Perservering to power

Do you want prophecy? The gift of healing? Are you disappointed with "where you're at", telling yourself, "if only I'd obeyed God in that situation, last summer... then I'd be on the fast-track. The anointing of God was on me when that revivalist from Africa was in town. But that anointing lost its freshness like an open bag of Sun Chips. I'm stuck waiting until I roll another lucky seven in the Holy Spirit."

Wrong. I wonder if God doesn't say to us, when we ask for new power, "well, what did you do with what I gave you in the past?". Concerning a word of time-sensitive prophecy we failed to deliver-- have we repented and are we doing now, naturally, what we can in light of that prophecy? Oops; we weren't just looking to deliver a dramatic word, were we? How interested were we in the natural follow-up? If the word was revelation that we never proclaimed, did we let it sit only because the ringing left our ears? Is that word any less true now? Are we being faithful now to proclaim it, even though its taste is dulled? We didn't just want to feel tingly while preaching it, did we? Are we still using the revelations that God spoke to us in the last ten years? Or have we cast them off-- as if they went out of style with our high school clothing? This is about repentance. True repentance leads to action, and true repentance for failing to respond to the Spirit's prompting may interest the Spirit in prompting us again.

The truths we heard and the power we felt are still here. Nothing has changed between our past heights and now. We must not be discouraged if our pool of Bethesda is still. The point is not that we missed out on some splashing, but that we're now standing in the pool. The same God is right here, right now. Ask Him to stir your soul in memory of what you saw when you failed to jump in. God doesn't want people standing around, staring at the pool, pining for past tremors. He wants people sitting in the pool, getting pruney-skinned in His still goodness, souls desiring to tremor before Him. Staring up at Him. Then He can use us easily.

-andrew