Where is My Asbury Revival?
A few years ago, I was at dinner with a friend and a couple of other leaders from an evangelical church. During our great conversation, one of these leaders said this, “If God decided to really pour out his Spirit, the Church wouldn’t know how to respond.”
That thought didn’t sit well with me. It sounded right in the moment, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t settle. There is an assumption in that statement. The assumption is that God holds back. He holds back waiting on our readiness or our preparation or our ability to handle something.
But God doesn’t hold back.
God acts independent of us. That’s a pretty deep theological point, but it’s a true statement. Nothing we do or can’t do will do anything to force God’s hand or limit what the Lord will do. His is transcendent and true to Himself as love. He faithful to who is and who he is the One who completely self-empties. Why? Because that is what Love does. It completely empties itself. Because of this truth, God has poured his Spirit on all flesh. If God became one of us in Christ Jesus and shared our pain and threw open the gates of eternity, why would we think that he would withhold his Spirit? Considering the statement that was made by that good and holy leader, I would say that God HAS poured out his Spirit in full measure and we have NOT responded. So why is revival happening at Asbury?
People are responding!
Luke 17:20-21 quotes Jesus as saying, “Asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he said in reply, ‘The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, “Look, here it is,” or, “There it is.” For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.'”
I’m tempted to make the drive from Nashville up to Kentucky to be a part of what is going on, but what is keeping revival from happening here? In middle Tennessee? Or anywhere else in the world? The only answer that I can find is that there is nothing too keep revival from happening, nothing but my own response to the lavish outpouring of the Holy Spirit that comes from the Father through the Son.
The students at chapel last Wednesday responded. Instead of asking, “Should I go up?” I’m asking, “How can I respond here to the fullness of the Holy Spirit that has been poured out with all that I am as the blessed students at Asbury?”
Robert Feduccia
Vice President EQSaints