As we were praying last night, I sensed something emerge out of the Spirit that, I believe, will dramatically shift the face of twenty-first century Christianity. This, reader, applies to YOU if you are a member of the household of God and the community of faith in Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit desires to create communities (not buildings or institutions, per se) of believers so grounded in Scripture, so yielded to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and so hungry for supernatural encounters with the Living God, that the Spirit of Jesus will begin cultivating entire cultures of believers where previews of the Age to Come are released NOW on a normative basis. “On Earth as it is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10)
However, the key to accessing and abiding in this supernatural glory-culture is the term “lordship.” Everyone seemingly wants Jesus as their Savior; when it comes to His complete lordship, however, we start compartmentalizing. This is why we don’t experience the supernatural as the normative. Not only do we refuse Jesus lordship when it comes to sin in our lives, but we also deny Him lordship when we pursue a comfortable, makes-sense, consumer Christianity and refuse to bow denominational biases, doctrinal concepts, and past experiences/disappointments to the supernatural realities presented as FACT in the Word. I pray that we would be convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that His presence tastes endlessly better than sin, that Jesus is ravishingly beautiful, that His Word is uncompromisingly true, and that He is wholly worthy of our complete devotion (Ps. 27:4, 34:8, Rom. 12:1).
Listen, do you want to continue in a mediocre, natural life, where the “same ole same ole” is normative, or do you want to embrace the new normal Christian life that God is raising up in this hour?
You were NOT born again to go through the motions of Christianity (endure the drag of church, attend Bible study, go on a missions trip, pop some money in a bucket, etc.) while simply “making it through” life. You were not saved by the unmerited favor of a righteously Holy God, sovereignly snatched out of the domain of darkness, and redeemed from the stain of sin by the precious blood of the Lamb to simply sleepwalk through life and do “your thing.” You know, the thing we assume God wants us to do that we (deep down) know is so far below the supernatural, history-making destiny Jesus has ordained for those who would be—literally—possessed by His presence.
I’m going to be straight with you—if you know Jesus Christ as your lord and savior, you are possessed by the very presence of Almighty God. The same Jesus Who healed the sick, raised the dead, overcame the power of sin, and released glimpses of the age to come in here and now lives inside of you and, believe it or not, this same Jesus has prophesied over your life that you would do “greater things” than He did, in His Name, by His power, because He is doing them through you! (Jn 14:12).
Oh yeah, and the “greater things” that we sing so passionately about in “God of the City” are NOT just feeding the hungry, clothing the cold, visiting third-world countries, and handing out turkey dinners. That’s a part of it, but really, such things can be done through natural human strength. We need to start contending for and in turn seeing the presence and power of a Living Jesus released into the darkness. This demands the church—you—to “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon thee. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee” (Is. 60:1-2, KJV).
As Bill Johnson so aptly puts it, “The Holy Spirit is in you… and He wants out.” The Third Person of the Trinity does not exist to simply draw attention to Himself. He works to manifest Jesus through you, plain and simple. He stirs yearnings in the core of your being, causing you to want to experience Jesus in a tangible, powerful way, and in turn, see His presence, power and compassion manifest through your life in the sphere of influence He has uniquely given you.
You, believer, have been redeemed and filled with the Spirit for this strategic era in history, as God is uniting a people who will truly arise and radiate the light of Hi Son’s glory. And friends, this is not the type of “glory” that we will need faith to see. When Jesus walked upon the scene of humanity, His physical presence transformed the geography around Him. Why should it be any different with the Christ in you? He didn’t change at some point between the ascension and Pentecost. And to think, Christ is no longer constrained to a single physical body. He has been released through the Holy Spirit to inhabit entire communities of people.
Just ponder with me in closing—if Jesus Christ clothed in the glove of humanity released powerful glimpses of the Age to Come, how much more will this same Jesus release and manifest the same glimpses [plural] through a culture… a community… a generation…an army of God-possessed people?
Lord, release a hunger for this supernatural culture in your people, I pray!
Your Kingdom come, Your will be done… on EARTH AS IT IS in heaven.
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