"What In The World Just Happened Here?"

I have seen it happen time and again. In my own personal life, and in the life of the church.

God will move in with amazing healings, signs, wonders, miracles, fresh revival, comfort, peace...

...all following some of the worst possible times of your life. I'm talking about times of great discouragement, treachery, deceitfulness, plots, sickness, injury, and anything that can make you wonder "what in the world just happened here?".

Take the incident in Acts 5. Anananias and Saphira plotted to deceive the early church by agreeing to sell some property and give the proceeds to the church. They reneged on that promise TO GOD, and both paid the price of being struck down stone cold dead for their thievery (it's thievery once you give it away and then take it back). Needless to say, it got the attention of the church.

Acts 5:11 (AMP) - "And the whole church and all others who heard of these things were appalled [great awe and strange terror and dread seized them]."

It doesn't even have to be that dramatic to shake a church. It could be more subtle like someone systematically pilfering from the church, or people abruptly and angrily leaving without explanation. Integral parts of the church breaking down and leaving behind in the wake, confusion, anger, disruption, and a general sense of stunned wonderment. "What in the world just happened here?"

Something has to fill the gaping hole, both in the church and in the heart.

Having lived through various scenarios over the 20 years I've been a pastor, I have found one thing. God has got it covered. Rather than change (even tragic and forced change) being the end of the world as we see it, God swoops in and often with a stunning plan, absolutely transforms the church and its people with a supernatural love bomb that revitalizes the injured atmosphere.

Look what happened when Ananias and Saphira weren't even cold in their graves yet (and I am serious friends, I have seen God work as quick).

Acts 5:12 (AMP) - "Now by the hands of the apostles (special messengers) numerousand startling signs and wonders were being performed among the people. And by common consent they all met together [at the temple] in the covered porch (walk) called Solomon's."

This is the good side of "What in the world just happened here?".

Is it possible that God could restore His people and His church to even greater strength and proportions than before?

Read below and know that I am personally witnessing this happening even now!

Acts 5:13-15 (AMP) - "13 And none of those who were not of their number dared to joinand associate with them, but the people held them in high regard and praised and made much of them. 14 More and more there were being added to the Lord those who believed [those who acknowledged Jesus as their Savior and devoted themselves to Him joined and gathered with them], crowds both of men and of women."

More and more. From less and less to more and more practically overnight. That's God. This is what I'm seeing. This is what I am living. More of everything. People, finances, miracles, healing, love, joy, peace, ministry.

I'm on that train for keeps. Here's what I am believing for:

Acts 5:15-16 (AMP) - "15 So that they [even] kept carrying out the sick into the streets and placing them on couches and sleeping pads, [in the hope] that as Peter passed by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16 And the people gathered also from the towns and hamlets around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those troubled with foul spirits, and they were all cured."

Do you know what this is? It's the face of revival. It's what it looks like. The elusive revival that escapes the searching by so many for so long when it is hovering over us under the open heaven. 

What you have just read in the verses above is what church should be. It's normal church environment.

How long have we functioned abnormally? How much longer will we sit and tolerate weak religious meanderings, never seeing the power of God at work in us or others? How long will we subject ourselves to believeing that the abnormal is normal?

If it really is "on earth as it is in heaven" then either God or us has it wrong. If the Church as we know it is "as it is in heaven" then something is wrong in heaven!

Well, I happen to know it's us, not heaven. Since I have been on both sides of it I am painfully aware of lost years of thinking this is the best it can be.

Let me encourage you. There's more and it's better! Reach up and take it and bring it down around your ears! Don't ask God for His Kingdom to come. It's been all around you for 2,000 years!

How in the world have we missed it?

What in the world just happened here? I'll tell you. We finally recognized what revival is. It comes with being revived.

Keepin' it Real,

Pastor Kevin <><