Back from Alabama

I went to a Bill Johnson conference in Alabama the last few days. I planned to live blog it but I am not really that dedicated. . . sorry. Here was the main nugget that provoked me. He asked at one point,

Have you ever asked Jesus why your ministry is not as effective as His was on earth?

It takes into account that we believe that Jesus was not lying when He said we would do greater works. I was really driven to seek God for more. We come to a place in ministry that we understand how God uses us but we use that as an excuse to not seek for God to use us other ways. Let me explain.

Say you are an itinerant evangelist in a major classical pentecostal denomination. (This is purely hypothetical mind you) And you can now clearly see that when you are hosted by a church, hearts are renewed for Jesus and a new passion is ignited in the congregation. Your thoughts and prayers will tend to focus on asking that God will give you more (or larger) venues to operate in so you can do what you are doing. Your desire is that God would be given opportunity to operate in the lives of more people either through more ore larger meetings. Nothing wrong with that.

But what if you said, “I know my denomination may not like it but I am going to prophesy the Word of the Lord without apology!” And contend for that till you have it. Then decide that people are going to get healed, just like they did with Jesus.

It’s easy to rest on our little giftings and call that our calling but really we might just be getting lazy by getting a little land on the other side of the river when we are called to posses the whole land.  I have decided to press on and see what other lands my God has called me to claim.

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