Power and vision and passion for all
God continues to speak through the prophet Joel. He still has more to share. Joel tells the people about a coming day, a day he calls The Day Of The Lord. A day when God will pour His Spirit on all people.
All people. Not just the chosen few. Not just His chosen people. Not as it has been up to now, where God’s Spirit has come to a specific individual at a specific time for a specific purpose. God’s Spirit will be available to all people all of the time. That’s the promise.
And afterwards,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
I will show wonders in the heavens
and on the earth,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved;
for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
there will be deliverance,
as the Lord has said,
even among the survivors
whom the Lord calls. Joel 2:28-32
Men and women. That’s a revolutionary thought right there.
Young and old. And there’s another.
God will come to anyone. God will work with anyone. God will speak through anyone.
So no one can say ‘I am just a woman’ or ‘I’m too young’ or ‘I’m too old’. Or any other reason.
There will be vision. There will be power. There will be passion. There will be salvation and deliverance.
Available to all.
The people heard these words from the mouth of Joel and waited with anticipation. Waited and waited and waited.
Until on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, Peter quotes these words. There’s been an incredible event. Beyond belief. A rushing wind. Tongues of fire. And a few sad, vulnerable friends, mourning the loss of their leader, suddenly filled with a new passion and power and vision and purpose.
The people around them think they are drunk. Why wouldn’t they? What other explanation could there be? These men who’ve been hiding away, lost for what to do with no idea how to carry on, have suddenly burst out onto the streets spouting nonsense, talking foreign languages.
And this is how Peter reassures them –
Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
“In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people… Acts 2:14-17
He carries on to quote the whole of this prophecy from Joel, a prophecy all the Jewish people would have been familiar with. A prophecy that Peter claims is being fulfilled this day right before their eyes. It must have been mind-blowing! Seeing history being made right there in that moment. Wow!
That was the moment where everything changed. Where a new movement that people called the Way discovered its vision, its power, its passion.
And we are living in these new times. A time where God’s Spirit is available to all. Where God’s salvation is for all.
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
And yet. And yet the people of the Way, God’s people here on earth, the people we have come to call Christians, don’t really seem (generally) to be anything like God’s people in Acts 2. Something’s happened over the last 2000 years. The message has lost its way a little. Become diluted. Focused on the wrong things. Lost sight of the truth. People don’t look at the church and describe it with words like vision and power and passion.
We have it all – all of God’s power and vision and passion – all within reach and yet…And yet. And yet.
God must be yearning for His people to reconnect with His power. We’re living in black and white when we could be living in colour. God is so much more – so, so, so much more – than the image of God we’re portraying.
There must be more than this.
There must be more than this.
O breath of God, come breathe within,
There must be more than this.
Spirit of God, we wait for You.Fill us anew, we pray,
Fill us anew, we pray.Consuming fire, fan into flame
A passion for Your Name.
Spirit of God, fall in this place.
Lord, have Your way,
Lord, have Your way with us.Come like a rushing wind.
Clothe us with power from on high.
Now set the captives free.
Leave us abandoned to Your praise.Lord, let Your glory fall,
Lord, let Your glory fall.
Just imagine it. Let yourself dream. How it would look. How you would be. What your church would look like. What difference it would make.
Picture it. Yearn for it. Pray for it. Believe in it.
Don’t settle for less.
