I came across this article from the Sola Dei Gloria blog entitled Lee Grady: “God Has Pushed a Reset Button” and after reading the article over at Charisma Magazine, I am very deeply concerned…

Where is the “reset button” in the Bible? It sounds too much like charismatic imaginations gone wild inventing something “new” in order to sound relevant, modern, hip, and the favorite term “cutting edge”. Ladies and gentlemen, it is not a “reset button” or a “reboot” we Christians need to do / push….

We need to repent and turn 180° and go back to the Biblical ways of the Lord! Repentance is not a button to push to instantly initialize us back to square one. Repentance is a renewing of the mind and a realization of what we were doing was wrong to the point where we turn around and walk back to where we got off track and continue to walk the straight and narrow road and as Jesus told the adulteress who was about to get stoned (rocks)

“(you understood) Go and sin no more”.

Repentance is not a “new thing”. Repentance is going back to the Ancient Paths that never changed (and never will change) and do the prescribed will of God as laid out in the Scriptures.

And this is hard to do when the Spirit rages war with the flesh.

This is hard to do when we value Nostalgia And Nehusthan over the real sovereign presence of God

This is hard to do when we have an influence, investment, and inventory in a “move / revival” we thought was God but in reality was not and we feel like we need a return on the investment with interest.

Lee, not only has the “charismatic movement as we know it” ended. So has all the previous “moves” and a concept that was never designed to exist has ended

Revival

The word “Revival” when broken down literally means “to live again”. It implies that whatever that was revived was at one time actually dead. We use the term “dead” in a literal and figurative sense when discussing church matters but the real truth is that the true church never died…..

It went unconscious for a long period of time.

There is a huge difference between dead and unconscious. Dead implies no heartbeat and no sense of awareness. Unconsciousness implies heartbeat but only no sense of awareness. The church was mistakenly pronounced dead but instead was unconscious. The church did not need “revival” which turned out to mean the weekend retreat where we flesh out and call it “God”.

The church needed to be resuscitated instead. It needed the breath of life from God to restore the natural function of the body

If you look at Webster”’’s Dictionary, the word “resuscitate” is from the Latin word “resuscitatus” and means…

past participle of “resuscitare” to reawaken, from re- + suscitare to rouse, from sub-, sus- up + citare to put in motion, stir

The church is not dead. It is asleep and in a state of slumber (Romans 13:11-14). In fact, the church is very similar to the little girl who was to the point of dying in Mark 5:21-40

Her father (verses 22-24) noticed that she was about to die and went to Jesus for help in healing her.

Someone (verse 35) announced that the little girl was dead, so why bother Jesus anymore

Jesus went to the home (verses 36-39) and made the announcement that “Why make this commotion and weep? The child is not dead, but sleeping.”

The people laughed (verse 40 ) but Jesus ordered them to leave.

Jesus told the girl to arise (verse 41), the girl arose and walked (verse 42)

Jesus ordered someone to give her something to eat (verse 43)

We have people who see the signs of sickness and have searched for Jesus to heal his church. We have people from within the church announce to the world that the church is dead so why should we bother Jesus anymore? We have Jesus still caring enough to go to our churches and pronounce the good news that the church is not dead, it’’s sleeping. We have congregations that laugh because they either believe that the church is dead or they can not accept any other answer but the church is dead because it does not fit their script that they role play in for a bloody and victorious Jesus that kills off the disagreers.

Jesus gets all the scoffers and doubters away and speaks to the unconscious church and tells the unconscious church to arise. However, the church is like that little girl and does one better….

The church not only rises up from it’’s unconscious slumber, but it chooses to walk. But the most important part of the Scripture is the last thing Jesus commanded

something should be given her to eat…

The church is weak. It needs to be strengthened and properly nourished in order to go out and live a healthy and functional existence to rise up every day and walk out into the cold dog-eat-dog world and proclaim the Good News that Jesus is Lord.

It needs the Word of God. It needs to be weaned from the milk to the meat. It does not need another church growth program. It does not need another movie clip sermon. It does not need another 40 days of something. It does not need another revival, mega-fast, repent-a-thon, 24/7 prayer service, or another 2 Chronicles 7:14 rally.

The church needs the meat of the Word. It needs to eat of the flesh of Jesus and drink of the blood of Jesus (communion and not some vampire state). When Jesus restored Peter (John 21:15-19) why did Jesus emphasize two out of three commands to “Feed….”?

Because the church needs nourishment for the battles ahead.

Mr Grady was correct when he stated in his article

..we cannot pitch our tents around the revivals of the past. While we embrace the eternal things He gave us in those days, we must discard the styles and methods that are no longer fruitful so we can advance.

We must discard nostalgia and Nehusthan. We must chop down the totem / asherah pole that has become the idol of our soul and replace it with a body that will be the temple of the Holy Spirit.

Mr. Grady was correct when he stated

No one has coined a term for this movement yet, but it is growing—and it represents the future of Christianity in our country.

Because there will not be a name for this move of God. The one thing I disagree with is that it is not going to be the churches that are going to usher forth what God is going to pour out. In fact, it was never designed to be poured out on churches or corporate entities called churches. It was designed to be given to people who God called his sons and daughters.

The touch of God will bring forth repentance, evangelism, salvation, discipleship, social justice, local / world missions, relationships, and character. However, these things will be a by-product of what will manifest when a certain peculiar people of God (starting early summer 2009) will continue their repentance and experience the sovereignty, providence, omnipotence, and omnipresence of God. It will be very common to be in a church of hundreds of people but only a handful of people will receive this sovereignty, providence, omnipotence, and omnipresence of God. They will experience a supernatural anointing but will display it in a natural sense of appearing like an everyday normal person instead of “aura acting” like they are above everyone else with their head in the clouds.

They will life up holy hands in praise to the Lord and not lift up blow up globes or Winnie The Pooh stuffed animals. Their true humility (not humiliation) will show forth as they truly repent and true 180° change will be noticed. The personal call to true genuine repentance on behalf of the heart of the individual for real sins committed by them only
(not “invent-a-sin”, not “national sin”, or something your great-great-great-great granddad possibly did) and not through repent-a-thons, mega fasts, IHOP 24/7 prayer / praise rooms, Joel’’s Army, Gideon’’s Army, Ezra’’s Templebuilders, Nehemiah’’s wall builders, Joshua’’s generation, spiritual mapping seminars, and 2 Chronicles 7:14 rallies. Not only will we see true genuine repentance start manifesting upon God’’s people, we will see unsaved souls individually touched and saved and brought to repentance.

It IS NOT to be labeled as a “revival” (or the spiritually correct terms of Renewal and Outpouring). In fact, I really feel deep down within me that

The person or group that deems this as “revival”…

The person who deems himself the official book-writer of this move…

The church(es) who deems itself as the “official church(es)” of this move and hosts “services” and “conferences” trying to fabricate this move of God in a corporate mass-produced widget mode….

The person who tries to network these people to try to form another denomination based on the move…

The worship leader who deems songs written by them as the “official worship songs / official theme song” of this move…

The pastor who deems himself as the “official pastor / leader / spokesperson” of this move…

The person / church / media outlet (tv, radio, Internet, etc.) that tries to “market” this move….

Anyone that attempts to receive any fame, glory, financial gain, or “kickbacks” from this move….

will face a very stern and serious wrath of judgment from God

This is not gonna be a “pray-per-view” called “Florida Freakshow 2009″ where the main event is someone getting kneed in the three ring trinitarian circus ring and calling it “healing” at the three count. This is not going to be led by some pro wrestler wannabe who “worked” Christianity over stating he talks to an angel named Emma or bi-locates, or claims to go to heaven to find out who really wrote Hebrews. In fact, God is still so furious at what happened at Lakeland to the point where the die-hard supporters of the Lakeland revival, (such as Elijah List, Third Wave, modern prophetic, dominionalists, Kingdom Now, soaking, Latter Reign, New Apostolic Reformation, Revival Alliance, and others) will definitely be on the “outside looking in” but if they really come to repentance, God will have mercy on them but they will still miss out.

However, time is running out for those people to repent because while a peculiar people are going to experience the sovereignty, providence, omnipotence, and omnipresence of God, the spiritually correct “revival addicts” who do not turn around and do a 180° are about to experience His wrath over what happened last spring and summer.

To the heart of the peculiar people

Doctrine replaces Dominionism

Holiness replaces Heresy

Healing replaces Heterodoxy

Hermeneutics replaces “holy heebie-jeebies”

Repentance replaces randomized guesses to unlock the blessing

Private prayers and repentance replaces public posturing and power brokering

True Worship replaces Wanton Whoredom

Sanctification replaces spiritualized salivation

It will not be about angels, healings, manifestations, signs, new things, cutting edge fresh revelations, wonders, and “talk”. It will be about placing Jesus first and foremost in our lives and realizing that God still sits on the throne and is still in control of things to where He doesn”t need our votes for the right candidates, our garments, our mega-fasts, our repent-a-thons, and our all night rallies to change his mind.

He never promised a change in government. He never promised some goofy signs and wonders. He never promised some Psalms 119:99 blessing if you gave 119 dollars a month for 99 months. God wants our repentant hearts because God promised the New Testament believer was that they will be empowered, victorious, and overcomers that would never be forsaken.

And that will never come by pushing the reset button. It comes by walking the narrow road to repentance at the Cross of Jesus Christ.

Tags: Charisma Magazine, Charismatic movement, Fire In My Bones, God Has Pushed a Reset Button, J Lee Grady, Mark 5:21-40, pentecostalism, pjmiller, resuscitation, revival, Sola Dei Gloria