Radical Reformation

Deuteronomy 29:29 declares: ‘God, our God, will take care of the hidden things but the revealed things are our business. It’s up to us and our children to attend to all the terms in this revelation.’ We as the Church have inherited every spiritual blessing in Christ … to preach the Gospel, to heal the sick, to cast out demons … to advance the Kingdom by destroying darkness. We must understand that it is God’s desire that the Church occupy (dwell in, inhabit, engage, take up) a place of supernatural territory that invades (enters by force, assaults, raids) the kingdom of darkness. A place where the Church dwells in a lifestyle of reformation and consistently demonstrates His authority and dominion to a world that is full of sickness and death. This place of occupation is to grow larger … ‘expanding the stakes of our tent’ (Isa.54:2) and more powerful as we pass it along to the next generation. Our ceiling must become that floor for our children and for generations to come. Inheritance is a biblical concept and one that we must embrace. This requires vision … ‘without a vision the people perish’ (Pro.29:18) and a sense of responsibility to pass it on. Our mandate is to build something that is larger than we are; something where the sum is greater than its individual parts; something of lasting value. This is what the Holy Spirit birthed at Pentecost and it continues today. The legacy of Jesus Christ is the Church.

A spiritual inheritance is about making us more effective and efficient in our representation of the King and His Kingdom. It is not about self promotion or self gratification. It simply is not for our consumption! It is to open the gateway of Heaven to the world around us … to bring heaven in greater influence to a larger audience. We must become aware of what is rightfully ours … ‘but those things that are revealed belong to us and our children forever.’ This is the inheritance of the Church … to walk in the supernatural power of God, to open the gates of heaven, to free the world from the grip of darkness, to be ‘His-story’ makers. You are an heir with Christ to the promises of the Kingdom. Paul in Galatians 4:6-7 and Romans 8:15-17 makes it clear that we are no longer slaves but sons. We are heirs of God and co-heir with Christ to the abundant promises and blessing of the Kingdom. James echoes this promise when he declares that we are ‘heirs of the Kingdom which He promised’ (James 2:5). The finished work of the cross validates our position and standing as being adopted into the Kingdom thereby granting us access to the abundance of heaven’s blessings. It’s all our! We are no longer orphans but sons of the creator of the Universe.

The Greek root word for heir is a legal term that indicates ‘a right being obtained by partitioning.’ Simply stated, you obtain by allotment the rights of a son the portion that is rightfully his. The promises of the Kingdom are yours. The problem is we don’t believe this and therefore never appropriate what is rightfully ours. The resources of heaven are at our disposal and the world is waiting for the Church to seize that reality. Think about it, the abundant riches of heaven are waiting for the Church to begin acting like a son. We also have at our disposal the rich spiritual inheritance of previous revivals passed along to us by past generations. The spiritual knowledge and experience gained by those outpourings must become the apostolic foundation of the Church that is fully energized by the mandate to build a Church that cultivates and lives in a ‘lifestyle’ of radical reformation. We become a Church where the flow of God’s river never subsides and access to the abundant power of heaven is readily available. The Church becomes a community of believing believers where the power of God is evident in their everyday experience.

The problem is no generation in history has effectively passed on the spiritual momentum generated by revival. Basically, no generation has effectively raised up the next to carry the anointing or sustain the outpouring of the Spirit and then take it to the next level. Territory once gained and occupied by the Church is lost and the enemy repossesses familiar ground that was lost by the advancement of the Church moved by the power of revival. In essence, as the wells of revival are capped, we must start over again. Because of this ‘pattern’, the Church believes revival is sporadic (patchy, random, periodic). Revival arrives ‘just in the nick of time’ to give the Church a ‘shot in the arm’, new enthusiasm, new hunger and ne energy … a ‘pit stop’ for refueling. Revival becomes and exception and not the norm (standard, model, type). This was not God’s intention and was not he model or legacy Jesus left us. Revival must become the standard of everyday life and not the exception. It must become a lifestyle and not ‘a special meeting’ that occurs every now and the. Signs, wonders, and miracles are normal to the Gospel and they are part of the normal Christian life. We were never intended to love outside the outpouring of Pentecost. He takes us from ‘glory to glory’ (2Cor.3:18). He is progressive in every move He makes. The nature of the Kingdom is that ‘of the increase of His government’ (Isa.9:7). The tragedy of history is that revival comes and goes. Subsequent generations build monuments around the achievement of the previous generations but never completely receive and occupy their spiritual territory. Perhaps we are not willing to pay the same price; form organizations around past movements to preserve and defend the idea but not the practice; or they inherit territory but fail to develop it and therefore lose it.

Is it possible to live in inherited territory without advancing or developing that territory? To see the Kingdom advanced, we must be willing to expand and enlarge. The quickest way to lose ground is to take up a posture of defending what you have instead of working to increase it. To chose not to expand and increase is to choose to lose the very thing we are trying to protect (Matt.25, Parable of the Talents).

Bill Perdue

VP ESH – Standards

The AHFA

336-884-5000, x1017

276-806-2014m

bperdue@ahfa.us

Duty – Honor – AHFA