I love a good story. Growing up in the midst of master storytellers, I could sit and listen to the accounts of fishing trips gone wrong, hunting trips gone right, and all manner of tales for hours and never get bored. Jesus encouraged us to share the family stories. Deut 6 gives some stern instruction from God for us to make sure that we pass down the record of what God has done and is doing from generation to generation. In doing this it gives opportunity for the next generation to make our ceiling their floor and expand upon the inheritance they are given by us. For this reason I share testimonies. It's not about entertainment. For one thing, being aware of the need to guard the integrity of what God is doing here has taken me to a place where I care less about exciting people and more about the presence of the living God. Deut 29:29 tells us that what has been revealed belongs to us forever. Revelation is never to be lost or forgotten or else we also lose the fire of expectation and awareness of the God who invades the impossible. It's that lack of ongoing experience that has been in the past a point of stumbling for me. I always dreamed of what the Christian life should look like and what may happen if I were to be completely dependent on the Holy Spirit. Signs, wonders, and miracles would be the norm as they were in the life of Jesus, yet for many years most of what I demonstrated was not power but theology. I hoped for things to take place that would remind us all that the living God still acknowledged our offering of worship and that the Spirit empowered what I had to say. No doubt there were individuals who were in a place of revival, but corporately I wasn't prepared to lead one. My dreams of how it was supposed to be were too fantastic to ever seem as though they could be realized. Yet now, things are taking place that go beyond what I have imagined.

It's easy to fall into the snare of hyping a move of God to provoke God and man to action. This is why baseless hype is so dangerous. It misrepresents what God is actually doing. This is why we need to repent and take the gospel of the kingdom outside of the church. We are kept honest by what we take out there. We are kept honest in what we claim to believe by meshing together the foundation of teaching with the practice of doing. If we are not doing what we're teaching, perhaps we ought not teach it. Jesus hung His entire ministry and mission of whether or not He did the works of the Father. He says in John 10:37 "If I do not do the works of my Father, don't believe Me." It's time for the church to declare, "If we don't do the works of our Father, don't believe us." It is this declaration that will be the dividing point that separates out the believers from the faithless apostate church of the last days for the Kingdom of God is not is word but in power.

To create a culture that sustains a movement of revival, it's actually more simple and wonderful and obvious than I would have ever thought. (Matt 10) Preach one message, repent (change the way you think) for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (within reach). Then demonstrate the reality of it. Heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, freely you have received, freely give. The concept is simple. If we teach what Jesus said to teach, and do what Jesus said to do, we'll see what He said we would see. His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.