Wayne's World...(9Mar08)

How Hungry are you?

 

With our travelling to Port Alfred and back, Jen and I had the privilege of listening to a six part series by Bill Johnson. Bill is possibly the leading authority on the planet today with regards to signs, wonders and the super natural. He travels with a ministry team 180 days a year. Every place he goes they see countless miracles. Deaf ears opened, cancer healed, body parts being replaced. At one place they had over 80 "deafness" people healed. Many who were terminal have been saved. When I chatted to Rob Rufus the other day, he said "Bill is like a modern Martin Luther". Rory Dyer who leads Glenrich International said to me "Every now and then the presence of the lord rests heavily on someone on the earth, at the moment it seems to be on Bill". So for me whenever I see someone living like this, I want to learn from them. It may be hard to understand the desperation for the miraculous operating in your life until you lead a church. Until you have a loved one terminal. Until you need a touch.

 

I don't think you need to be a rocket scientist to realize that the church has been operating in a sub power, sub new testament, sub Jesus level of anointing. We desperately need to get back to normal church, to the book of acts church. It's normal for healings, it's normal for signs and wonders and supernatural, it's normal for dead been raised , it's normal for many to come to Jesus, it's normal to have favor in business, it's normal to transform our communities.

 

So what we are contending for currently, what we're transitioning into through Jesus and the finished work of the cross. What were fighting for in the new covenant, is what he's given us…a normal church. 

 

I want to ask a question…how hungry are you?

 

Bill Johnson talks about levels of hunger…

 

Your wife arrives home from the shops, you're on the couch reading a book. She asks "are you hungry my love", you tell her you are. "What would you like my love she asks". "Umm a biscuit, a banana and a cup of tea will be good thanks" . She brings it to you, you gratefully eat the whole lot. You were hungry and appreciate her effort to satisfy your hunger. BUT there is another kind of hunger, where you get up off your butt and go to the fridge yourself; you eat a whole bunch of food. So we see levels of hunger. I've been so hungry before that I cannot wait for supper, after a long dive or surf, you get "the munchies", and simply have to stop at the bakery or fast food take away. When your that hungry, you'll make a sandwich an hour before supper…you simply cannot wait, you need satisfaction now. Levels of hunger..

 

How hungry are you for the presence of God and the Spirit of God? 

 

Jesus is perfect theology…

 

If you believe anything about Christianity or of God that is not reflected in the life in Jesus, then you're living a substandard Christianity. Jesus is perfect theology. Jesus is God. He is the perfect picture of the Father.

 

The bible says he is the "exact representation of the father". If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. 

 

Look at this in Jesus' life…He did no miracles, He did not operate in signs and wonders until a certain time. When did he start His ministry? It was only after He was filled with the Holy Spirit. Once the Holy Spirit came upon Him, He had the power to perform miracles. Before that Jesus was constrained. After the Holy Spirit came upon Him, He had power.

 

What was it that Jesus told the disciples just before He went to be with the Father in the beginning of acts? "Wait here and you'll receive the Holy Spirit. When you receive Him you'll receive…power".

 

The amount of power we have in our lives is in direct proportion to the measure of the Holy Spirit we have operating in and through us. Yes it's all done through the cross, and it's all available to us all the time, and all we have to do is believe it to receive it. But there is something about hunger. Something about desiring Him and His person. There is something about that hunger that translates into the reality of His presence.

 

Matthew 5v6 Blessed are those who hunger …., for they will be filled.

 

There is something about hunger that brings a filling.

 

It's almost like there should be a Godly discontentment with the anointing we have. Not the kind of disappointment that leads to condemnation, for there is no condemnation for those who are in him. Not the kind of disappointment that leads us feeling unworthy, not the kind of disappointment that causes deep introspection through failure. But rather the kind of disappointment that leaves us feeling like we want more.

 

Every disappointment in God is a Divine invitation to a supernatural encounter.

 

We can accept our shortfalls, or refuse to. One response leads to apathy, and the other leads to a divine encounter.

 

It's the difference between being an observer in the kingdom or a kingdom advancer.

 

It's the difference between seeing the work of the enemy, or destroying it.

 

It's the difference between believing the lies of the enemy, or undoing them. 

 

Grace is the beautiful gift that tells us we can dream. We can expect more. We can access the power.

 

We are worthy of more, the way is open, we can have it all, coz we already have it all. All the power, all the intimacy all the fullness of God is already in us. All we need do is walk in it. Hunger stirs up the belief, and created an expectancy that we will begin to live out who we really are. That brings our a good question, who are we?

 

Ephesians 1v3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ

 

We are those who have every spiritual blessing. Every spiritual blessing, you imagine it…we got it. Every blessing that Jesus has is ours to!! Believe it, hunger to live in the reality of it, for this is our real reality. We don't live in reality, this is our reality, we just need to come back to being normal Christians. Like Jesus, he was the most normal Christian there was.

 

Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession--to the praise of his glory. 15For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 16I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.  

 

The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is in you. It's in you, and working in you. Jesus purchased this as our inheritance.

 

Here Paul prays that the eyes of our hearts would be opened, that we would see the great inheritance that we have. The greatest power in the universe is working in us and for us.

 

Deep within us there needs to be a longing and a hunger to see the reality of this manifest in our lives. When the revelation and reality of this hits our lives, we will never be the same, those around us will never be the same, the world will never be the same. The early church understood this, and as a result there was normal church. As a result normal Christians changed the world.

 

It's normal for Christians to operate in healings, it's normal for Christians to carry and operate in power. It's normal. It's part of our inheritance, it's part of what Jesus bought for us on the cross.

 

Ephesians 3v16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  

 

God wants His power to work and flow through us. It gives Him glory. It's not for us, it's for Him. God wants the world to see the power we have as Christians, and to see the anointing we operate in. They will desire God through it. They will say "I want what you got".

 

The church does something rather rude to the world. We say believe our message of power, but then don't have much power. Rather we should say like Jesus, the most normal Christian did…

 

11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.

 

Jesus could say, believe my message by what I do!! This is what God is restoring to the church, the power that goes with the message. The apostles preached with signs following. Paul ministered "not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the spirits power".

 

Imagine saying to the world, to friends and to the lost:

 

"believe my message based on the miracles I do"

 

It's possible friends, it's in us already!! It's all been done. Please don't think we have to become more mature, please don't think we have to have victory over every thing and every area of our lives before this will operate. This high level of power and anointing is possible for every believer.

 

Hunger sucks it out of us, it multiplies the power flowing out of us. It brings the reality of heaven to earth.

 

I close with this.

 

John 3v12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father

 

Jesus was the most normal Christian ever. It's normal to do what he did. Jesus high point of ministry is every believers starting point, then we can go beyond that, to greater things…just as Jesus promised.

 

It's possible friends. Please don't settle for less, don't rob your life or the world of the mighty gift in you. The same power that raised Christ from the dead.

 

Hunger will produce the reality…

 

Can we purpose as a church, as a group of friends, to believe and to trust God, that we might become a normal church, filled with normal Christians. Can we walk this road of discovery together, discovering who we really are, undoing who we are not. Will you join others as we surrender to God, and take the full inheritance he has laid before us.

 

Let's be a normal church, made up of normal Christians.