You Can Pull Tomorrow Into TODAY!
I believe we are entering the days of facedown glory. But it’s not going to fall out of the sky sovereignly. You and I have a role to play.
To be fair, I do not believe the Charismatic / Pentecostal movement has given due honor to the sovereignty of God. In some extreme expressions of “positive confession” theology, we act as if God Almighty is restricted or restrained based on whether or not we, the church, have our act together. This includes praying the right prayers, making the correct confessions, and being God’s essential conduit in the Earth. God is sovereign and can do whatever He likes. Period, end of story.
On the other hand, sovereignty is not an excuse for mankind’s irresponsibility or worse, disobedience to the commands, mandates, commissions and instructions of the Lord aimed at those who have been filled with His sovereign Spirit. Consider this: Sovereign God made a sovereign decision to fill His people with His Sovereign Spirit. If that’s true, factored within the sovereignty of God is mankind partnering with His indwelling Spirit to carry out His purposes int the Earth.
“The Sovereign God made a sovereign decision to fill His people with His Sovereign Spirit.”
God’s preference is partnership with His people. He sovereignly decided to pour out His Spirit upon redeemed humanity, and thus, inaugurate a new temple structure in the Earth, not one fashioned by the hands of man with sand and stone, but rather, a temple fashioned by His own hands: redeemed mankind filled with the Holy Spirit. Remember, the Spirit of the sovereign God is upon you.
Old Testament Previews of New Testament Encounter
In order to experience this facedown glory, we must respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. After all, we are currently not experiencing or witnessing what I would call facedown glory. We saw a sneak preview of this in the Old Testament when the glory of God fell at the temple dedication and the priests could not continue to minister because of the weighty measure of God’s presence. Consider for a moment that this was the Old Testament. Now, access has been given through the blood of Jesus for all redeemed people to approach God as priests (through Jesus, the High Priest).
In short, we should be experiencing greater measures of glory than Solomon did and the priesthood of old did. Why aren’t we? Is something broken? Are we in a different dispensation? Does God simply not manifest Himself that way any longer? I’m convinced God has not changed; He is still a Person who is not simply known through theological concepts, but is experienced through the power and presence of the Spirit. For the glory to manifest in the temple of old, preparation was made. Are we prepared for the glory today?
Who Will Pull It In?
While ministering at Millennial Church in Tulsa with Tommy Evans recently, the Holy Spirit spoke a series of very clear words to me. I’ll share one right now, only in seed form, as I am still wrestling with it… in a good way.
We need to be the kind of people who pull another day into this day. Bill Johnson was the first person who introduced me to this concept years ago, referencing the Syrophoenician woman of Mark Chapter 7 who was, at the time, off limits to the focus of Jesus’ ministry. She was a Gentile, and Jesus’s assignment was specifically aim at the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” AKA, the Jewish people. In short, this woman should have waited for “another day” when Gentiles would be grafted into the fold; but hunger has a funny way of pressing through religious red tape.
She approached Jesus, petitioning Him to deliver her daughter from demonic torment. For the sake of this illustration, I will not be focusing on deliverance or healing, but rather, the woman’s desperate approach to Jesus. Please, do not misread this as a formula; but I do believe, in her approach to the Messiah, we view a pathway into pulling that which is reserved for “another day” into our day.
First, she humbled herself before the Lord: “But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.” (Mk. 7:25)
I pray we reach the point in modern, Westernized Christianity where we have an honest-to-God evaluation of every trick and gimmick that we have tried to get people to church and win them to Jesus with. They have mostly failed. Sure, perhaps they produced results in measure, but nowhere near the results that could be if we welcomed the ministry of the Holy Spirit on His terms. Let’s humble ourselves before the Lord and recognize only He can bring the transformation we are desperate for. Obviously, for this woman, she recognized everything else had failed and this brought her to the feet of King Jesus.
Secondly, she was unashamed to be desperate: “Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.” (Mk. 7:26)
She was a Gentile, and thus, not eligible – at that time – to receive the ministry of Jesus. But desperation has a funny way of making you not care about cultural norms or religious rules. She pressed right passed all of that stuff because she had heard, somehow, somewhere, that this Jesus had the power to deliver her daughter from demonic oppression. Her desperation compelled her to beg Jesus to provide a supernatural solution. Are we that desperate today?
Desperation refuses to live without the touch of God. Desperation refuses to be satisfied with daily Bible readings that are not becoming living demonstration in and through our lives. Desperation is not satisfied with the fact that the saints in the Old Testament seemingly enjoyed greater measures of God’s glory and presence than we are experiencing today. Desperation refuses to acknowledge that the healing evangelists of yesteryears, from John G. Lake to Smith Wigglesworth to Oral Roberts represented the ceiling or pinnacle of what’s possible in Christ.
Desperation recognizes there is more—and furthermore, compels a person, like the woman in Mark 7, to take desperate action.
The Sound of Desperation
We may claim to be desperate in theory and theology, but do we sound desperate? Do we appear desperate? Desperation is messy, and from what I can see, modern Christianity is often pretty well put together and orchestrated. How desperate are our gatherings? Our prayer meetings? Our church services? Our small group meetings? Our prayer closets? Desperation cannot be accurately conveyed in a blog, like this. Maybe traces of it, sure, but true desperation comes with a troubling sound. A groan. A travail. It comes with tears and loud cries. It comes with begging that pulls another day into our day.
Now, modern Charismatics (not so much classical Pentecostals) flinch at the thought of begging. Understand this: we are not begging from a place of deficit, as if we are trying to convince a reluctant Heavenly Father to unclench His fist and release Holy Spirit outpouring. Scripture tells us that we have access to every spiritual blessing in heavenly places. Outpouring started on the Day of Pentecost and Heaven has not closed since then. Theologically, we have access to the fullness of Holy Spirit outpouring, miracles, signs, wonders, gifts of the Holy Spirit, demonstrations of power. We have access to the potential of entire cities and regions being transformed. However, there has got to be a people who boldly rise up, like the Syrophoenician woman of Mark 7, and don’t simply write, talk, blog, stream or podcast about a potential solution to our absence of power and presence; we need a people willing to do the dirty, boots-on-the-ground, in the trenches work of birthing intercession and also, taking practical, everyday risk.
Our intercession should not sound like the ship is sinking and everything is going to hell in a handbasket; it will be intense and gripping because we are thoroughly convinced of everything Heaven has made available to us, and we are praying for its full demonstration and manifestation. The desperate tone is provoked because we know what’s available and we are dissatisfied by what’s currently experienced; we recognize there is a significant gap between what we have access to in the spirit realm, and what we are defining as twenty-first century Christianity. Desperation takes hold of what’s available in the invisible, prays, contends, declares, and furthermore, steps out in faith, until what’s an invisible promise becomes a visible manifestation. I say once more, desperation, modeled by the woman of Mark 7, has the ability to pull that which is reserved for another day (in her case, it was the ministry of Jesus to the Gentiles), and experience it now.
To conclude with Mark 7:27-29:
And he (Jesus) said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.” 28 But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.” 29 And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.”
Third, the desperate woman did not accept denial as an opportunity to change her theology and give up. Instead, she pressed in all the more. And it’s that pressing and pushing that pulls that which is reserved for another day into our day.
In modern microwave-speed Christian culture, we’ve missed out on the fullness of revival, not because of God’s unwillingness to pour out His Spirit, but because of our unwillingness to endure until we strike spiritual oil.
When we don’t see immediate results, we are tempted to give up at best, and at worst, change our theology to accommodate our perceived lack of effectiveness. But I implore you: if you are praying for the manifestation of Joel 2 and Acts 2, the Spirit being poured out on all flesh, you are praying the perfect will of God and you have a Bible-right to lay claim to that promise of outpouring in vigorous, enduring, contending, faith-filled prayer until you see what you are praying for.
I know it’s an odd Bible illustration for revival or praying for a greater manifestation of God’s glory, but this is the portion of Scripture the Lord has laid on my heart. Do you want to see facedown glory invade entire buildings, fields, cities, and regions? It’s possible. More than that, it’s available and it’s waiting for a people daring, bold, and audacious enough to access it. There are many realities in the spirit that are available but they are not being accessed.