Eerdmans, 1961.

3. New Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language, s.v. “epoch-making.”

4. Ibid.

5. The Consolidated-Webster Encyclopedic Dictionary, s.v. “epoch.”

6. James Strong, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990. ref. no. 303.

7. Spiros Zodhiates, Hebrew-Greek Key Study Bible - New American Standard, rev. ed. AMG Publishers, 1990. p. 1804.

8. Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary. Word Bible Publishers, 1992. p. 1496.

9. Ethelbert Bullinger, A Critical Lexicon and Concordance to the English and Greek New Testament. Zondervan Publishing House, 1975. p. 631.

10. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, abridged. Eerdmans, 1985. p. 1352. 

11. James Strong, The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1990. ref. no. 1805.

12. Craig Brian Larson, Illustrations for Preaching and Teaching. Baker Books, 1993. p. 278.