The Greatest Enemy of Revival

 

The greatest enemy to the frontier is the familiar!

I woke this morning with the above phrase on my mind.

As my eyes look at our nation of Wales, and I reminisce over my life here before I moved to America in 2007, I am awakened to the reality that nostalgia is no longer my friend. Before I left for America I wanted another 1904 Welsh Revival. Now, being back in Wales, I want what God has always wanted to do! Have we become too rigid in our expectations, in our religiousity, and in our flat out fear to give up control of what we have built? We need to let God be God. 

Pioneers of heavenly frontiers, for the things that God wills to manifest on earthly plains, must let go of the familiar and follow the Holy Spirit

There is a verse in the New Testament that I love, and whenever I read it I let my thoughts wander to the "what ifs" and the "whys?",

"But the man went out and openly began to proclaim and spread the news. Consequently, Jesus could no longer enter a town in plain view, but He stayed out in solitary places. Yet people came to Him from every quarter"

Mark 1:45 (BSB)

Jesus healed this man of leprosy and charged him to tell no one. Instead, the man's lack of control drove him to tell everyone. This, as the verse says, prevented Jesus from going into towns and cities. Here is what I think about, we know that Jesus only did what He saw His father doing (John 5:19), then obviously Jesus was seeing the Father wanting to move in the towns and cities, but because of a man's lack of self-control Jesus could not do those things. God wanted the towns and cities, a man messed that up! 

What about today? What might our religious rigidness be preventing Jesus from doing in our towns and cities? Jesus sees what the Father wants, but we may well be hindering that purpose. 

I am aware more often than not, as it pertains to the Rainmakers vision, that this is not "MY" vision. Years ago, the late great Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke started an evangelistic effort to place the Gospel in every home in the UK called "Minus to Plus". When God first spoke to him about this Bonnke stated how "busy" he was with the missions in Africa. Bonnke asked the Lord, "Can you ask someone else Lord?", and he felt the Lord say, "I've asked three other preachers to do it but they wouldn't". So, Bonnke did it!

When I lived in St Louis the Lord spoke to me about uniting the city in prayer, this was back in 2011-2012. At the time our Church and ministry were experiencing growth and blessing. I was working a full time job AND pastoring a lively supernatural Church. I too, made the mistake of negotiating with God. How could I accomplish that? I was so busy! I look back now and see how I missed an opportunity because of thinking too "earthly". 

I bought a map of St Louis that showed all of the cities within the St Louis County (almost a hundred different cities). I looked at that map a lot. Prayed, and thought "How the heck can I do this??" Eventually I limited what God wanted to do to my measly earthly level. I concluded that as a Church we would prayer walk the whole city of Maryland Heights, the city where we held our Church services. It tooks us three months of Wednesday nights to prayer walk every residential street, and we drove every business street in the city praying over those areas. That was only one city out of the hundred that God was calling me to. 

Fast forward to a few years ago, a friend of mine, Kurt, took up a vision to unite the city in prayer, and he's accomplished it. I've never told him my story, and how God spoke to me in 2011, but the point is this - I was one of the many that God probably asked to do what Kurt is doing, and we didn't do it! Kurt's success speaks for itself. It is not an original idea, he's just the one who ran with it. Like Bonnke, Kurt got it done, because there were others like me who didn't. 

All of that to say, the Rainmakers vision is just the language of Revival, Reformation, Awakening, Outpouring, Renewal or whatever title you want to give to a move of God, in the way that God spoke to me. It's not original, in fact I give recognition to Nick Ittzes and Mark Chironna as being the prophetic voices to this focus. I've just decided to not make the same mistake I made in the city of St Louis. As mentioned, I got caught up in what I was doing, instead of what God wanted to do in that city.

Are you missing an opportunity to do what God wants to do in your town or city because of preoccupation with your familar ministry or Church?

The greatest enemy to the frontier is the familiar!

Mwy Arglwydd