FRESH WIND, FRESH FIRE

by Jim Cymbala

with Dean Merrill

Commented by Tony Herrera, candidate for the Best Missionary in the Tony Herrera Annual Prizes

Four main principles:
1- God is attracted to our weakness

We are broken. We are in need. Always. Sometimes we won't acknowledge that until such a desperate moment that praying becomes our only resource. At that moment, the sincerity of our weakness will speak to God without barriers.

It's a shame needing such things to look for Him. God isn't only all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present, He's also all-merciful. He's waiting the moment when we toss aside all of our pride, the source of all sins. At this moment, our prayer is real, stops being a mechanical routine and recognizes that we are begging for a terribly needed help that is out of our reach to get.

2- Call on the Lord!

After the help arrives, we have the best chance of going on, restoring our relationship with God. The nation of Israel did that many times on biblical times. The modern church has also seen many revivals of our connecion with the Lord. After our weakness has called Him, we can start praying to learn, to grow ourselves, to follow His lead through the Bible and through revelation in prayer. The intimacy with God must be build, and with it, the mutual trust.

At such a time, God will put responsibilities, gifts and blessings in our hands. It's our duty to put them in good use and administer them. We see, too often, that we lose the humbleness and start feeling that we, the blessed ones, are more important than others who have gifts less recognized, or less rewarding in a material, financial time. That isn't God's plan. That kind of behaviour hurts our testimony and shows, again, our pride and hipocrisy.

It's beautifully shown in the book when Jesus enters the temple and gets angry, as the place that should be "house of prayers for all nations" is being used for merchants who make a great profit in selling the animals for the sacrifice, staining the sense of the reconciliation and gratefulness to the Lord and making a business of it. It's a strong image, and after getting the full understanding of the meaning of sacrifice, I can understand Jesus righteous anger against them.

3- Nothing new under the sun

Gospel is simple. So simple, it can be hard to believe, due to our human mindset that says that everything that is worthy must be achieved through our own effort. Didn't God Himself tell that to Adam? "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food". Then again, that was what God stablished as a consequence of man falling from God's grace. When Jesus saves us, grace is restored first thing. It's by grace that we are saved. It's by the influence of the Holy Spirit living on us, and us being accepting and close with Him, that we develop holiness. The closeness comes through prayer, the time that we actively share with God, and the Word is quite clear about that.

But then we go for the last kind of ministry, the last interpretation that let's us take an active role by ourselves. The book mentions a couple of them; rejecting generational curses and "advanced" spiritual warfare. Part of this concepts are anti biblical. Part of them are Bible-inspired, but again, that's not the same thing. Any doctrinal derivation must be rejected.

This changes on God's word aren't something new, either. Paul's letters to the Corinthians are about avoiding the corruption of the right doctrine, so we can see that this trouble existed even between the first believers. We could also think about the Pharisees laws that were added to Moses law, making impossible to discern the true God's grace behind this one. Either way, we should avoid the mistakes from the past, instead of repeating them.

4- Never stop trusting God

Eben-Ezer, "God help us up to here". The Bible signals one in special, but this "stones of promise", as it's translated, were meant to be remembrances of past victories achieved thanks to God, to strenghten and affirm the faith in later times. So, our victories don't mean "we don't need God anymore", nor even "God helped me up to here, now I can take charge". Our victories mean "God is faithful". And we should remember that before the victory, on our triumph moment, and in the future.

As I said before, the pride was and is the source of all sin. It's the old lie that says "God is a liar, He is afraid of you being independant, you don't need God, you're made in his image and likeness, so you can take charge of your fate...". Satan knows that better than us; our human nature hasn't changed since the fall and we keep believing the same stupid words.

We need to live in dependance of God. Jesus restored our relationship; let's enjoy it, rejoice in Him, share with the Lord every moment, seek for His guidance and let our heart become like His, so our desires would be on unity with those of the Holy Spirit. Then we will be able to say that Jesus is the head of the church on every moment. Do you imagine what would happen if our body, eventually, stopped following the orders of our brain and started to go around on his own?

My personal reflexion:

Prayer is amazing! We have a direct line with the Lord, the Creator of the Universe! And He is happy to receive us, He compels us to get close, trusting Him, to the throne of grace. It's the healthy place were our spiritual life can be nourished and built. This aren't new words nor arguments, but this book has made me understand it and make it a deeper part of me. I'm really thankful for this book, and I'd like to get also "Fresh Faith", from the same author.