prophetic voices
…hang with me y’all, it’s not gonna get kooky 
My blog buddy hamo has a fantastic post that truly is inspired.
We really have to stop this nonsense talk about taking the world for Christ when most of us don’t even know our own next door neighbours. And we need to stop expecting God to do what we are too lazy or afraid to do ourselves.
I should say that I would love to be around if God ever did do something miraculous - if there ever was a genuine revival ala the Welsh revival. I’m sure that would be an incredible experience. But in the mean time - in the absence of the miraculous - I believe our job is not to pray God will pull his finger out and bring some pagans into church, but rather for us to get our own butts into gear and live the gospel in the worlds we are a part of.
Make sure you head over there and read it all. It was for Australia day but considering that Europe is already post christian and America is heading there I think it’s apropos for all of us. I cannot even begin to tell you how many people in my previous church world have the militaristic “take the world for Christ” and charismatic “pray for revival” mentality. Pray God they can hear these words from someone soon.
And then grace mixes it up and adds to it with some other great words of others.
God speaks. People speak. We just need to discern which is which. These friends are speaking the heartbeat of God.
I’ll leave you with this quote from Shane Claiborne, (ht) I’m laughing imagining a “prophet” in any one of my previous charismatic churches standing up and with all the pageantry of a good pentecostal saying this, turning around, walking back to his/her seat and sitting down. LOL
“Get ready, friends…God is preparing us for something really, really-small.”
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“Get ready, friends…God is preparing us for something really, really-small.”
LOL
I have to tell you a funny story I heard in a Charismatic church one time. She was talking about the danger of feeling like you needed to be “led by the Spirit” to witness to others. She said she was in a church one time where the speaker had everyone come up front and touch a pencil. Nobody knew where he was going with that. After they had all touched the pencil he said, “now that you’ve felt “lead” go out and share the gospel with others.
The quote just reminded me of that.
I think that we should be praying for a huge worldwide revival. I think that God moving in power would change lives but at the same time we definitely don’t need to lock ourselves in our houses/church buildings and not be a part of people’s lives. We do need revival at times but people ALWAYS need expressions of Jesus shown to them.
Sorry that was so long.
That is a message we all need to hear. Thanks for sharing that it. It reminds me of one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard given by Tony Campolo, in which he told a story about mission work in Haiti. There was a community of 50 children, no adults, just children fending for themselves, so he raised enough money to build an extra wing on a school/orphanage for them. When he and the team went to pick up the kids they were horrified to see that instead of 50 kids waiting to get on a bus, there were 300! 300 starving, sick kids. Word had spread and desperate children from all over were brought, but they only had room for fifty. And Tony Campolo said he was SO angry with God for allowing this to happen, for allowing all these children to be left behind. Then he realized that God had given His people the resources to tend to the needs of these people, but we have pocketed those resources for ourselves. We can’t ask for signs and wonders from God to magically fix the world, while pocketing the resources he has so generously given us to minister to the least the lost and the last of this world. It’s not a fun message to hear, but it’s needed.
[...] Prophetic Voices - Makeesha Fisher, Swinging From the Vine [...]
[...] February 5, 2008 this past week i stumbled on a quote at my friend makeesha’s blog by shane claiborne (one of my favorite voices for change in the kingdom of God). claiborne [...]
I’m not sure why he says that we shouldn’t expect God to do something that we might be too afraid to do ourselves. If God wants he can do anythign he wants like he did when he raised up the dry bones and put flesh on them! He deosn’t ‘need’ man to accomplish his ultimate will, but certainly it is modus operandi.
But yes, God also says, “IF my people will humble themselves and pray, THEN I will heal their land..” and other such conditional promises. It’s a dichotomy, isn’t it? I see it that when God chooses to move worldwide, he also puts the desire in tonnes of peoples’ minds and hearts. His plans aren’t thwarted if one person should choose not to obey what s/he is being directed by God to do. For example, just this morning somone was wondering about whether they would be guilty if they were lead to pray for someone else and to talk to them about the hope that was in them but instead chose to ignore it. What if then, say, that person died without knowing Christ? Would that believer then stand somehow guilty in their disobediece? That was the question thrown out and everyone seemed to concur that although we should be attentive to what the Spirit tells us, God’s plans don’t just solely rest on one person, although one person can be extremely influential. Many in this church group we visited (with mainly people in their 50’s +) considered how their own faith journeys were the result of many prayers from many many people, — a chain of events and discussions, not just the result of one encounter with one person. Interesting.
Anyway, although I recognize of course that we don’t battle against flesh and blood, but against spirits and principalities, and, yes, there are tonnes of miliaristic type analogies with references to the “armour” of God, and so on, I guess I still get really turned off by such phrases as, “‘taking the world’ for Christ.” It’s like other statements like, “Taking the high ground,” or “Men of steel” or whatever! Possibly I’ve just been too influenced by my ardent feminist upbringing or by our culture but I just don’t llike the “rah-rah”/jock sort of mindset that goes with that. Perhaps I better just accept it though than get bent out of shape by it. It is God’s Word after all! I guess the main issue is not so much what the words are but the sort of attitude that often accompanies these words! However, I have to too recognise that indeed we are called to humble ourselves and pray and as a result we will take action. I do also think that we would be wiser to walk in the spirit, dependent on him and not strike out in our flesh or pride and do what might ’seem’ right but in the end actually can make things worse.