Athens
I know you can’t judge long term effects by short term results, but sometimes it’s nice to see the end from the beginning … or at least as you’re on your way there. We have planted seeds today, but there’s no telling which will grow and bring forth fruit and which will not.
It was another day of contrasts. I spent the night in prayer – not because I’m so spiritual, but because that stupid Jet Lag woke up again at 2:00 am and I was wide awake. I figured I could do one of two things: either torment myself by lying in the bed for the next few hours trying to go to sleep, or make the assumption that the Lord woke me up to get up and pray. Figuring that I might as well make the most of it, I stayed up to pray. By morning, I was pumped and ready for anything. I felt like my feet were firmly planted on something solid and I had a grip on God and could tackle the challenges of the day with all confidence. Before the day was out, I was going to need that confidence.
It was Sunday and the morning service was at a fairly large church in Kigali. Normally, this is their day for healing services, but the pastor had been told that if he let us bring a message about revival, his congregation would be blessed. He took a chance and let me come.
This was a wonderful church. You could feel that warm feeling in the air as soon as you walked in. The joy of the Lord was in this place. If I lived in Kilgali, this is where I would want to go to church. As I took the pulpit, I could feel the Spirit begin to flow. Oh, this was going to be a great service!
I have often said that my job is simply to show up. I don’t control the message or the Spirit that brings it, and I don’t control the hearts of the people to receive it. I just show up. Granted, I had better be in the Spirit- read up, prayed up, and fasted up – so that I can be a yielded vessel for God to control. Our flesh has to be crucified for the Spirit to work freely through us. That’s my job, but all the rest is up to Him. I’m just there to be a mouthpiece. When things are open and flowing, it is because the hearts of the people are open to receive from God. Conversely, when the message is not flowing, something is blocking that connection between them. As in Fluid Dynamics, the receiving end has to be open to enable the flow.
This church was wide open. The Spirit of God touched some souls there like they had not experienced before. You know you’ve hit the bullseye when people tell you that the reason God sent you to Africa was specifically for them. If you are operating under the Anointing, that happens all the time. When God is anointing the message, He is able to reach out to touch the innermost places of their hearts. He is a personal God.
The University that afternoon, however, was just the opposite. We had gone to great lengths and expense to bus these kids in and give them the booklets because they had said they wanted to launch the Gideon Generation Movement, but once the service had started, it was as if something was blocking the flow of the Spirit. We just could not punch through the wall of impassive faces that stared back at us. I felt like Paul in Athens. Intelligence and education can be great liabilities because they promote the cerebral over the spiritual and make you think that you are smarter than what you really are. What a tough crowd!
What was different? All covenants with God are predicated on humility. The Tree of Knowledge offers you a fruit that is desired to make you wise in your carnal mind, but the Tree of Life requires you to surrender all to God. In order to enter into a covenant with God to send revival, we must come to a place of repentance before God so that He can take over the Church. That will not happen through logic or intelligence but only through a broken heart. Unless we realize the vast difference between the corruption of flesh and the holiness of God, we can never truly come to a place of repentance and break before the Altar of God. And until that happens, God cannot use you.
Both Noah and myself prayed over them and cried out to God to pry open their hearts and give them true understanding. They have heard a message that they have not heard before in that revival is not about singing and dancing but that there is a price to pay for revival. We have handed out about 1,000 booklets that have the message that we have been bringing all over Africa. Our prayer is that they will read it and, like the Bereans, will search the Scriptures and see if these things are true.
My job is to show up. It is God’s job to take it from there.¬¬¬¬
