Matt Candler

This morning I woke up early to join the Forerunner School of Ministry’s (FMA) senior class from IHOP-KC in worshiping and interceding in Colorado Springs. These seniors are in the middle of their final semester senior practicum, where they have come for three weeks to strengthen theWall house of prayer in Colorado Springs through leading worship and prayer, serving, and training others. As I was driving to the prayer room early this morning to join the intercessory-worshippers, I was reminded of the Christian Evangelical Megalopolis that I was in. This city has been increasingly recognized as a center for evangelical Christianity, hosting more than 100 evangelical organizations, not to mention many mega suburban churches. While driving down the foggy-laden misty mountain streets a morning joy caffeinated my soul while considering the wisdom of these students and the few gathered worshipers…the joy of a clown.

I was reminded of the clowns that Henri Nowen spoke of in his classic work Clowning in Rome. In it he recounts having to acclimatize living in the bustling religious metropolis of the Vatican, but that how after a short time the splendid buildings, large crowds, and thrilling events, faded into the background of something far less visible but far more penetrating, “the clowns.” He goes on to describe the clowns as those who lovingly served the outcasts from the place of prayer and intimacy with God. Amidst the great circus of religious Rome, “full of lion tamers and trapeze artists whose dazzling feats claim our attention…the real and the true story was told by the clowns.” How true this is! Between the circus acts of modern-day religious heroes, is it not the clowns that capture our hearts between the daring feats of the charismatic virtuosos? Rightfully so, the clowns remind us with painted tear and smile that we share the same human weakness, awkwardness, and fumbling.

We are reminded of a similar scene when the longed for Messiah, the awaited King came in the midst of a bustling religious megalopolis “in between the scenes.” Found in a feed trough, amidst the beasts His mouth made by His word, shepherd clowns made their way down a road not too unlike the one I drove this morning. I, like them, meandered to a stable, a nothing-place, where clowns gather to offer the intercessory-incense of fools between the great acts of evangelical heroes. If ministry exists because worship does not, then a city like this ought to abound in clowns gathered day and night between the dazzling strength of ministerial kindnesses. Until it does, I assemble with the weak throughout the city in invisible places to sing the songs of shepherds, angels, and clowns, to tell and shape the real and true story of this city. May your praise in this city be according to the greatness of Your Name…inexhaustible praise for inexhaustible greatness (Ps. 48:10).

Below is an article that my good friend Stephen Venable wrote on prevailing faith for the Sacred Charge website. Prevailing faith focuses upon the the ‘P’ value or ‘prophetic’ from the four foundational values Jesus has called the IHOP Missions Base (www.ihop.org) to be focused on in a primary way (not exclusive, but foremost). The four include:

I: Intercession, or Night and Day Prayer

H: Holiness

O: Extravagant Offering to the Poor

P: Prophetic or Prevailing Faith

The body of Christ in every generation must stand at a similar crossroads.  As we read of the power of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament and feel the painful disparity between what we find on those pages and what we have known in our experience, what will we do?  This question confronts us both individually and corporately, and though we may evade its pursuit for a season, at some point we must turn and reckon with its probing force.  While much could be written of the marvelous works Jesus performed in and through the apostolic church, only a cursory journey through the middle portion of the book of Acts is necessary to shine the light on the barrenness of Western Christianity in the 21st century.

In a mere five verses in the fifth chapter, we are informed that signs and wonders were so prevalent that those who were in need from the cities surrounding Jerusalem were brought to the feet of the apostles and the sick were even laid out in the streets in the hope that Peter’s shadow might fall upon them.  The result was that multitudes of men and women were added to the Lord (v 14) and all who came found healing and deliverance in His precious name (v 16).  In verse 19 of Acts 5, the apostles are miraculously freed from imprisonment by an angel.  Acts 6:8 describes how Stephen, who was simply responsible for distributing food and not actually one of the apostles, “did great wonders and signs among the people.”  After baptizing the Ethiopian convert, Philip was caught up by the Spirit and transported to a different city (8:39-40).  In the next chapter a man who was paralyzed is healed through the ministry of Peter, followed by the remarkable account of the raising of a woman named Tabitha from the dead in the city of Joppa (9:36-43).  The night before he was to be executed, an angel came to Peter in prison and escorted him out of bondage into safety (12:5-19).  In a similar vein, Paul and Silas found themselves beaten and in shackles for the cause of Christ when suddenly a great earthquake shook the prison and released them from their chains (14:25-34).  As the story continues to unfold we are told that “God worked unusual miracles by the hand of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them (19:11-12).”

Furthermore, Divine communication is riddled throughout the tale of the first generation of followers of Christ.  Jesus appeared to Stephen at his death, to Paul at his conversion, and to Ananias with instructions to restore Paul’s sight (7:56; 9:5; 9:10 respectively).  Cornelius the centurion was visited by an angel in an open vision, after which Peter was caught up in a trance while in prayer (10:3, 10).  Agabus prophesied of a famine that would come upon the land, the apostolic mission to the gentiles was directed to go to Macedonia through a vision in the night, and the Lord Jesus appeared again to Paul in order to encourage his heart (11:28; 16:9; 18:9).  The testimonies go on and on, and this is not even highlighting the astonishing power of the Holy Spirit present in the preaching of the early Church.

By contrast the sick in our midst almost always stay sick, regardless of whether one is ‘evangelical’ or ‘charismatic’.  In other words, possessing a rhetoric which includes the power of the Spirit is not at all synonymous with the reality of it.  Though profoundly grateful for what the Lord has done, at IHOP-KC alone over the last few years we have had the privilege of standing in prayer with four dear souls in their struggle against terminal cancer… each one of them glorified Jesus by loving Him well as they lost that battle and died.  Not surprisingly we don’t find diseased and tormented unbelievers flocking to our churches as they did to the apostles and their followers.  We don’t even have the opportunity to be miraculously delivered from prison because our witness is not powerful enough to evoke the resistance from the world to put us in fetters.  While the diluted, culturally assimilated proclamation going forth from so many pulpits in the land may be effective at making ‘seekers’ feel comfortable, we know nothing of words so laden with heavenly power that thousands are cut to the soul and conquered by the glory of Christ (Acts 2:37).   And though there seems to be more people than ever with the word ‘prophet’ in front of their name, few and far between are those men and women who truly stand in the counsel of the Lord and declare His word in truth.

This is not the context to develop either the biblical theology of healing or that of suffering (both of which we have the propensity to monumentally err on), or to try to unearth the causes of the absence of the Spirit in our utterance.  Still from this juxtaposition at least one thing should be clear – we are missing something.  And thus we arrive once more at the question posed at the outset: what will we do? Sadly the most common response throughout history has been the path of least resistance, accepting the way things are and explaining away the dissonance between the Bible and what we have known by putting the New Testament in a different category theologically.  In effect this puts the book of Acts high on a shelf to be admired and applauded but never emulated or sought after.  Yet as our generation stands at the crossroads there is another option.  It is the difficult way, and surely the road less traveled, but the one we must embrace.  In opting for this lonely path we are allowing our hearts to be torn over the vision for the fullness of the Spirit and daring to believe in what we have never seen.  Instead of finding a shallow peace with the way things are, we elect instead to throw ourselves into the crushing tension of intercession where we contend in faith for the way God desires them to be.  This posture is that which embodies and undergirds the fourth value of the IHOP heart-standards – Prophetic, or prevailing faith, as Mike Bickle has often said over the years.  To prevail in our stand for the power of God does not mean that we are free from doubt, or that we do not grow weary, but simply that the slow passage of time without the answer we seek does not extinguish our tears and prayers for God to break through.  In the end, our conviction in the mercy of Jesus and His passion to pour out His Spirit triumphs over the weakness of our own hearts and years of waiting.

For me the revelation of the Lord’s desire to release His power today and not just on the pages of history came like an avalanche as I discovered the writings of Smith Wigglesworth and John G. Lake during my college years.  At the time I did not realize how deeply my heart was being marked by the vision for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, nor was I aware of how much my motivation for His power needed to be purified and how much the desire to see signs and wonders would be tested.  Even in the ten short years that have intervened, I have found it increasingly difficult to avoid becoming calloused and to keep my heart soft and broken over our barrenness.  Zeal is cheap, but endurance is costly.  Yet through the pain of perseverance, I have gained clearer perspective on how we must contend for power from on high.  Revival does not exist to cure the chronic boredom we wrestle with nor to enlarge our churches so we can finally feel a sense of significance in the landscape of ministry.  In the Divine heart the unleashing of His miraculous might upon a city or nation is unto the glory of Christ and compassion for hurting people.  Unless our hearts are aligned with these two purposes, we will likely not prevail in our faith and if revival does come we will almost certainly be crushed by the pressure that accompanies authentic power.  God insisted upon this final heart standard in the DNA of this movement because He is so zealous for the exaltation of His Son and so filled with tenderness and mercy for the sick and the oppressed as they suffer.  These currents in His heart are just as strong now as they were when the apostles turned the world upside down in the first-century.  Let this be our confidence, and may His renown be our all-consuming aim as we stand at the crossroads.  What will we do? We will take our stand and believe God for an unprecedented breakthrough of power and the full manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in our generation.

May our faith prevail…

Last week when my wife Dana and I were returning home from some errands, she made a remarkable statement, as illustrated in the picture above. It was a statement that was humorously terrifying. She said, “Jesus is going to push the camel through the eye of the needle, and we (Americans) are the camel.” The imagery was so graphic and so personal to me because it is. Truth be known, we do not see our covetousness-driven consumerism as all that dangerous. We do not not see how deep the mire seeps into the recesses of our hearts that Jesus wants reserved for Him alone. Truthfully, we do not see our state of soul-danger as serious as Jesus does. We do not see how the allure of silver bells at the holidays drowns us in many foolish and harmful lusts (1 Tim. 6:9-10). Equally so, we too often view Jesus’ own statement on riches as too extreme, that they are deceitful and choke His word from taking root and bearing fruit in our hearts (Matt 13:22; Mk 4:19).  Jesus is going to help us in these times and cause us to feed upon that which truly satisfies, Him alone (Ps. 34:8).

I suspect that the general populous in our nation will begin to awake to reality in the Spring of 2009 (March or April) as to the real economic crisis our nation finds itself, far worse in many ways, than the Great Depression. What is currently clear to the policitcal, economic, and business leaders worldwide, will finally begin to trickle down to the masses. This will result in an oversimplistic distrust and acusation towards ‘leadership,’ some of which is legitimate.  Additionally, there will be a very unsettledness verging on  chaotic fear of the future as the IV of of greed begins to be removed from our lives. May our eyes be opened to our real sickness that has been masked by the medication of our lusts that we would fall upon the Rock and find our treasure, portion, delight, and joy in Him alone (James 5:3; Col. 2:3; John 15:11).

If you have not heard Misty sing this ‘Arms Wide Open’, do so now. It is the gospel.

I love the Hymns of Revelation. I love the songs of the saints sung before the One who sits upon the throne and the Lamb. I love the majesty, the bigness, the Mount Everestness of the music before the throne. I love to read, sing, and imagine the epic day in our future when these songs will leave our lips among the numberless multitude just prior to the Second Coming of Christ. Why do we love these songs? Why do we love what we feel in the presence of His majesty, His laud, His exultation?

Jesus is our indescribable treasure, to be feared above and enjoyed beyond all things. Oh to be behold Him seated at the right hand of the Father upon His throne. Unfortunately we see His throne more like an imaginary-land, a distant ethereal realm, a far away Narnia of sorts. Oh how we need the reality of what is happening around the throne right now to bear down upon us in truth, that the weight of His glory and worth would infiltrate our lives. Jesus is worth the same holy-restless attentiveness of our eyes as that which captures and consumes the seraphim.  Jesus, adjust our focus from us to You, transplant our center of gravity to Your heavenly abode.

Deliver us from gazing upon You as the domesticated God-of-the-American-dream, or a life-coach committed to making much of man.  Enlighten our eyes to worship Jesus, the Bridegroom King, awesome in majesty, glorious in splendor, the Lamb slain, whom angels cry ‘Holy’ and elders plunge prostrate, that we would joy in our smallness before Your majesty.

John Piper gives us some brilliant insight into why humans joy in feeling small, or rather, love majestic heights towering round about them. “Nobody goes to the Grand Canyon to increase their self-esteem…” See video:

I want to now focus on my earlier stated premise in Pt. 1 that the degree of disparity that we experience between Christmas and the End Times exposes our detachment from the glory of Christmas as well as our hope of Christ’s Coming. The disparity between these two time frames exists for many reasons, but I want to highlight only a few. First, the disparity exists simply because we have forgotten or never realized the continuity between the 1st and 2nd coming of Jesus. Christmas is the celebration of His first coming whereas the End Times celebrates His second and final coming with His kingdom to the earth forever. The dilemma has been that the End Time events, apocalypse, etc. has come to be largely devoid of the Person of Jesus in our thinking. Both of His comings are part of a larger story, thread, or stream that has been flowing since the fall in the Garden of Eden. In the remaining portion of this post, I am going to highlight and summarize the focal point of both comings as mediation. Below is a graphic representation of the unified work of Jesus at both of His Comings.

This diagram briefly summarizes that the work of Jesus in both of His comings is a mediatorial work, namely due to the fact that He is the Theanthropos, God-Man, the Mediator between God and man. Most born again believers have at least an introductory understanding of this reality in Jesus’ first Coming culminating at the cross. Jesus, as both High Priest and sacrifice, mediated (reunited,  unified, conjoined)  through His Person and work the relationship torn asunder in the Garden resulting in regeneration through the indwelling Spirit, a new creation. This is the focus of Christmas, the rejoicing of the Mediator, Immanuel come in a manger.

This by no means was the end of Jesus’ mediatorial work. It was the beginning unto fullness. He not only came to redeem us through His blood (Eph. 1:7-8; Col. 1:21-23), but is returning to gather all things together in Himself in the fullness of the dispensation of the times (End Times), both which are in heaven and on the earth (Eph. 1:9-12; Col. 1:19-20). In the process of Jesus’ literal return  to the earth and following, He will gather OUT OF HIS KINGDOM all that offends (Matt. 13:41). If the sin He came to remove at His first coming remains in people at His second, they themselves will be removed in the harvest of the wicked (Rev. 14:18-20, 20:15). Through the End Time judgments released and remitted through the Church, the earth will be progressively cleansed of unrighteousness, creation’s groan gradually liberated when the sons of God are revealed at the resurrection (Rom 8: 18-25) culminating in God dwelling with man on the glory-filled earth, yes this very earth. Much more to say, but back to Christmas : ) .

All this to say, Christmas points to the cosmic fullness of His mediation. We greatly rejoice at Christmas for our relational mediation to our great God through Christ. Let not Christmas set us back in egocentric covetousness, idleness, nor the passing pleasures of this pilgrimage. Let us press on to perfection, blamelessness, and maturity in holy conduct and godliness, hastening His final mediation, a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:11-13). Take the scroll Jesus.