“How have you seen the Holy Spirit moving this week?” This was the prompt my squad was given for blogging this week.
After posting my last blog, Hopeful and Healed, I received an unprecedented amount of feedback from readers. My parents both passed along messages to me, including the following:
Wow. This is evidence of the Holy Spirit moving powerfully in my friends and family back home. He is stirring hearts, renewing minds, and bringing hope. It is incredibly humbling that God would use my story and the things I write. That’s why, after asking God, I’m not bringing you another crazy story from Latin America. Instead, I believe He wants me to reflect on the work He is doing stateside, in your mission field. This blog is for YOU.
If you are reading this and you are a believer, you are on mission- God’s mission of reconciliation and proclaiming His glory in all nations. In a way, your mission is more difficult than mine. For this year, I get to take on the title of “missionary,” which gives me an excuse to freely lay hands and pray for people, worship God in the streets, and act like a complete Jesus Freak. But for many of you, that’s not the case- you have other roles to fill. You are a teacher, a full-time student, a businessman, a barista. You enter the same workplace or classroom every day and encounter people who have been jaded by “religious” religion and hurt by the American Church. But you too, are a missionary, in a unique mission field.
Throughout my life, I have heard stories of physical healing, freedom from demonic oppression, dreams and visions, and other wonders, but they were never really real to me. My church background didn’t address these things, and I didn’t ask questions. I would read miraculous stories in the Bible and wonder why miracles don’t happen in this time, or in my country.
The God with me in the Dominican Republic is the same God of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Iran, the wandering Israelites of the Old Testament, the Acts 2 church, and the United States in 2021. The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in all believers, past and present. God doesn’t change. God isn’t reliant on us to achieve His purpose (He is self-reliant), but when His people walk in faith, He shows up. He wants you to lay hands and pray for healing, to ask for dreams and visions, to declare people freed. He wants to do more and more and more. Do you believe this? Are you listening to Him? Are you able to hear Him or are you too distracted? Are you taking steps of faith knowing you could be wrong; knowing people may reject you?
“But now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the Earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken- that is, things that have been made- in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” Heb. 12:26-29
God is in the business of shaking the Earth- of removing the traditions and “religion” that we have built up in order to bring more of His kindgom. He is shaking us now. Only God can wake us up from our sleep. Only God can free us. Only God can renew our minds and give us true understanding.
Maybe you’re reading this and you know you aren’t where you want to be in your faith. You know there’s something more, but you just don’t know how to get there. You have lived with physical or emotional pain for so long that you’ve adopted it as a part of you. Your experiences aren’t lining up with God’s promises and it’s hard to believe His word. It’s okay to start there. I thought I could work my way into maturity by going to church, praying the right things, singing worship songs, or even by reading my Bible every morning. But I am slowly learning that maturity and a fruitful walk comes only from deep intimacy with the Father- simply seeking His face, listening to His voice, and responding to what He says. We can’t do it without Him.
Maybe you’re reading this and you know you don’t have a relationship with the Father through faith in Christ. This blog is for you too. Whether you realize it or not, you are in the mission field- God is on a mission for YOU. He is actively pursuing you. Whether you realize it or not, God has been present your entire life. The Holy Spirit has nudged you along and protected you. God wants to have a personal relationship with you and invite you on board what the Holy Spirit is doing in the world.
This blog is for you. What are you going to do about it?
