Asbury Professor: We’re Witnessing a ‘Surprising Work of God’...

Tom McCall

February 13, 2023

"...As an analytic theologian, I am weary of hype and very wary of manipulation. I come from a background (in a particularly revivalist segment of the Methodist-holiness tradition) where I’ve seen efforts to manufacture “revivals” and “movements of the Spirit” that were sometimes not only hollow but also harmful. I do not want anything to do with that.

And to be perfectly clear, this is nothing like that. There is no pressure or hype. There is no manipulation. There is no high-pitched emotional fervor.

To the contrary, it has been mostly calm and serene. The mix of hope and joy and peace is indescribably strong and indeed almost palpable—a vivid and incredibly powerful sense of shalom. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is undeniably powerful but also so gentle.

The holy love of the triune God is apparent, and there is an inexpressible sweetness and innate attractiveness to it. It is immediately obvious why no one wants to leave and why those who must leave want to come back as soon as they can..."  the rest

"I found myself with Unspeakable Joy and Awe" - Evan Roberts (Welsh Revival)

“We are just sitting with him, it’s just deeply gentle and deeply loving; it’s just a glimpse of what I think HEAVEN WILL LOOK LIKE.” - Alison Perfater (Asbury Student Body President)#asburyrevival 🔥 pic.twitter.com/qWxU1ugImm

— Greg Gordon (@gregjgordon) February 13, 2023

"This is Revival it isn't hype. It's ordinary people crying out for a move of God."

Are you hungry for more of God? Have a posture of "heart cry" for God's work. Go "low"

He will touch you where you are.#asburyrevival 🔥 #moveofgod pic.twitter.com/2bFMHhJbIF

— Greg Gordon (@gregjgordon) February 13, 2023

Holy Spirit power...

I fear that if you take the preaching throughout the Church of Christ and ask why there is, alas! so little converting power in the preaching of the Word, why there is so much work and often so little result for eternity, why the Word has so little power to build up believers in holiness and in consecration,—the answer will come: It is the absence of the power of the Holy Ghost. And why is this? There can be no other reason but that the flesh and human energy have taken the place that the Holy Ghost ought to have. -Andrew Murray

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!

From subtle love of softening things,

From easy choices, weakenings,

(Not thus are spirits fortified;

Not this way went the Crucified;)

From all that dims Thy Calvary,

O Lamb of God, deliver me.

 

Give me the love that leads the way,

The faith that nothing can dismay,

The hope no disappointments tire,

The passion that will burn like fire;

Let me not sink to be a clod:

Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God!

-Amy Carmichael

Earth breaks up, time drops away...

Earth breaks up, time drops away,

In flows heaven, with its new day

Of endless life, when He who trod,

Very man and very God,

This earth in weakness, shame and pain,

Dying the death whose signs remain

Up yonder on the accursed tree,—

Shall come again, no more to be

Of captivity the thrall,

But the one God, All in all,

King of kings, Lord of lords,

As His servant John received the words,

“I died, and live for evermore!”

-Robert Browning 

Around us is a world lost in sin...

“Around us is a world lost in sin, above us is a God willing and able to save; it is ours to build the bridge that links heaven and earth, and prayer is the mighty instrument that does the work.” -E.M. Bounds

Hosanna to the King Of David’s ancient blood...

Hosanna to the King

Of David’s ancient blood;

Behold, he comes to bring

Forgiving grace from God:

Let old and young

Attend his way,

And at his feet

Their honors lay.

 

Glory to God on high;

Salvation to the Lamb;

Let earth, and sea, and sky,

His wondrous love proclaim:

Upon his head

Shall honors rest,

And every age

Pronounce him bless’d.

-Isaac Watts  image

We are anchored in God...

For a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from the centre, where we are anchored in God: a life soaked through and through by a sense of His reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of His will. 

-Evelyn Underhill

He comes to us in the brokenness...

He comes to us in the brokenness of our health,

in the shipwreck of our family lives,

in the loss of all possible peace of mind,

even in the very thick of our sins.

He saves us in our disasters, not from them.

He emphatically does not promise to meet

only the odd winner of the self-improvement lottery:

He meets us all in our endless and inescapable losing.

-Robert Farrar Capon

Your helplessness is your best prayer...

Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness, and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering the prayer of your helplessness.  -O. Hallesby

Prayer and a holy life are one...

Prayer and a holy life are one. They mutually act and react. Neither can survive alone... We are in danger of substituting churchly work and a ceaseless round of showy activities for prayer and holy living. A holy life does not live in the closet, but it cannot live without the closet. If, by any chance, a prayer chamber should be established without a holy life, it would be a chamber without the presence of God in it. ...E.M. Bounds

Happy New Year 2023!

"For you shall not go out in haste,
    and you shall not go in flight,
for the Lord will go before you,
    and the God of Israel will be your rear guard."

 -Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. "God requireth that which is past." At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. "For the Lord will go before you." This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our rereward. God's hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.

Security for Today. "For ye shall not go out with haste." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him. 

-Oswald Chambers image

Love came down at Christmas...

 Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, Love Divine;

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,

Love Incarnate, Love Divine;

Worship we our Jesus:

But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,

Love be yours and love be mine,

Love to God and all men,

Love for plea and gift and sign.

...Christina Rossetti image

Merry Christmas to all the readers of this blog!
Raymond and Pat Dague

Fear not because your prayer is stammering...

Fear not because your prayer is stammering, your words feeble, and your language poor. Jesus can understand you. Just as a mother understands the first lispings of her infant, so does the blessed Saviour understand sinners. He can read a sigh, and see a meaning in a groan. -JC Ryle

Christ, whose glory fills the skies!

Christ, whose glory fills the skies,

Christ the true, the only Light,

Sun of Righteousness, arise!

Triumph o'er the shades of night:

Dayspring from on high, be near;

Daystar, in my heart appear.

Dark and cheerless is the morn

Unaccompanied by thee;

Joyless is the day's return,

Till thy mercy's beams I see,

Till they inward light impart,

Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.

Visit then this soul of mine!

Pierce the gloom of sin and grief!

Fill me, Radiancy Divine;

Scatter all my unbelief;

More and more thyself display,

Shining to the perfect day.

-Charles Wesley

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!

     Serve the Lord with gladness!

    Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!

    It is he who made us, and we are his;

    we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

    and his courts with praise!

    Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;

    his steadfast love endures forever,

    and his faithfulness to all generations.

-Psalm 100

A blessed Thanksgiving to all!

Hail to the Lord’s anointed...

Hail to the Lord’s anointed, great David’s greater Son!

Hail in the time appointed, His reign on earth begun!

He comes to break oppression, to set the captive free;

To take away transgression and rule in equity.

He comes in succor speedy to those who suffer wrong;

To help the poor and needy, and bid the weak be strong;

To give them songs for sighing, their darkness turn to light,

Whose souls, condemned and dying, were precious in His sight.

He shall come down like showers upon the fruitful earth;

Love, joy, and hope, like flowers, spring in His path to birth.

Before Him, on the mountains, shall peace, the herald, go,

And righteousness, in fountains, from hill to valley flow.

Kings shall fall down before Him, and gold and incense bring;

All nations shall adore Him, His praise all people sing;

For He shall have dominion o’er river, sea and shore,

Far as the eagle’s pinion or dove’s light wing can soar.

For Him shall prayer unceasing and daily vows ascend;

His kingdom still increasing, a kingdom without end:

The mountain dews shall nourish a seed in weakness sown,

Whose fruit shall spread and flourish and shake like Lebanon.

O’er every foe victorious, He on His throne shall rest;

From age to age more glorious, all blessing and all blest.

The tide of time shall never His covenant remove;

His Name shall stand forever, His Name to us is Love.

...James Montgomery image

O for a closer walk with God...

O for a closer walk with God,

A calm and heavenly frame 

A light to shine upon the road

That leads me to the Lamb!

 

Return, O holy Dove, return,

Sweet messenger of rest:

I hate the sins that made Thee mourn,

And drove Thee from my breast.

 

The dearest idol I have known,

Whate’er that idol be,

Help me to tear it from Thy throne,

And worship only Thee.

 

So shall my walk be close with God,

Calm and serene my frame;

So purer light shall mark the road

That leads me to the Lamb.

-William Cowper

From morning to night keep Jesus in thy heart...

“From morning to night keep Jesus in thy heart, 

long for nothing, desire nothing, hope for nothing 

but to have all that is within thee changed 

into the spirit and temper of the holy Jesus.” 

-William Law

Within Thy circling power I stand...

Within Thy circling power I stand;

On every side I find Thy hand:

Awake, asleep, at home, abroad,

Thy power surrounds me still, O Lord!

-Isaac Watts

Pray and vote!

Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide and direct, we humbly pray, the minds of all those who are called to elect fit persons to serve our country. Grant that in the exercise of our choice we may promote your glory, and the welfare of this nation. This we ask for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (ACNA BCP 2019)