What would you call the slaughter of 48.5 million innocent babies?
I'm a church planter, missionary, freelance writer, web designer, and Jesus lover from Level Cross, NC. I'm married with 3 wonderful grown children. We're currently planting a church and planning a missions trip back to Jamaica. I couldn't ask for a better life!
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What would a great move of God - an outpouring of the Holy Ghost - signs and wonders and miracles - LOOK like?
Much of what I hear about the revival that’s negative seems to focus on what the revival (and the revivalist) look like. Some folks seem to focus as well on the fact that God just doesn’t DO stuff.
So I’m asking all the folks who are naysaying the revival - what does an outpouring or revival look like? Paint me a picture…
May 10th, 2008 at 12:13 am
If an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being were going to do anything on Earth, it should probably start in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
May 10th, 2008 at 7:29 am
“If an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being were going to do anything on Earth, it should probably start in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”
Or Zimbabwe, Sudan, etc.
May 12th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Revival has touched all those countries (bet if you search on youtube you can find video of Todd Bentley, Louis Palau, or Reinhard Bonnke preaching in Africa.)
But let me ask y’all this:
Why there and not here in America?
do we need Jesus less?
do we need healing less?
and if you think the answer to #2 is yes, go to ustream and watch the video last night where they prayed for all of the terminally ill…
May 19th, 2008 at 3:11 am
I suppose if what one expects from a supreme being is revival, then America is as good a place as any. But the question as I understood it was, if God were to be active in the world, what would it look like? And if God truly is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, then I expect compassion and justice to be dispensed in the places where they are needed most.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not looking at the strife there and stamping my foot and going, “Why doesn’t God do something?” I regard helping out however I can as part of my own duty as a human being…but then if compassion and justice are our responsibility, what on Earth do we need God for?
May 19th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Aren’t compassion and justice the very things you’re railing against God about in the other post?
God’s moving in places like Africa. He has been for years. Just because revival hasn’t been widely reported in the Western press doesn’t mean it hasn’t been happening.
Not to mention that this “American revival” hasn’t remained so… there’s revival breaking out worldwide.
One day, God will sovereignly snap His fingers and make everything right. If you’re where you are at right now, you won’t like rightness very much - but you choose judgment on what you’ve done in life and how you’ve done it. If that’s what you choose, you’ll have no avenue of complaint when the Snap comes.
Until then, though, there’s very little that God does APART from working through man. Could a tribe who’s never heard of God suddenly start having visions of Jesus - accurate visions - and as a result, be saved? Yes. It’s happened. But God’s plan is for people to get on board with His plan…
More later, got to go pick up my big brother…
May 20th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I’m not questioning the presence of revival; more the utility of it in places where people’s physical existence is in jeopardy. Honestly, seriously, it reminds me of this:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46226/
If God would rather show up at revivals than alleviate extreme suffering, I don’t like his idea of rightness NOW, never mind later. His threats won’t work on me, because even as a Christian I never had any hope of heaven, and now it’s something I just don’t want anymore. But leave me aside for the moment; I at least have a choice. What about the thousands, the millions of people who don’t even have the luxury of rebellion because they’ve got to worry about imminent starvation or rape or murder or malaria or kidnapping for use as a child soldier?
I really shouldn’t be stirring pots like this; tomorrow I leave again for another month. But have fun with your brother, and have an excellent June!
May 22nd, 2008 at 4:45 am
>>If God would rather show up at revivals than alleviate extreme suffering,
What do you think He’s doing?
Watching the revival on television last night, one thing struck me. The same thing struck me while we were at the zoo the other day. There are far, far more people here in the US who are terminally ill than most folks realize. The idea is that we’ve got great healthcare here, so no one is sick. (And the idea is that since Americans are so rich, no one goes hungry here - or for that matter, gets raped here, murdered here, kidnapped here (I’m convinced that many of the unsolved kidnappings in this country are for the sex trade - worse than being a child soldier)…
BTW, just got a report this morning. Revival has broken out in Vladivostok, Russia! Moscow, too!
When you get back, I hope you can explain to me why, as a Christian, did you have no hope of heaven?