Revival - The Real Thing

But I remembered my grandfather and God die everything the opposite way that we'd do it. We blow into town and have a pastor's conference in the hotel. We want to gather all the leaders of the country together and train them to lead the country. We want to start at the top, we want to hit the universities, and we want to hit the business leaders. I'm glad people do that, but I remembered my grandfather. I remembered those little kids got more revelation than anyone I'd ever heard of, and I've studied church history and theology for ten years.

We just took in these little kids. Well, actually, we took over an orphanage that the government couldn't take care of. It was bombed out and dilapidated. Mozambique had 30 years of war. Roofs were burned out, copper was ripped out of the walls, the plumbing was stopped up, rats were crawling out of the faucets. The kids were full of demons, their stomachs were bloated. Bandits were shooting up the place with machine guns in the night. Demons were choking them in the night and throwing things around. The government didn't have one cent to take care of the place. Germany offered to come back ten years ago, but they didn't. Russia promised to come and help the children, so many of whom have their arms and legs blown off from the war and there's no medical help. I got there and I thought, perfect! It was just sitting there, and the kids were just dying. Nobody cared about them at all; the police didn't even want them. Nobody wanted them. That's the proof of the gospel. Does Jesus want them? What is His raw material?

Well, in a few months they were all spirit-filled. We came there without a dollar, but God supplied. The kids stayed up all night at times to pray for their daily food. It was just a matter of months before they were all spirit-filled, and they're having visions. Daily they're coming to us and sharing "I was with Jesus last night" "Angels took me up to heaven and we were dancing around the throne" "Angels flew alongside our car to church", and on and on and on. Now in Africa people are coming from all over the world to get what these kids have. And God is using these kids to tell the western world what being rich is.

We're not trying to make you feel sorry for these kids, and I'm not asking for your money to sponsor kids, and I'm not getting you to do anything, except be jealous of these kids. Be jealous, realize what you are missing here in the West. You guys are poor; you guys are starving. You guys need help! I need help! I study those kids. I ask, "What is it about these kids Lord, that You like so much? How can I be like a kid?" Unless you are like a kid you won't get into the kingdom. I think we need to find out! When we are having severe political trouble, our eight and ten-year old kids are getting up at 4:00 in the morning and pray for two hours for the government and for the president and for the people of the country. They pray that God would have mercy on Mozambique, because it has been so humiliated and so run over by war and disease and famine and natural disaster and AIDS. It is the world's poorest country in the world. And it is the 10-year olds that are praying for the country. The president's chief-of-staff comes to our center just to get a spiritual bath, and to just sit with the kids and let them pray for him.

What Is The Real Thing?

What we want is the real thing. What is in your mind when you think of "the real thing?" We know what church is, and we know what usually happens in church. A lot of us have been in church for a long time. We kind of settle in to what we expect to happen in church. We usually have lowered our expectations and we kind of figure not much more of this is ever really going to happen. Right? We've just kind of decided how the Christian life is going to go. Maybe once in a while we get a good testimony and the Holy Spirit will occasionally do something here and there. But basically we're going to leave here in an hour, and we're going to have lunch and then go to work tomorrow. Things are going to be pretty much the same for another week. Right? I don't think any of you are wondering how you are going to eat lunch today. (When I preach in Africa, if you don't feed them, they're going to starve. Most of the people I talk to are not going to have anything to eat because they did not bring it with them. They walked for three, five days, barefoot, through deep mud and through deep rivers and crocodiles to hear me talk without any food, without knowing how their wife and kids are going to eat at home, while they've come to this meeting. It gets serious.)

So what do you think about when you think of "The real thing?" Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. What is the "real thing?" We sure don't want to "play church, or pretend." We don't want to act like there is a revival when there isn't. We don't want to act like God's around when He isn't. And we don't want to pressure people into something when God isn't working. We don't want to holler and yell and all that when nothing is happening. Right? We don't want to preach and scream and proclaim and all that, when it's just hot air. We don't want to be a great orator and give a long-winded story and all that when we don't know what we're talking about.

We really don't want to turn on the television or plug in a tape when it's just somebody promoting their work and wanting your money. Am I relating to you? Can you identify? You don't want to just buy another book that the publisher is hoping to make a killing on, and you're the target audience. You don't want to join a church where they're just really into a church growth strategy and you become a statistic. I wouldn't even go to a church if what the pastor is after is just a bigger church. I want a pastor that loves me and that I can spend time with and get to know. And obviously that has the love of God for me. That's where I would go. And if he's got some ambition and some designs on success, then find another pastor. Find another church.

We didn't go to Africa to start 5,000 churches. I just went there to find one kid, and then two kids, and then three kids. I was there two days when a South African businessman came up to me. He had no idea why I came to Africa and Mozambique. He said "Do you want an orphanage?" We went out and saw this bombed out, blown up, dilapidated old orphanage that nobody could take care of, with these kids. We started with these 80 kids, but I didn't ask for that. I don't go around selling sponsorships and we don't use our kids to raise funds. Find some miserable looking kids and put their pictures up on the wall and get their sad stories and that's good for so much cash. We don't do that, because we want the real thing!

Is there such as thing as real revival? Is there such a thing? We want the church as the early church. We hear about churches in Africa and South American and all, and I sympathize because when I was in high school and college I never thought I would be a missionary. I had this tremendous heritage, but I never thought that I would ever be involved in something like my grandfather was. I underestimated God, badly! But I would hear stories. Mel Tai would come to American from Indonesia and he'd tell stories of walking on the water and turning water into wine, and raising the dead and all. And I thought, "Did I miss something in Bible school class?" Did the American church miss something here? So I would hear missionaries come and they would tell these stories, and think "Oh, my goodness!" But I lived in Orange County, in Southern California, where there are rows of straight streets and lights and shopping centers. Everything is normal, and we're not out in the dust and in the villages seeing miracles. We're stuck in America.

Let me just ask you; do you expect, in your western city, to have an African revival? I mean, do you expect that? Yes? Ok, we're getting places. But I remember growing up, going through high school and college and wondering what do I have to do. The atmosphere of doubt in the West is thick, it's in the air. You can just cut it with a knife, it's so thick. It doesn't matter who you talk to on the streets and in college and everywhere. You start talking about the supernatural and knowing God and the Holy Spirit and people look at you. The doubt is so thick, and I couldn't wait to escape the United States. What does it take to get out of the entanglement, out of the tentacles that the Western culture wraps around you? What do you have to do to get out of it?

I took off to Indonesia with Heidi, and got straight into the Indonesian revival. For years, Heidi didn't even want to come back to the United States. She didn't want to come back at all. God spoke to her audibly. "You're going to get your Masters Degree when you're 25." For her to do that, she had to come back. But she didn't want to come back. She hoped God would just send it in the mail! I said, "Heidi, you're going to take that prophecy seriously? That wasn't a prophecy, God spoke to her audibly! You're going to have to go back! So she did! Gradually over the years she's developed compassion for Americans.

Let's talk about the whole subject of revival. This includes growing in the Lord, chasing Him, finding Him, pursuing Him, doing something for Him, becoming useful to Him, accomplishing things for Him, seeing Him work, and doing something useful with your life. There are generally two views about all of that. See if you can identify with either, or if you are somewhere in-between.

There are two models. The first is to work hard to get God to move on your behalf. This includes soaking thinks in intensive prayer and intercession. It includes strategizing and preparing and doing all that you know to do to please and serve God. It involves a lot of work and diligence and commitment. The other is to simply surrender your agenda and your plans and your strategies to God, and to embrace His plans. Do you identify with either strategy? Or are you somewhere between them. I will spend the next few lessons developing each of these two strategies in some detail.

Two Models For Revival

There are two different models for serving God and seeking revival. One model involves applying yourself and trying hard. When anybody starts talking about the problems of the world, and what it takes to make a difference or how to tackle massive numbers of people starving or dying of AIDS, this model looks for dedication and perseverance. This model sees the hours of prayer and intercession and all that it takes to get going in that direction, and to see a difference. It is a model that just absolutely makes you tired. It just exhausts you, I hear that all the time.

I hear "Rolland. I have already enough problems of my own. I have bills up to here. My family is falling apart. My teenage kids are in bad trouble. I can barely make my mortgage payment myself. I have this problem and I'm sick with this, and my car needs repair, and our church is going through this and it's going through that." And when it comes to getting more spiritual, if that means getting up at 4:00 in the morning every day. It means praying for hours and hours. It means just serving God at every possible opportunity and going down to the rescue mission and going out on the streets every night and being in church every day and witnessing all of the time to people and giving your last dollar and going out there and just trying to do everything that you just possibly can. There comes a time when a lot of people generally say, "I've tried. I've tried very hard, and it's just really hard."

And there develops an attitude that God is really difficult to find. And the problems out there are really, really great, so lot of sacrifice is needed. And if we don't find a way, somehow, to move God, to get Him to do something, pray hard enough, long enough to get something to happen, then nothing's going to happen. The thinking is that if I struggle hard enough, maybe a little bit will happen.

But people who follow this model find God as really hard to move! It's hard to get Him to raise the dead. You can hardly convince Him to do it! It's hard to get healings! We get a few here and there, but it's really hard to get Him to do it! And a few people get saved here and there, but it's really hard to get Him to do it in our own church -- never mind in all those Arab countries and Africa, and all of that. Wow! What does it take to get God to respond? "You know, I'm poor and my bills are due." You go to the bookstore and you grab every book of the shelf that you can to see how you can get God's power working for you somehow. You are just trying to make it work. You're confessing stuff and you're saying stuff and you're giving stuff and, whew! What does it take to get God to do a little something?

I'm just being honest here, because you also know what it feels like. I know! I know what it's like to flip through the television channel and hear all these incredible speakers and at the end, they're going off the air, unless you help them. And you're already broke yourself! They're all depending on you. We don't see much happen, and we hear these stories and you wonder. Am I on a different planet? Where am I? How do I even relate to these people that I hear about in Africa and other places? Wow, what does it take?

There's this idea that God is just watching you to see how tough you are. The idea is that God just wants to see what you're going to do. "What are you going to do with your life, kid? I want to see what you're made out of, what you can do for Me. "How tough are you? Are you going to wimp out? When are you going to crack? He's just testing you. And God is just watching, and you feel like you're being graded and the Christian life gets to be this huge challenge. It's like a sports challenge, like weight lifting, or training for the Olympics or something. You just think, "Man. Here's the race set before me. Here's the challenge; am I up to it? Let's not get started unless I'm really going to run this race." And once you start, the pressure's on. How well are you going to do? Are you going to make it until the end?

We have thousands of visitors in Africa now, thousands of them every year. They come with all different kinds of expectations of what revival might look like, or what they're going to do or not do when they get there. They come from every kind of background, and we also see the turnover. Those that come to Africa thinking they're just going to labor for God for years, and then six months later they're just exhausted. They've got to get home, maybe in two weeks. You look at the world today, between their environment and the war, their culture and their problems of unbelief and the problems you have in your life. Wouldn't it be nice if we found the real thing? That's an overwhelming thing.

A lot of ministers are struggling to make God look good. They're struggling to make people like God. Their message is, He's not so bad! Your Heavenly Father is not nearly as tough and mean as you thought He was. They say this because they are trying to get people to like Him. (Well, I have terrible news. Our heavenly Father is an absolute perfectionist. He couldn't handle your company for one minute without the blood of Jesus.) Anyhow, that is one view of the Christian life -- work hard to please God, try hard, do your best, put a lot of effort into it and maybe you will see some results.

That is one model for revival. Now I would like to present another model. Let me start by sharing a vision/experience that a prophet friend has, that gives a good feel for what I am talking about. My friend is an extremely gifted prophet, and he seems to live regularly in the super- natural. And once I got to know him, I never had to talk. I used to spend hours with him, and I never had to talk because he always knew what I was thinking. I just learned to sit and shut up and listen. I didn't have to come in for counseling, I didn't have to ask him questions, I just had to listen.

One day he told me, "Rolland. The other night, something happened at my house." He had a two-story house in El Toro, California. He said, "I woke up in the night with my wife, and I heard this tremendous waterfall. I didn't know what was going on; I ran out of my bedroom." He has this stairway down to the living room from his bedroom upstairs. There's a waterfall pouring down the steps of his house! He thought he was in a vision. It's a cataract! It's rapids! It's washing down into his living room, washing down the chairs and sofas and stuff, all over the place. It washed out the door, into the yard, into the swimming pool. It washed all the leaves and everything, just wrecking his house. There was nothing he could do about it. It was just like a mountain stream, but wider than that, pouring down. All he could do was watch. He couldn't stop it, he couldn't change it, he couldn't do anything about it. He just watched for 30 minutes or so. He knew it was God, but he had no idea what was going on. God wasn't talking. He eventually went back to bed, thinking there was nothing he could do.

Most of us would be freaked out all night, but he's used to a lot of visions. So he went back to bed and thought it's a vision. He woke up in the morning and discovered that it was not a vision! The carpet is wrecked. The furniture is all over the place. The pool is overflowing. The house is trashed! What was that? One day went by, two days went by, three days went by. God was not talking.

Finally, God talked. God said, "That is how I am pouring out My spirit in the last days, and I don't need any help from you." Showed him a lot of other things about the end days. But the point is, He doesn't need us to struggle hard to make Him look good. He doesn't need us to struggle hard to get people to like Him. He doesn't need us to struggle hard to figure out how to get missions working or how to get churches to grow. He doesn't need help to know how to communicate to you and to conquer your heart and win you and capture you. He doesn't, He's the master lover.

Rely On God, Who Raises The Dead

We talked about two models for revival in our last lesson. The first is to work hard to convince God to move. The second is to simply receive as God takes the initiative to pour out from the mighty waterfall of His spirit. In other words, we simply cooperate with God as He takes the initiative to move among us, to demonstrate His power and His great love in our midst. The second way is easier. It is the better way.

How are we going to counsel God or clue Him in on how to do things? He doesn't need our money. He doesn't need our talents, or our gifts. He uses all of that as He wills. But He is not stuck, His hands aren't tied. He's not waiting to see what evangelistic program or missionary program we can come up with. He's not watching to see what's going to happen. No, He is the real thing.

I shared about my friend Bob's experience about the waterfall in his house. It was not a gentle trickle, it washed away everything in it's path. And Bob's experience taught me something. In the kingdom of God there is absolutely no compulsion. Zero. There's no pressure, there's no push, there's no compulsion. There's no wait. Understand? We can't help what happened in Africa. It's not our fault. We are under huge pressures, we're under tremendous pressures. Anyone who visits us for a while and gets involved says "My goodness! How do you handle all of this?" John Arnott came over and said "The real miracle here, Rolland, is that you're still sane."

Paul says in the beginning of Second Corinthians, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death, but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead."

And all these terrible pressures and problems that drive us to the edge of our sanity, they don't happen just to see how tough we are. They happen to teach us something. They happen to teach us to rely on the God who raises the dead, and not ourselves. When you get pressured enough, you will finally stop relying on yourself. When you get pressured enough you will probably just say "That's it! That's enough, I quit. I don't have it, I don't have what it takes. I'm not going to carry the pressure anymore. I'm not going to carry the challenge, I'm not going to be pushed or weighted down anymore, anymore, anymore." Jesus said in that very famous section of Chapter 15 of John about "I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from Me, he can do nothing, because he's grafted in."

Now I just want to know. Who wants the real thing, so much that there is no pressure at all anymore on you? You are not trying to succeed as a Christian, you are not trying to bring revival, you are not trying to find God. You are not trying, struggling, struggling, struggling, struggling, to make it in the Christian life. You are not trying to live up to all the demands, and you're not trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, and you're not struggling to get God to do something. We think He's cold, that He is not emotional. We cry and we try to get Him to do something by our tears and by our pleading. We try to get Him to respond and do something. That's not the real thing, that's not the life I'm after. That's not faith! I couldn't live anymore. I face so many pressures in Africa, I couldn't keep doing that another 24 hours. I'd quit tomorrow and move back to Southern California. I can't do that.

The truth is the exact opposite. God has all the emotion, God has all the romance. He's got all the feelings. He's got all the ideas. He has all the power. He has all the plans. He's got the initiative. He's got the energy. He's got the life. He knows what to do. He knows what's around the corner. He's got everything it takes. We're the ones who are cold, we're the ones that are unresponsive. We're the ones that don't feel. We don't have to get Him to do anything. He's the one that's just brimming with things to do. He never gets tired, He is the one that spends time using all His power to get to you, to your heart, to conquer you. He knows how to do it. You just have to get grafted in, to connect, to get plugged in. We just have to communicate that we want the real thing. That's faith! The real thing!

Let me share an example with you.

A pilot in South Africa volunteered to help us out with a project. We had a bush conference, and everyone attending walked in from the bush. They were hungry. I mean, people haven't had a good crop in two years. They haven't had meat in a year, and we wanted to feed them all. How are you going to feed them? We wanted to give them meat, but there is no meat. We couldn't find twenty chickens in the town, so some friends in Pretoria decided to help by purchasing the chickens for us. But how are they going to get chickens all the way to Mocuba? Well, they found a pilot in South Africa who was willing to use his own plane. So they stuffed it with 500 frozen chickens -- all on one day's notice. It is not easy to find a pilot who is willing to fly to Mozambique --they hate Mozambique, they're afraid of Mozambique.

But this one pilot said he would do it. So he took out the passenger seats and stuffed his plane with chickens. It was so heavy it could barely take off. He got all his chickens to Beira, the port of entry. There was a Muslim bureaucrat at the airport. They tried hard to get all their papers in order for the boarder crossing. They've got their nine papers and all their customs forms and everything else, but they forgot one paper. And this Muslim decided to stop them in their tracks, telling them that they need one more paper, a veterinarian certificate to guarantee these chickens are safe. Never mind that the poor, starving people haven't had meat in a year. He's going to let those chickens rot in the sun rather than get them to Christians. Then the authorities wanted to throw this pilot in jail because he was short $80 on customs duty for these chickens that were donated to the starving. The poor pilot just about had it, and he refused to fly the rest of the way. He threw up his arms and said, "Send the police, whatever. I'm leaving." Then he got in his plane and flew home, leaving the chickens with the customs officials.

I had to come the next day in my plane, pay everything, and sort out everything. I had to calm down all of the immigration people, and take the chickens myself. We fed everybody in the pouring rain and the mud. They didn't know how to cook these things, it's just mud and water everywhere. We finally got some charcoal and some wire and managed to grill those chickens until midnight --and it was terrific. All over the Muslim countryside, the word spread about the chicken church. The Muslim leaders began saying "Man, this is how to do it." They came to church and they got full of the Spirit and all of that.

Later I find out more of this pilot's story. He was willing to do it, but he had full-blown AIDS, and he was very sick and feeling terrible. On top of that, his wife had just divorced him, so he was an emotional and physical wreck. But he said, "All right, my life is not mine, it belongs to God." So, he decided to do it, for the church and for the Lord. He stuck these 500 anointed chickens in his plane. The trip was frustrating for him, it felt like a failure when he had to abandon the chickens at the boarder. But he got home and God-things started to happen. The very next day, his ex-wife called him and said, "I want to get back together with you." He began feeling so good that he went back to get a check-up, and his AIDS was gone.

Was that hard work? Did he strain and pray and cry and seek and push and press? None of the above. You cannot serve the King without getting blessed. You cannot come anywhere close to Jesus without getting blessed. All you do is plug in. You just say "Here's my life." It's the real thing, it's real faith.

What Revival In Africa Looks Like

Heidi and I get to be in Africa where revival is going on. When I was a teenager, I never thought that I would get to sit down with people that had just been resurrected and talk to them, ask them about heaven, sit down there and say "what did it feel like?" "What do angels look like?" "What did you see?" They would answer things like, "Well, I saw my own funeral." I ask the kids "What did you sing when you danced around the throne of Jesus?" "Well, we sang our songs that we sing here." "What did you do?" "Well, the angel picked me up and put me on his shoulder and he said this, and he said that."

And some of the "rotten" little kids would see Jesus and He told them "You stop lying, and you stop cheating and fighting and start preaching, because I'm coming soon. All right?" And the next day the kid stops his lying and cheating and fighting and all of that and he gets up with an adult voice and he preaches to everybody and half our kids want to be preachers the rest of their lives. We didn't do that; we didn't make them do that. We didn't talk them into that.

Spend just a few minutes with Jesus in heaven, and it will do it to you. The point is, there's no pressure, there's no compulsion. It is the real thing. How many just don't want anything but the real thing anymore? Just reject the pressure, reject the compulsion. Reject performance driven attitudes.

Another lady got raised from the dead two weeks ago; that wasn't our fault either. I mean, there are a few other evangelical conservative missionaries in Mozambique and they stay in the towns; they don't go out into the bush. They just have their church operation; they don't hear and they don't know. They don't believe and they're mad at me. I keep telling them "It's not my fault!" One of the Mozambique pastors e-mailed me about a lady who died of Malaria. They're in a mud hut in a little town outside of Nampula, the capital of that province. They don't have a mortuary. They don't have a way to make the body smell nice and fix it up and all of that. But they're waiting for their relatives and friends to arrive to bury the lady. So she's just lying on her bed, smelling, in a mud hut. She lost her body fluids. She was stiff, messy, eyes rolled back -- very dead, not partly dead! Very smelly! So they prayed and they prayed. She died on a Wednesday. On Friday, she just got up!

This is the third time for that pastor, Don Weckie and his wife, in Nampula. They're helping us run our Bible school and Temba now. They are the kind of Bible school teachers I wish I had! People come to them at 3:00 in the morning, anytime. They come with their dead babies wrapped up in their skirts; they're sick and there are malaria cases and there is cholera, AIDS, and all of that.

In Africa, they just start receiving right away. The first time you say no to Jesus, the second time it's going to get harder to receive Him. The first time you doubt the second time you try to believe it's going to get harder. We're talking about the real thing that comes without pressure, that comes without compulsion, without anything. There are no strings attached. This is wine without cost, bread without cost. Everyone who thirsts and has no money, come buy and eat. Come taste and see that the Lord is good. The Africans know that.

We started our first bible school class with 12 pastors. Two of them were Rego and Johnnie. I said "You start praying for every dead person you see" and they went and did it. And the dead people started getting up. If you wait, it's going to get harder! It's the real thing! This gospel is free, the love of God is free. His love, His beauty, His relief, His joy -- it's free. It comes free; there is no cost. It's not hard, you don't have to strain for it.

Surpresa is our national director. His mother and father were the witch doctors. They were really powerful, wicked witch doctors. Surpresa was about 15, and his parents were well known in the area. All of a sudden, one night, the Holy Spirit came and said "Surpresa, get out of your parents house, because if you don't you'll be dead in one week." He wasn't looking for God, he wasn't seeking God. He just got the word. He didn't know who this Jesus is, he didn't know anything about Him. Nothing! But he got out of the house. A week later his parents were dead. He went down the road, having no idea what the cross was, or what propitiation or regeneration are. He just walked down the road saying, "I don't know who this Jesus is, but I know my life is His." How many teenagers would like to start their life like that, with 100 per cent commitment on day one? He didn't know where he was going, he didn't know what he was going to eat, he didn't know what is going to happen to him. He didn't even know who this Jesus was. But Jesus spoke to him, "You get out!" So he got out and began walking down the road. He lived along side the road, eating leaves and bugs and whatever.

Then there was a huge civil war that caused him to flee to Malawi. He ran into a pastor who knew his own local tribal language, and that pastor explained the cross and salvation. Eventually, during the war, he escaped to South Africa, where he learned English and a couple of other languages fairly well From then on, it was just sheer miracles. God gave him ten more languages supernaturally, over night. I take him with me everywhere I go; it doesn't matter where we go. We just land and he interprets. He gets visions all the time. He e-mails me for more interpretation. He has flown with me more than anyone else in Africa; more than Heidi or anyone.

One time Surpresa and I was flying in hazardous weather and I prayed for protection, for angels. Then Surpresa saw a big hand coming out of the sky. He was just shocked. This big hand came out of the sky and held the plane as we flew along for the rest of the trip.

It's free. Everything's free. Is there enough love? I preached the Song of Solomon in the bush, to old wizened chiefs in the village that haven't felt any love in years and years and years. They don't know what love is; they don't know what marriage is. They have multiple women, they have AIDS all over the place because they don't know what faithfulness is. Is there enough love for these people? Yes, there is. There is always enough.

That's the title of our book that just came out, "There's Always Enough." Is there always enough money? So many people write us asking how to get started as a missionary. What do they do, how do they get more money? You don't even try. In 23 years we've never tried to get any. We've put millions of dollars into Mozambique, but we've never lifted a finger to get any. We've never written one newsletter to get any. We've never put out any publicity pleas, we've never tried to sponsor it, we've never taken any offerings.

But do you know what? We can't keep the money away. We can't stop people from giving to us. It follows us. People write us and say "You can't believe how much joy it gives us to send this." Isn't that greater than saying "You can't believe how much we need your money."

It follows us. People get raised from the dead, these things just follow us. Because they're free; it's the goodness of God! Is there forgiveness? There's always forgiveness. That's why I love God. I don't love God because He did this miracle or He did that thing. I love Him because He sent His Son who died for me and wiped out all my sins. That's why I love Him. That's why my life is His. He's captured me for that reason alone. It's free.

God Makes It Happen

God has been doing a revival in our midst in Mozambique. It is not my revival, I am not the one who is making it happen. It is God's. I don't trust in myself. My staff asks how long can I keep this up? There are thousand of orphans, and you have to keep it up, keep it up, keep it up. Every week you have to keep feeding them. How are you going to keep all of these churches organized? How are you going to keep all of the internal fighting and relationships straight? How are you going to maintain this thing? How are you going to bring in enough teachers for Bible school? How are you going to get enough logistics and trucks, and how are you going to account for it all? How are you going to keep it organized? How are you going to keep the whole thing under control? How are you going to keep the pace in the intensity and the travel and all of that. How are you going to do all that and travel in the United States and talk about it all? How are you going to keep your family and your marriage together and your kids straight?

I don't try to do any of that. I absolutely don't try to do any of that. I don't try to get God to do what I want Him to do. I don't try to get Him to give me money. I don't try to get Him to make my plans succeed or to make my ministry fruitful or to get my church to grow or to do something with my life. I don't try to do any of that. Am I a total idiot? No, I am just talking very simply to explain something that took me a long time to figure out. I'm trying to be honest and real on a ground level with you.

There are two ways of looking at the Christian life. You can strain and run and try to accomplish and try to move God emotionally, and try to get Him to do what you want Him to do in your life. Try to get Him to help you get a boyfriend, help you get a job, help you get a miracle, help you get healed, and all that stuff. Try, try, try, hard, hard, hard, to get Him to do something. Or you can say "I quit. I die, this is it. My life is over."

I don't even know how to run life, I don't know how to make a decision. I don't know how to organize anything. I don't know how to pick out a career. I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know how to live today. I don't have any faith, I don't have any power. I don't know how to raise the dead, I don't know how to hold my hand. I don't know how to have an altar call, I don't know whether I'm supposed to kneel or lie or fall this way or that way. I don't know anything! I don't know how I'm supposed to talk, I don't know how I'm supposed to preach, I don't know how to convert a Muslim. I don't know how to prove to someone that God loves them. I really don't know anything. It's all Him! It's all Him. He is life; I don't have any.

Paul said it this way, "I put no confidence in the flesh." We put no confidence in ourselves anymore, but in Him who died and rose again on our behalf . It's His mind I want, it's His ideas that I want. It's His understanding I want. It's His initiative I want, it's His energy I want. It's His faith I want. It's His love I want. It's His ambition I want. Finally I just say "I'm dead, I'm dead. I'm dead God. I refuse all the pressure. I can't impress You. I can't do anything -- nothing, nothing, nothing. But what is in You, I want. I want to plug into You. I want to connect with You. I want to communicate with You. I want the sap that is in You, the life that is in You, the energy that is in You. I want You to tell me what you want to do with my life, because I don't have an ounce of good opinion about my own ideas along that line. I'm not going to tell you what to do, I'm not going to try to motivate You and channel You and use You. You're not my guru, You're not my genie."

"You are my God. You are my lover. You are my companion. You are my life. I want what you have, I want the real thing! I don't want You to just put Your stamp of approval on my plan for my life. I don't want You to just make my life work well. I want You to trash my life if You have to. I want you to put an A-bomb in my heart and in my life if you have to. I want You to look at my life and everything I have and just consider it Yours. You can destroy anything in my life that You'd like; remove anything that is in the way. You destroy anything You don't like until I end up perfect in Your sight. You take every interest I have, of every connection I have, of every emotion I have, of every distracting thought I have that isn't something that You like. You have my permission to just blow it out of my life, using any amount of discipline that You want to use. Be as severe with me as you want to, just use whatever method it takes. Just make sure it happens, because if it doesn't happen I'm the loser."

How can you improve on God's will for your life? You can't. So, let go of your agenda. The people in Mozambique have given up on their own agendas and that is why they are open to embracing God's. Mozambique has been humiliated by 500 years of colonialism, disaster, poverty, so they have no patriotism, no pride. They have been run over by foreign power, they have been run over by poverty. They don't have any lives to lead that are worth living. The life expectancy is in the 30's and getting down to 24 soon. God is all they have. What would have to happen to Western Nations to get as open and receptive and hungry for God as they are in Mozambique? What would have to happen before we treat God the way the Mozambique people treat God?

I'm not impressed in any way with our ideas of what a good life is. We don't know. And if you still think you know, it's going to take longer for you. You're just going to keep going until some day you say "This is it. I'm sick; I'm sick and tired of my life. I want to die, because I want a new life." That's what Jesus meant. He said "If you live your life for yourself you'll lose it. If you live your life for My sake, you'll get it." I just ask you, how long do you want to go, and try to keep your life? How long do you want to go, instead of taking the real thing?

Heidi and I got married 23 years ago. We asked people not to give us wedding gifts, we didn't want towels and china, or anything. All we wanted was ticket money. We were married on the beach in Laguna Beach, California, May 24, 1980. I met Heidi, and she was the first person I met that I could live a life of faith with. God told her the day I would ask her to marry her. She was on a missions trip to Mexico City. She hardly knew my first name. She was influenced towards missions when she was in 6th grade by her 6th grade teacher who used to be a missionary in China. (Later on I found out that her teacher was my mother.) God told Heidi, "You're going to marry Rolland Baker. Go to Indonesia this summer." We collected our money at the end of that day, which was just enough money for one-way tickets. We had about $30 left over, and no church behind us, no support. We just took off into the jungle, and we're still here twenty-three years later.

I want it God's way. I want the real thing or forget it. I'm tired of anything else -- I'm afraid of my own plans and my own will. I don't want to struggle and strain anymore. My favorite verse is Psalm 131:2, "But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.". I don't think about great and difficult things, I just rest my head. You know, like a baby rests its head against it's mother. That's all I want to do. All of the energy and the power and the glory and the miracles and everything else are from Him. So, I just tap in, I just receive. I simply say "God, I believe. God, You're that great, You're that good. You are what I want, and I trust in You and I believe in You." Reject everything else except God.

How To Get The Real Thing

We have spent the last several lessons talking about the real thing. It is not something we make happen out of our own initiative or efforts. God does all the work. He makes it happen. We simply plug into it and receive His reality. Do you want that? Do you want the real thing? If so, I would like to invite you to plug in to God. Just enter into communion with Him. It is not a strain or a push. It is not a terrible grasping. It is just saying, "Jesus, that is what I want. Just take my life, take it, take it, take it."

Ask yourself what would your life look like if you gave God total freedom to do anything He'd like with it, instead of you getting Him to make your life work. What would it look like if He could do anything with it? Get rid of your burden, get rid of the pressures, get rid of the weight. Get rid of the compulsion. Get rid of all the things that weigh you down and pull on you. Begin to drink in the goodness of God. Tell Him, "Jesus. I come to a place of complete rest in You. I come to a complete stop in You. I just want the real thing, I don't want to struggle anymore. I just want to taste deep, and drink deep, Jesus. I want the passion that you have. I want the same thoughts and feelings that course through Your blood to course through my blood. I want your life in me Lord, and I want it free, Lord, because You died to give it to me. I just receive it free of charge. I don't want to insult You and insult Your grace by working for it Lord. I just take it, I just receive it, Jesus."

God is able to clean out our hearts. He is able to wash away the burdens and the fears and the pressure and the problems. He is able to make us usable to Him. He is able to make us a fragrance of His presence. He is able to qualify us to serve Him. He is able to give us the energy that represents Him, it is His energy and not your energy.

We're out of energy, we're tired. We don't know how to change our cities, we don't know how to change the climate and the environment where we live. Just the thought of doing it can be exhausting. So we want to plug into that extraordinary power, that infinite power that God has. Don't worry about all that stuff. Just fix your eyes on Jesus, just desire Him. Come to Him, and His grace.

Lord, I ask that grace would just pour out on these people, according to their faith, according to the desire. Just come on them. Just feed them what they're hungry for, Jesus -- water without cost, bread without cost. Oh God, what we see in Africa. What we see in China. What we saw in the Indonesian revival. Pour it out on these people, Lord, Your kingdom without cost. Let them know you as a God that is just utterly gracious. Your blood Jesus is what we want poured out on us, until we have the real thing. The real thing, right here. In an ordinary community, in ordinary high schools and churches, Lord. Give us the real thing, where your power is with us.

You are with us, Lord. We are not going to push, Lord. God, we couldn't earn Your favor. We couldn't get You to do anything. We just want to do what You do. We just want to be motivated like You are motivated. The same energy and life that is in You, we want in us. What thousands and hundred of thousands of Africans are drinking from now Lord, we want to drink from that. Just love us today until we just can't stand it, Jesus. Love us until we're yours. Love us until we thrill You as much as You thrill us. Love us until You get what You want from us, instead of us always wanting to get what we can from You.

Just do an awesome, beautiful job of capturing hearts. You know how to do it, Lord. You know how to capture hearts. You are the ultimate lover, Lord. The most emotional person in the universe; I love you for that. You're just emotional; You're just a romantic person. You invented romance. Those that are hungry for romance, feed them, Lord. Feed those who are hungry Lord, for romance. Feed those that are hungry for rest. Feed those that are hungry for life. Feed those that are hungry for more than life as usual. Feed those who are hungry for heaven on earth. Oh, God, heaven on earth.

There's evil all around us Lord, just be with us. Just be with us and we will have heaven on earth. Just stay with us Lord, keep your company with us Lord. Walk with us Lord, be our mind. Be our brain. Be our heart. Be our emotions. We will have heaven on earth, we will have what we want. Miracles chasing us Lord, we can't stop them. We can't stop the miracles, we can't keep the people from getting healed. We can't keep people from coming to you. We can't hold the revival back in Africa; it's going so fast and so strong that we can't hold it back. We can't get enough missionaries and helpers. We can't get enough people to teach in the Bible school because so many thousands of people want to be in Bible school. We have people jumping in the boat, ready or not, fishermen, or not. They're just jumping in, they're just jumping in, they're so hungry for You. They want You!

Who wants Him that bad here? Who can't live without His supernatural power? Who doesn't want to go through a day without seeing miracles flowing naturally? A normal day is one where miracles do happen every few minutes. They happen even when you don't notice them and aren't aware of them. Everything is a miracle; everything is flowing from his hands. Everything; it's like heaven!

Teach us to walk and talk with You in a way that we're not struggling to believe if You're there or not. Let us just walk and talk with You and drink You in. We're struggling to get You to pay attention, Lord. Make us understand that You are totally focused on us. We don't have to get You to pay attention. We accept You, we receive You, Jesus. We just receive you Lord, freely, without charge, without pressure, without straining for you. We don't want to strain for You, we just want You, Lord! We just want to be in love with You. We're not trying to get You to come close, Lord. We just open our doors and open our hearts. You're here. We just take you Lord. We take You by the feet, Lord. We grab a hold of You, and You're not ever going to get rid of us, because that's how bad we want You. You're stuck with us Lord, forever!

Give your life to God. What is holding you back for doing that? Get it over with now, die now, and you'll have a much better life! Throw your life away now, don't wait until you wreck most of it! Toss it now, give it to God now! It will be harder later, just get rid of your life now. Junk it! Toss it out the window; gone, finished. You know, get a new one. Get one that's worth living. Get one that's fun, get one that's really exciting! Get one that's full of power and goodness and purity and excellence. Let your life be something that's going to honor God on judgment day, something that you're going to be proud of and happy with. Don't let it be something that's going to be hanging around your neck and making your heart heavy all of your life. Get a new life! Junk it, junk your own!

God knows how to lead you. You don't have to struggle to have Him find you. You just have to let Him in. That is faith, believing that Jesus is as good as the Bible says He is. In my experience in the Christian life it's always finding out that He is better than I thought He was. He always turns out to be a lot better than I thought He was, and that makes me wish I hadn't wasted my time before. I wish I'd been to Africa a long time before I got there.

What could God orchestrate in your community with His wisdom and His power? That's what we need to look for. We need to look for His glory and His power to be manifested. That happens when we believe that He is as good as the Bible says He is. Oh, perfect love casts out fear. Every hope and dream that you ever had in God, everything that He ever put there. Let it happen. He didn't put these things in you to frustrate you, if you ever had any dreams or ambitions in God, hopes, if the Holy Spirit has ever touched you before, that's just the start.

Whatever happened last week, it's just the start. Grace drops a curtain on yesterday, we don't have to drag up the past. We don't have to drag out what we did last week, or how we failed last year. We don't have to have years of counseling and all of that to get straightened out. A lot of Jesus straightens you out in one moment, in one flash. Forget what lies behind, and press on to what lies ahead. His grace is total and complete. The devil can't blackmail us, the devil can't wreck our lives with what happened in the past. Nothing, God sets us free. Don't even look back. Don't worry about yesterday. He's the total redeemer, it's that thundering white Niagara Falls of His grace that washes away everything, everything, everything that isn't perfect and pure and clean and excellent.

Your life in Him begins new every morning. His mercies are fresh. That is the real thing, that's what I'm interested in -- real revival, without strain, without pressure, without compulsion. It comes without trying, hard at anything. Real life. Real freedom.

How did I get there? I gave it all to Jesus. I gave Him my life and I gave Him control of everything I possess. Nothing is mine anymore. I don't have anything anymore except God. My house is not mine, my car is not mine. My children are not mine. Heidi is not mine, my marriage is not mine. My own wife is not mine; she travels all over the world and does whatever Jesus asks of her. She's not mine. But I get Jesus out of the deal! God blesses me in ways I can't even imagine. I don't own anything, except Him. I am my beloved's and He is mine, and that's it. That's the end of it. He's the only possession I have. The only possession I have, and I'm rich. We just travel everywhere and try to get people as rich as those orphan kids! We don't own anything, don't possess anything except Him. And we have Him because He gave Himself to us.

Will we take Him? It's not a matter of striving after Him, there is no striving in the kingdom of God. Just receive Him. It's hard to imagine something so good, and to get it all you have to do is just receive. But it's so good until it breaks us and we are conquered. It's not a new gospel, it's not something we just found out. This is the same gospel that has been preached for 2,000 years. It's just the plain, ordinary gospel of Jesus, and Him crucified. It's all Paul knew. And when we're in Africa and we're facing hundreds of thousands of starving people with their terrible problems and all, all we know is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is all we know, and we see food multiplied. We see the dead raised, and we see people in visions, and we see churches growing by the hundred and by the thousands. It's all we preach, we just preach Him.

God is the only One we trust. I don't trust Heidi, I don't trust my old pastor, I don't trust my seminary professors. I don't trust World Vision or Red Cross or United Nations. There's nobody I trust but Jesus. That's it! So, how do I go to the mission field? That's God's problem. How do I pay for it? That's God's problem, not mine. How am I going to get enough compassion when I get there? Again, that is God's problem. How am I going to know what to do when I get there? Guess what, that is also God's problem. What am I going to do with my house and my kids? That is God's problem. It's all His problem, I have no more problems! I am problem free, issue free! I love Him for that. Would you like to be problem free as well? Give them all to Jesus and take the real thing from Him.

Support Gateways of His Light by sharing this page on social media