Is Christian Revival around the corner? I sure hope so… But if it is, we’ll need plenty of help to manage it.
Revival and the Holy Spirit
Are we in need for GOD’s Anointing of the Holy Spirit? Why wouldn’t we be?!
Jesus said, ‘I go that the helper may come’ (John 14:26). How does the Helper help? By anointing us for service, giving us power through His presence: to move hearts toward GOD and to pull down strongholds.
If we want revival — and most of us who follow Jesus do, in some measure at least — we must allow the Holy Spirit to fill us and follow His lead.
There are those in the church who say that the supernatural gifts of GOD are passed. Some suggest, ‘We have the Word now, so we don’t need the supernatural.’ I say rather bluntly, this is a cop out. I think it is borne of the fact that the speakers don’t personally see the manifestation of miracles and therefore they reckon they don’t exist. They might quote, “… pass away but my Word shall not pass away…” (Matthew 24:35) But that scripture is taken out of context. Jesus, as the Word of GOD, was resurrection life that will never pass away. But He left the earth so that He could send His Spirit to fill each of us. It is by the Spirit that I have been transformed: through GOD-given faith and His conviction. I experience transformation and demonstrate it because of His supernatural attendance to me and His infilling within me.
Others who accept the Holy Spirit presence but resist the power, say undignified behaviour is manifested and therefore such cannot be a move of GOD. I say Jesus accepted the undignified, preferring their behaviour to the pride and superficial dignity of His contemporary pharisees. I was once accused of being a pharisee. Me? But I love the LORD! was my immediate response. And yet, over time I realised the religious spirit of the pharisees had affected me. My recognition and rejection of it was instrumental in my maturity and freedom.
Holy Spirit – active today
What I testify is this: The Holy Spirit is the LORD within us who enables us to surrender our lives; He gives us leadership showing us how to engage with Him and with others about Him. He is the evangelist, the pastor, the teacher, the prophet and the apostle within (Ephesians 4:11) And He enables the fruits of love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, patience and self control (Galatians 5:22-23) to grow and supersede our own will and natural inclination to rebel. And it is through Him that miracles are manifested (1 Corinthians 12:8-9). He is the power and the presence of GOD, without whom we have neither His power nor His presence. He has not changed any more than has the Father or Jesus. GOD does not change.
Vocabulary that promotes the undignified
“Hallal” means praise! We are called to join in a manifestation of high praise, ‘flashing forth light like!’ Cymbals crash! King David danced with joy to his LORD, practically naked. GOD is to be revered but He does not control us. He brings liberty. Dignified or noisy, this is the celebration of GOD.
Jesus’ word about the Helper
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” (John 14:26)
For centuries, the power of GOD was squashed with religion. Protestants have blamed the Catholic faith, and it may largely be true that the manifestations of the Spirit were full-on during the early church but were largely wiped out by organised religion. But the chains have fallen off! And so should there be room again for the Spirit, so that we can “live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)
We need the anointing
Recently, I was in a worship service and tears began to flow as we ministered to the LORD, not only in song but in spiritual warfare, praying for the nation. This began with the steadfast commitment of the worship leader to sing to the LORD but also to pursue Him. In so doing, the anointing came and remained. A call from the congregation for prayer came and then the engagement: spiritual warfare through a unified force amongst the brethren of believers, to bring GOD’s kingdom onto earth “as it is in heaven”. I don’t believe this could have been done without the anointing. But with the anointing, there was faith and a unified voice in worship and prayer. All the glory goes to Him through our passionate pleas to Him.
Abandon
GOD is full of grace and love. We are to revere Him. But we do not have to be religious. Rather we are called to be “like little children” (Matthew 19); children are not self-conscious.
Decorum matters between one another, as does common sense and respect. But sometimes, as the LORD’s presence manifests, so too does the demonic. This is not to be shunned nor embraced, but to be recognised, deliverance* to be undertaken, and freedom to be received (*to protect all involved, deliverance should only be undertaken under specific conditions and by those trained and experienced).
Sometimes there is joy and dancing: David danced; it pleased the LORD! (and led to the barrenness of David’s wife because she mocked him)
The Spirit is unpredictable. The Spirit is free. He does not give us licence to be irreverent but irreverence is not the same as lacking dignity. Sometimes, we need to be met with unpredictable abandon to be set free.
I pray that those who are reading this have either met with the Holy Spirit and have been baptised and anointed by Him, or will pursue Him with their whole heart until they are. The Spirit is no less GOD than is the Father or the Son. There is power from the Creator. There is power in the Word. And there is also power through the Spirit. Embracing Him is what Jesus calls us to do. And we ignore this at our peril.
Implosion of the World
While science is fast becoming debunked by those who preach “whatever we feel is real” and religion in Western society has all but passed away, common sense, fact and reality are becoming as rarely inspected as history. This is the time for Faith to arise. Let us not copy what has gone before: a narrow religiosity that has the imitation of Truth but not the power of it. Let us endorse and whole-heartedly embrace the full Gospel: that we are saved by Faith in Jesus, both for our eternal future but also for our present. Jesus saves, delivers, restores. He is found both in Word and in Deed. And we ignore either at society’s peril.
GOD bless you. In Jesus’ name. May you receive the power and presence of the Lord Jesus, Yeshua, our Messiah, by His Holy Spirit. Amen.