biblevector at Flickr

Sometimes as a Church I think we have too much, like kids that have so many toys they stop valuing them. So much governance, so much social order in the way of education.  Have a problem?  Hold a synod.  Have an issue like child abuse?  Create a three hour class.  Short of money?  Hold a fund raiser.  Much of the talk about re-evangelization that I have heard has to do with proper Catholic practice or Catholic thought.  Now I’m all for the latter mission, but there is a dynamic that we need without which will only create a form of legalism.

Jesus said wait for it.  Wait for what? The Gift.  What gift?  The gift of the Holy Spirit. Without the anointing of the Anointed One we are an oversized bureaucracy capable of the silly on a remarkable level. If I wish to appear the fool, I happily will, but a fool for Christ Jesus, my Lord. A fool in which His uncreated life dwells within my soul, filled with His Holy Spirit, flowing over to a Church and world often moving in the flesh. Now, the flesh in which I’m talking about is not referring to the sin nature as much as our humanity, doing all sorts of good things without the power of God.  So the sacraments are valid in spite of the Priest at times, but this is hardly a recipe for the glory of God to fill the temple of the people.

What is it to be the People of God?  Baptism, yes. Baptism into what, into whom, for what reason? To wash away original sin? This is what Paul said. “I have been baptized in to His death that the Spirit of life in Christ may rise.”  To be a Christian is to walk in the resurrection, be the People of God, living members of a living God.

Charismatism is not a form of Christian spirituality, it is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit that is encountered and touched by the human person. We need a Pentecost!  We need the glory of the Lord!  We need a vision of the King, full of revelation power. We need the Kingdom to come upon us. We need Heaven to visit our hearts.  We need God!

Give a man heaven, and He’ll never quit chasing what He has seen. We need manifestation, we need Marian ecstasy, we need signs and wonders.  We need an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Church like never before.  We need a revival of Christ’s life, not as social justice but as heaven present.  We need angels moving, the cloud of witnesses cheering, and the faithful seeing.  We need a new Moses in which God will work His wonders.  We need a new Isaiah who saw the Lord high and lifted up; we need a Daniel who saw one like the ancient of days. We need a John who fell down as dead when He saw his glorified friend. We need a Peter who dove of the side of the boat crying, “It’s the Lord!”  We all need a faith that wants the Lord more than our next breath, who wants the Lord to fill our temple as individuals and corporate.  Lord, come and visit us, as an outpouring, as the Holy, as cloven tongues of fire. Come, Holy Spirit!