“And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and a report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.
And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
+ Luke 4:14–21 +
An acquaintance of mine, whose work involves the convergence of church missions and global disaster relief, recently posted online:
“Lots of talk of revival. I hope that it's happening. Because if it is, the vulnerable will tell us. - ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.’” (James 1:27)
He raises a relevant concern: That as we seek the Lord together for a fresh, enlivening and awakening movement of the Holy Spirit in our time, our work of extraordinary prayer and faithful expectation must be tethered, continually, to extraordinary discernment and faithful resemblance to Christ.
In both “The Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of God”, and “The Religious Affections”, Jonathan Edwards makes sure to say that, in his experience, no revival is “pure”. Rather, corporate experience of a broad outpouring of the Spirit unavoidably involves a mixture of influences. There will nearly always be:
1.) The divine (what the Lord God is doing),
2.) The human (impulses and influence of the flesh, immaturity, sociopolitical pressures/conflation/etc.), and
3.) The demonic (counterfeits, accusation, distortion, seeds of division, etc.)
While this clearly does not invalidate the genuineness and profound importance of seasons of revival, it does lead us to appreciate the ongoing, vital necessity of discernment in revival leadership and stewardship. As Jesus himself warns us, it is by its fruit that the true nature of a tree is revealed (Luke 6:43), and not everyone who identifies Jesus as “Lord” in word will ultimately prove to be a citizen of his Kingdom (Matthew 7:21). It is likewise true that we can and should expect that not everything declaring itself to be evidence of “revival” today will in fact be genuine, or even godly.
Bearing this in mind, a simple, broad “litmus test” that we might apply as we discern our way through spiritually tumultuous times would be this: That whenever and wherever the Kingdom comes, we can be sure that it will look like the KING.
To put it another way: There is no genuine outpouring or “encounter” WITH Christ that, brought to fruition, does not lead to an increase in our likeness - in holiness, in virtue, in love - TO Christ. The Apostle Paul warns us very clearly in 1 Corinthians 13 that any and all manner of signs and wonders and power encounters, etc. will come to nothing (or worse) if not born out of and leading into an increase of divine love, communion, and Christ-likeness.
Therefore, as we reflect on Luke 4:18 (Jesus’ choice of “inaugural” text for his own public ministry) and consider countless other examples of our Lord’s deep and abiding concern for the poor, the weak, the outcast, the downtrodden and vulnerable, this is something which must inform our spiritual discernment in revival leadership. Namely: if JESUS comes to proclaim and embody good news to the poor, then it ought to follow that an outpouring of the SPIRIT of Jesus will ALSO come to them as good news! The Kingdom resembles the King. And King Jesus is Good News to the vulnerable, the weak, the stigmatized, and the poor.
“Beware of false prophets” Jesus says, “You will recognize them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:15) Likewise, let us be discerning, and beware of any so-called “revival” that does not bear the fruit of increasing Christ-likeness. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, the virtues of the Lord are increasingly manifest: humility, confession and repentance, forgiveness, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, generosity and self-giving, holy love…
May outpouring of the Spirit of Jesus in our day transform and lead us into becoming ever more the people of Jesus, that the Good News of Jesus - including, specifically, to the poor and vulnerable - might be revived and increasingly embodied in our midst! Wherever it is that the orphaned and weak, the captive and oppressed have the freedom of Christ proclaimed and offered to them in their distress, we may know truly that the Spirit of the Lord is present, there.