I believe that in these days, God is stirring the pot. God is refining His Church. God is calling His people back to Him from the misdirected steps we have taken. God is giving us an opportunity to embrace an opportunity to encounter Him in a way that some have been longing for years to see.
What do I mean by this? Well, it is not anything new. We read how God did this over and over again through the Old Testament with the Nation of Israel. And in the New Testament, Jesus brought this opportunity to Jew and Gentile alike. The Kingdom of God had come and an invitation to become a new creation was given to all.
The Church was born and a revival of spirit and life as God designed and desired began to grow. It is nothing new. We see it throughout Church History. Great moves of God developed through the years as God stirred and called His people to back to deeper and a more intimate relationship him. Beginning with their repentance.
Monastic life of the 4th Century developed from such an experience.
The Social Justice movement of St. Francis in the 12th Century called the church back from many wild abuses
Things like the reformation took place. The rediscovery of the Word of God in the language of the people brought about an Evangelical Movement in the 16th Century much like the days of Josiah 900 years before.
The Charismatic Movement not only of Pentecost but again in the 17th Century with the Quakers and people like George Fox and of course through the 20th Century of Azusa St. and what many of our mainline churches experienced through the 70’s and 80’s. Called people to a life in the Spirit that would impact everything around them.
Great moves of God like Holiness Movement of the 18th Century where John Wesley encountered the living God after years of serving as a Priest in the Anglican Church. A movement where people were called to discipleship in ways that had largely been ignored or long forgotten but renewed a lifeless and clearly sin filled church.
The Sacramental or Incarnational Movements of Moravians in the 18th and the Oxford Movement of the 19th Century calling people encounter the grace of God in outward realities of life and worship.
These are not the only ways in which God has called his Church to repent and return to Him but these are definite places through Church History that we see people repent and the Holy Spirit breath life into the people of God when what was evolving was more and more wandering in the wilderness we might say.
In the texts we have been reading the past two weeks, Jesus is describing how God sees the world. How God has scattered seed. How God intends to bring about a harvest. How even though the enemy, Satan will try to destroy or disrupt the harvest God is planting. Yet, God will not be stopped. The fruit of the harvest will come in.
And so the question comes back to us once again. If God is producing a harvest, if evil exist and yet God has a purpose and a plan that will expose the evil and guard the holy, do we want God has for us and if so how do we discern God’s wisdom and truth from the folly that the enemy disguises so well.
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