I’ve become convinced that Jesus’ anointing and commission in Luke 9:1-2 is a key passage for understanding Jesus’ intentions for the Body of Christ on earth. This commission to take authority to cast out all demons, cure diseases, proclaim the Kingdom and heal the sick became the marching orders for a movement that would welcome and advance the Kingdom of God across the globe and across the ages. It would become the answer to Jesus’ own prayer — “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Once God’s Messiah and Holy Spirit were introduced into the world, the expectation was an impartation of power and authority to accomplish supernatural ministry. Anything less might be good social engagement but would be distinct from Spirit-infused transformational ministry.
The call of every Christian is to Spirit-infused transformational ministry.
Fresh Kingdom movements seem to be characterized by a fresh wrestling with what engagement with supernatural ministry looks like. John Wesley, founder of our Methodist movement, wrestled as much as anyone with the mixing of supernatural ministry with the daily working out of sanctification through the means of grace. Out of his own experience of supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit, Wesley wrote:
The danger was to regard extraordinary circumstances too much, such as outcries, convulsions, visions, trances; as if these were essential to the inward work, so that it could not go on without them. Perhaps the danger is, to regard them too little; to condemn them altogether; to imagine they had nothing of God in them, and were a hindrance to his work.
Whereas the truth is —
1) God suddenly and strongly convinced many that they were lost sinners; the natural consequence whereof were sudden outcries and strong bodily convulsions;
2) to strengthen and encourage them that believed, and to make His work more apparent, He favored several of them with divine dreams, others with trances and visions;
3) in some of these instances, after a time, nature mixed with grace;
4) Satan likewise mimicked this work of God in order to discredit the whole work; and yet it is not wise to give up this part any more than to give up the whole.
At first, it was, doubtless, wholly from God. It is partly so at this day; and He will enable us to discern how far, in every case, the work is pure and where it mixes or degenerates … (Journal, Sunday, November 25, 1759)
“Nature mixed with grace” is a powerful insight. It reminds me how quickly the enemy of our souls (or our own timid reactions) can contaminate good ministry. When God is on the move we often invite nature in either by our own arrogance (“look what God is doing through me!”) or by fear of the messiness introduced by other-worldly things. We are more comfortable with what we can control and we can control nature. Nature alone will send us out to care for the sick and visit those in prison and mercy alone will cause us to stick with folks long past good sense. When the grace of the Holy Spirit descends, however, our right response is surrender and submission.
Be emboldened, friends. American Christians also deserve to see the power of God, to become conversant in the real and powerful work of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual leaders are responsible for properly defining that power and calling our people to that hunger. We will know we are making progress when we see regular evidence of the authentic, awesome power of God working in our churches and in our lives. Not elsewhere but here at home.
Paul’s words resonate deeply: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me” (Philippians 3:10-11).
I’m with Paul. I want to know pure grace, to be in the presence of the power that resurrects people from the dead. I want to see everything Jesus sends us out to see — demons cast out, diseases cured, the Kingdom proclaimed, lives transformed.
Pure grace. Pure power. Pure religion.
