Leadership (Romans 12:8): I use this gift to organize the ins and outs of ministry events and worship experiences; and to lead people to Jesus, past the fads, and to things that are good and eternal; and to counsel, encourage, and help people out of the trials they experience in life.

Distinguishing Between Spirits (1 Corinthians 12:10): I use this gift to discern what is of God and what is not to make sure that myself and those I minister to are not led astray from the Gospel.

Ok, so this one’s been a long time coming. I am just totally sick of hearing about Todd Bentley and the Lakeland Revival. I am also sick of people falling for it hook, line, and sinker- and for that, I will continue- to expose the Truth so that people would ask the Lord for discernment and begin to look to the Word of God before diving in head first into the looney bin.

My disclaimers are as they were before:

1.] I do believe in the precense of the supernatural gifts of the Spirit in the world today and that they can be used however the Lord wills. and…

2.] I do not believe that Todd Bentley means for the people he “ministers to” to be led astray. I believe Mr. Bentley has good intentions, but is being decieved by the devil in order to lead people away from Christ. His own statements have made that very clear- more on that another time.

My first post on this issue pertained to the whole locallity issue- that you have to go “there” (Florida) to get “some” (drunk off the Holy ghost). Today’s post will be discussing the problem of “evangelists” and their followers trying to Control God in their ministries.

God is soveriegn and He acts how he pleases to bring Himself glory- we cannot lead God around on a leash. We cannot put God in a box. And we cannot saddle up the Holy Spirit and direct Him wherever we want.

Sadly, many people are heading down to Lakeland becasuse they expect God to do a specific thing for them. They want to be slain in the Spirit, they want to speak in tongues, they want some holy laughter, they want to be drunk in the Spirit , they want to be healed, etc…

What about wanting to worship God simply for who He is? What about bringing glory to God and expecting nothing out of it? What about realizing that we are totally lost people incapable of restoring our relationship with God without Christ? What about telling the lost about Jesus and doing whatever possible to invite them into His Kingdom?

Sadly, this Lakeland Revival tends to be simply a Holy Huddle- a feeding frenzy of Christians out to “Get Some” of God instead of giving something back to Him.

What if God doesn’t give them what they selfishly expecte? Will they still follow Him or will they go to the next ‘thing’ that can make them feel good?

Sadly, many Christians base their Christianity on a feeling or an experience instead of on the person of Jesus Christ. You see, my relationship with Jesus is not based off of a time when I spoke in tongues. My relationship with Jesus is not based off of a time when he made me fall backwards into a ‘catchers’ arms. My relationship with Jesus is not based off of a time when shivers went up my back or when times were good in my life.

My relationship with Jesus is based on the biggest miracle of all time- that God loved me, despite my sin, so much that He would send His Son Jesus to live a life I could not live, die a death I deserve to die, raise from the grave three days later, ascend into heaven where He sits at the right hand of God the Father, who imparted to me Christ’s righteousness as a sovereign gift of grace that I recieved through faith, as my High Priest, Savior, and Lord and through His Holy Spirit is making me more and more like Him as I approach the day that I see Him face to face.

That’s it- Christ alone and Him crucified. Nothing more. Nothing less. Do I expect that God will bless me in ways I can’t imagine? Yes. Do I rejoice when times are good? Yes! Do I rejoice when God reveals to me His power through a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit? Yes! Do I rest my relationship in Him on those things? No!

Jesus told the story of a wise man who built his house upon a rock. My faith is built on the Rock of my salvation- Jesus Christ. So when the wind comes, the rain falls, and the earth quakes, I will stand firm in Christ.

Jesus also told of the story of the foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And when the forces of nature came up against it, it crumbled. Sadly, the faith of many will crumble when hard times come because their foundation has been a state of euphoria instead of Christ.

So, unlike those who rush to Utopia in Lakeland, I do not put expectations on God of what he should do in my life. I leave it to Him. I heard someone say once that God is the most untameable Creature on earth and they are so right!

The Newsboys said it best with their song Who:

“And there’s no use explaining what can’t be contained

[Chours 1:]
I’m not following a God I can lead around
I Can’t tame this deity
That’s why Jesus is the final answer
to Who I want my God to be!
He’s Who [I want my God to be...]”

Coming up next: Supernatural Doesn’t Mean Godly

Disclaimer Number 1:

Unlike many of my Christian brothers and sisters; I do believe that the supernatural Gifts of the Spirit mentioned in the New Testament are for today if used with the strict and evident guidelines set by the Apostle Paul. I will go into specific detail in a later post under my Doctrine Series 1 Posts.

Disclaimer Number 2:

I do not believe- although I could be wrong- that Todd Bentley has any intention of leading people away from Christ or leading them into an anti-Christian cult. I do ,however, believe that Satan is using Mr. Bentley and his tactics to lead people away from the sovereignty of Christ. I believe that Mr. Bentley is, although unaware of it, a wolf amongst the flock.

That being said, I believe that one of the Biblical Spiritual Gifts that I posses is Discernment (1 Corinthians 12:10). Discernment, also known as ‘distinguishing between spirits’, is the abillity to tell if God is in something or not. It is the abillity to tell right from wrong. It is the abillity to detect evil in something.

From my first observation of the Todd Bentley-Lakekand, Florida-Revival; I felt something was not right. It started out as reports of Bentley kicking people in the face to heal them and asking people to come and get drunk off the Spirit.

Then I started to read Todd’s blogs, listen to some audio of his teaching, and watching the revivals on the internet. My feeling of something not being right was confirmed. What I have seen frightens me because so many Christians are diving into what appears to be the beginning of a possible strange cult. I grieve for those who do not look to see if God is in something, but instead just want a supernatural experience.

I’ll go into this in detail over the next few weeks, but today I want to talk about the problem of Locality.

In 2 Kings Chapter 5, there is an unusual story about an Aramean named Naaman who was stricken with leprosy. He traveled to Israel to see if the god of Israel could/would heal him through the Prophet Elisha. God does heal Naaman by using Elisha and because of this healing, Naaman realizes that there is no ther god but the God of Israel and makes a promise to no longer worship any other god but Him.

This is a fascinating story with a lot of strange things taking place, but I want to focus on one particularily unusual part of the story. You see, after God reveals Himself to Naaman through the healing, Naaman makes a weird request of Elisha. He asks if he can take “two mule loads” of dirt from Israel back to his home country of Aram…in order to worship God??

It’s wonderful that Naaman had this conversion experience, but he greatly misunderstood something about God. You see, in that day and region it was common for people to associate certain gods with certain regions- like a territorial god of sorts. So even though Naaman acknowledged God as ‘the god’, he still saw God as a god who was limited to a specific region and he thought that if he could bring some dirt from Israel back home, that maybe this god would somehow follow him there.

About 900 years after this story in the same general location (Samaria), Jesus takes on this very issue. The story is found in John Chapter 4. Jesus has a controversial converstation with a Samritan woman at a well. This is also a very fascinating story with many wonderful implications, but I want to focus on one interesting segment.

The woman says,” Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” So just like Naaman, this woman associated worshipping God- and basically associated God Himself- with a specific geographic location.

Jesus then corrects her when He says,” Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. ” He then says,” But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

So Jesus clarifies that God is not a physical god who is bound by geographic boundaries- He is Spirit, He is everywhere, and can be worshipped anywhere! The Bible is clear that God is omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-12).

So what does this have to do with the Lakeland Revival? The answer: a whole lot. The unofficial slogan for this ‘revival’ has been “Get Some!” The following are two direct quotes from Bentley’s Fresh Fire Ministries home page: “So we want to invite you Sunday night and every night to watch God’s power live in Lakeland, Florida. If you can be with us, “Come get some!!!” “I invite you to come and discover what it’s like to be in His presence, what it’s like to build a personal relationship with God, what it’s like to hear God, to experience God, to move in His power, and to see His purpose wrought in your own life.“

To me this wreaks of the old “God is a regional physical god who is constrained to a geographic boundry” philosophy. It says, “you have to come here to GET SOME of God.” It says basically that,” God’s not where you are, so come GET SOME of Him where we are because we have things figured out.” It says,” God is not powerful enough to meet you where you are, so come GET SOME from us because we are better than you.” Now these were not quotes from the Bently camp, but that is the essence of what they are saying.

Bottom line? If you need God- He is there for you wherever you are and is able to save you, to heal you, and restore you. You don’t need a fancy evangelist. You don’t need to be in Florida. You don’t have to have someone say,” BAM!” You just need God- He is enough. God has made Himself available to us through the cross of Christ and we can come to Him whenever we want and wherever we are.

This “Come Get Some” slogan also grieves me because it trivializes God into a god who exists to please you, meet your needs, and do what whatever you want Him to do. My hearts desire is not to “Get Some” of God. My hearts desire is to worship God and to serve Him because He is worthy of my praise whether I have some whacky experience in the Sunshine State or not.

My trust in God is based off of His revelation to me through His Word, His creation, and His goodness. My faith in Him is solid and is based off of a person- God in the flesh- who loved me so much that He died for me on a cross 2000 years ago. It is not based on a feel good experience or a one time earthly blessing. It is built on the corner stone of Christ.

Part 2: Miracles = Good? Coming Soon.