Hello again. Happy New Year to all of you! I don't know how my last post impacted you. Was it a new idea for you that you have a completely new identity in the Spirit, if you have been born again? That you are no longer a sinner by nature, but a saint, holy, justified, blessed and accepted in Jesus? And these are not just figurative or symbolic statements but realities, albeit spiritual realities that have to be believed in order to be fully experienced and activated?
A lost truth
The full impact of the biblical truth about the spiritual identity of the believer seems to have been lost in the body of Christ for the most part of church history. These truths are now spreading very rapidly throughout the body of Christ, so chances are that many of my readers are already familiar with this paradigm of thinking. When I first encountered it a few years ago through the Freedom in Christ course, I didn't realize how far reaching and tremendous the implications were. This has the potential to completely revolutionize your Christian walk. That's what it did for me. It has literally set me free and has given me access to the life of abundance and victory that I always sought but never seemed to be able to find. I want to take some time to spell out the implications of these truths as I keep writing.
Too good to be true?
But maybe some of you think - this can't be true. It sounds too good to be true. Such a vital truth cannot have been hidden from the body of Christ for centuries. This must be heresy. Well - just think of Martin Luther and the great reformers. The biblical truths of salvation by grace alone through faith had been lost for over 1000 years until they surfaced again at the time of the Reformation. I believe something of similar proportions is happening in our day and age. As today's believers are receiving revelation about who they truly are in Christ, they are increasingly able to walk by faith in a similar degree of authority, victory and power as the first Christians were, whose accounts we read in the Bible. Throughout Church history there were times that this kind of power and authority came to the surface in limited pockets in the Church around the globe. We call these times REVIVALS.
The new identity surfacing in revivals
I was always fascinated by the stories of revivals. During those times believers often seemed to be able to do the same things that Jesus and the Apostles did in the Bible. One such move of God took place in Indonesia during the sixties and seventies of the last century, and the impact of it is still felt in that area. It began by a mighty outpouring of God's Spirit on the Isle of Timor in a little town called Soe, and also simultaneously on many other islands of this huge country. I warmly recommend two accounts of that revival: "Like a Mighty Wind" by Mel Tari. And a German Book by Otto Riecker, called "Ruf aus Indonesien" (A Call from Indonesia). Two German missionaries were involved in that revival - Detmar and Volkhard Scheunemann. They visited Germany in 1970 and gave an account of what was happening in Indonesia. Dr. Riecker published the sermons in the little book mentioned above. It is out of print but some used copies are still available in retail.
A movement of ordinary people
What is so fascinating about the Indonesian revival is the fact that there was no single one "anointed" leader or apostle. It was a revival of ordinary people who heard from God and obeyed. They went out in teams to preach the Gospel where God sent them, and they experienced the same provision, protection, power and anointing as the first Christians did. There are accounts of people speaking in Languages they never learned, like English and French. Accounts of healing incurable diseases through the name of Jesus, dead people raised to life, turning water into wine, walking on water over a swollen river, commanding the weather, multiplying food, calling fire down from heaven just like Elijah did... The German theologians recall that prior to the revival a move of prayer and repentance went through their bible school, a turning back to the Bible as the fully inspired and infallible word of God, a cleansing from sin and deliverance from demonic bondage... And then they were able to walk by faith in their new identity as sons and daughters of the living God.
A problem with my thinking
I always believed that these accounts were true. My problem was that I had a paradigm of thinking that prevented me from seeing the significance of these accounts for me. I thought that God in his sovereignty poured out His Spirit here and there and refused to pour Him out in other places. But this is not New Testament thinking. The New Testament does not speak of God taking His Spirit back anywhere. Jesus won ALL authority in heaven and on earth through His redemptive work on the cross. And He sent His followers to go into all the world in HIS authority and preach the gospel and disciple nations. So God was never the problem. When things got bad in the church it always happened because His people lost sight of His promises, followed deceptive philosophies and teachings and turned away from the simplicity of the Gospel. God never ever took His Spirit back. We have quenched Him, we have lost sight of the walk of faith, we have allowed our hearts to be hardened by sin and unbelief.
Revival starts with me
This is a very liberating truth. Because if I am the problem - then I can do something about it. I can change. If it was up to God then I would have to just beg and plead and hope that He would change. This is what I had been doing for years. Begging God to pour out His Spirit and thinking that He somehow had to be changed. But if it is up to me, I can start changing, I can start believing, I can start repenting, changing my thinking and my actions. Revival always starts with me. It is personal.
Believing God
So instead of asking God to pour out His Spirit again I needed to start believing God and acting on what His word said. This is how revival comes. God flows through people. The founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, allegedly said: "I am not praying for a move of God, I am a move of God!" There is a deep truth in His saying. You and I, all born again believers, have God living inside of us. We are saints, anointed with the Spirit of God, our lives hidden in Christ. The power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us (Ephesians 1:20). We are one with God in the Spirit. We have the same authority over all evil, over sickness and disease and over nature as Jesus had. This is what the New Testament teaches in absolutely unambiguous terms (John 14:12). But this authority is a SPIRITUAL reality. It must be believed and activated by faith before it can be seen and experienced in the physical realm. And the enemy has brought in a huge amount of lies, deception, philosophies, theologies and the like into the church in order to prevent Christians from seeing it and walking in it. To the degree that we change our paradigms of thinking - to the degree that we renew our mind by the word of God (in other words: repent) - to that degree we will be able to walk in the power, freedom, victory and authority that the New Testament is speaking about. Isn't that just an AWESOME truth?
Be blessed and encouraged everybody. If you have been born again, you have God Almighty living on the inside of you! You are a son/daughter of the living God. Deeply loved and cherished! Equipped with everything you need to live an absolutely victorious, free, joyful and abundant life in Christ. Will you believe it? Until next week.
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