Works of the Spirit of God

Reference: Grigg, V. (2005). Cry of the Urban Poor. GA, USA: Authentic Media in partnership with World Vision.

“March!” He said,
so I marched
to the beat of a different drum,
walking a long obedience,
hearing the Beloved One
as He called, “To the poor! Quickly I
a glass of juice,
a touch on the head of this child,
a laugh with this prostitute,
as sadly she tells of her trade
and her desire to walk away.
“And the faces, dead—yet alive—, the children, all spindly and pain, cleanse them, heal them, raise them,’ His cry came again and again.
“With what?” I screamed back,
across the noise of the fight,
the lonely hours of wrestling
not with prayer (so spiritual)
but with administration,
and letters to workers,
all night.
“My spirit is dry —
no laborers here —
and so poorly do I know You,
Your power seems so far away.
What can I give? How can I pray . . . ?”
Then He came. Oh! He came,
surrounding with love,
away with the pain.
His peace flooding over my spirit,
my body enwrapped once again
in Him who sustains the universe.
I lifted my feet,
on that long obedience Into Him,
who is found among the needy;
laid my hands
on the spindly bent legs of a hungry girl
and prayed, in His power, for her healing,
gave money to a blind man singing,
wept with my old drunkard unsaved.
And He came,
and I knew Him once again,
who is beyond thinking —
King of my heart.
Leader In battle.
Savior of megacities.
Lover of the migrant poor.

Do YOU KNOW HIM? Do you know his presence and peace that passes all understanding, as he comes again and again to overflow us with his love?

Evangelism with power
        Jesus came preaching and teaching the kingdom, healing the sick, casting out demons. Three of these four activities are mentioned repeatedly in various patterns throughout the gospels. He sent his disciples out to do the same. Evan­gelism was always, for Jesus, set in the context of healing the sick and delivering people from the demonic.

I have walked among the poor, dazed, knowing the im­potence of my life, as I face such a mass of destitute, dark­ened half-faces. Then, by his presence and power, he touches them, one by one. He is the transformer, and as I walk in his glory among them. He brings them hope.

Forgive me if this seems mystical, or strange. It should not, for this is the normative life of a disciple cleansed by the washing of the water of the Word.

Do you know those times of refreshing, sensing his pres­ence—sweet, like a perfume? There is no effective ministry among the poor without this knowledge of his presence. An anointing of the Spirit and dependence upon his power is the starting point for ministry to the poor (Isaiah 61:1).

The entrance point into communities is through this power. The breakthrough of the kingdom comes with preaching, teaching, healing and deliverance. It may also be accompanied by development projects or aid, but it is the Spirit that gives life, and then enables such projects to bear good fruit.

Of over a hundred churches planted among the poor, I have seen only two that came into being through the giving of aid. By itself, aid does not break open new territory for the kingdom of God, although it may create a desire for teaching because the people see Christ’s love demon­strated. It may be the godly response in many emergency and destitute situations, but we must be careful. The moti­vation to give aid can be either from God’s Spirit or from human planning.

The Spirit and a lady

We had spent time talking about how to form a worshipping, celebrating fellowship in the red-light district of Ermita in Manila. Now we were actually out on the streets, sitting in a restaurant with five of this artist’s friends—prostitutes. Only we didn’t call them that, for each was hurting inside about the past.

Her outgoing warmth had drawn them to her. While they shared laughter and jokes, the conversation would often dip down into issues of seriousness.

 “I don’t want to live this life, but what else can I do. I had nothing left, when I left my boyfriend. I had to live. I want to get out but there are no jobs. I have to pay my rent.” My family don’t know what I am doing. They think I have a good job. It is too late now. I tried to get free but it doesn’t work.”

“Only the power of God can give you meaning and freedom.”

 Five steps are essential in ministry to the squatters.

1.    Compassion (as in the person of Christ)

2.    Incarnation (presence)

3.    Intercession (prayer)

4.    Proclamation, and

5.    Power

Power is so important that it requires some extended comments. I do not know of a single church among the poor in any of the cities I have studied that has not been planted in the midst of signs of healing, deliverance, and miracles.

Anointed with authority

And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every infirmity (Matthew 10:1-2).

How do we recognize those who have this empowering with authority, this anointing with power from God in their ministries? We find it in love. Paul makes this clear by plac­ing 1 Corinthians 13, his renowned chapter on love, be­tween two chapters about spiritual gifts.

But do we look for some sign such as speaking in tongues? The Bible does not indicate that this is a neces­sary sign. While affirming that it is a useful and positive gift if used wisely, privately or publicly with an interpreter, Paul clearly states that not all speak in tongues (1 Corinthians 12:30).

Luke 4:18 shows us some things that are more readily observable in those who have been anointed by God. Each is evidence of love. Each occurs in a context of love. Anoint­ing of the Spirit is shown in a compulsion to preach. Anointing is shown in healing and deliverance. Anointing is shown in involvement with the poor. Anointing is shown in seeking justice.

When I refer to the anointing of God, I am not talking of receiving the Spirit, nor even of receiving spiritual gifts. I believe that all receive the Spirit at conversion (Romans 8:9). When he comes, he comes bearing gifts. I am talking about empowering — of the release of the power of the Spirit and his gifts that comes when we walk in love and fellowship.

The apostles were to be the anointed ones. In Matthew 10:1, they experienced his anointing when he laid his hands upon them. Similarly, God gives us special author­ity, gifts or empowering for certain tasks. He does this through delegation by elders (1 Timothy 4:14), just as the elders of Timothy’s church released Timothy into ministry with a prophecy and laid their hands upon him.

The disciples were told to wait for a deeper, more lasting experience of the Holy Spirit. “For John baptized with water,” Jesus said. “But in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5).

Some have built a doctrine of “tarrying” (waiting) on this verse. This is a specific event in the history of the church, however, and not a doctrinal statement. There is enough evidence in the Bible and in the church to believe that be­fore God anoints us for a task, he often wants us to seek him through a time of fasting, prayer and waiting. Perhaps there are issues of purification that he wants us to work through, or perhaps there are factors of intensity of desire that he wants to know about.

Hindrances to the anointing of God

All Christians receive the Spirit at conversion. Some ex­perience a great overflowing (or immersion or baptism) of the Spirit when they are converted. For others it seems never to have occurred. He may be in us, but there are blockages that have never been dealt with so that he can freely use us.

 Sin will block the work of the Spirit. Daily we need to have God cleanse and search us. For some, emotional scars from the past may be blocking the link between our emo­tions and the Spirit. When these hurts, often unknown to us, are revealed by the Holy Spirit and healed through prayer, we may have a new freedom to hear the Spirit and to walk in him. Sometimes, demonic factors from the past may not have been dealt with at conversion.

The Spirit and growth

He had been a violent son of a violent father. He had a hunger for God, and his conversion had led to changes. It was real. But one night he would be at a prayer meeting and the next night, he would be drunk. His involvement in street fighting raised tricky pastoral questions in the church. How could we discipline a believer like this? Until . . .

One night, I had been preaching on the power of God to heal. There was an atmosphere of faith, so we asked the Spirit to come and minister. He came as we waited, and fell on this violent son. Trembling under the Spirit’s power, he saw picture after picture of the traumas of childhood, the source of the violence. And God healing each hurt, each wound. Then he prayed, one by one, for the sick in the room and watched God’s power anoint them.

From that day, God took a violent man and turned him into a pastor. His father was also saved. Spirits were dealt with. People began to study the Bible. He began to preach. Today he is a pastor in training in a jail ministry.

No amount of counseling or Bible study could deal with such deep wounds. They needed the power of the Spirit of God. There can be little effective ministry among the poor without this power.

Many are hindered from a fullness of the power of the Spirit by doctrinal barriers that block their minds from re­lating to a God who is present and doing miraculous things. Others have never seen the Holy Spirit at work, so they lack models, and hence cannot discern between his works and those of other spirits, withdrawing into a fearful rejection of any spiritual phenomena whatsoever.

There is also an ebb and flow in this area of the anoint­ing of God. Sometimes Jesus had to go out for a night of prayer. Later we find the power of the Lord with him to heal. Jesus, himself, tells us that the wind blows where it wills, and we cannot tell where It comes from nor where it is going. So it is with the Spirit (John 3:8). The work of the Spirit is too diverse to be placed in theological boxes. What is important is the reality of his anointing for ministry.

Confrontations of power

John Wimber has popularized this concept using Alan Tippett’s phrase—power encounter.¹ It has come to mean the symbolic confrontations between the power of the Holy Spirit and the powers of the demonic that take place as the gospel is breaking into a community.

Power encounters between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness are particularly evident when we are on the pioneering edge of mission. They are more so among the urban poor, where even secular sociology and anthro­pology demonstrate a higher incidence of demon posses­sion.

The act of entering a squatter area is in itself a profound encounter between the two kingdoms. It is a declaration of victory over the spirits that dominate such areas. When a person enters a squatter area to live and minister, it is nor­mal for significant spiritual phenomena to occur.

Entrance phenomena vary widely. When new workers enter a community, I have seen members of their families become emotionally and mentally unstable. Other times there have been dramatic occult phenomena—violent fe­vers and sicknesses, or demons beginning to become afraid and stirring up trouble in a multitude of homes in the com­munity on the same day. Sometimes the demons cry out, telling the people that the workers have come to cause them trouble, naming workers and their home countries before workers have had the chance to introduce them­selves.

The kingdom of God invades with power. As it does, we experience the first fruits of the “powers of the age to come” (Hebrews 6:5). We have a taste of the power of that coming kingdom here in the present. It is not yet a banquet. We will feast at a banquet on the day when the rulers of this world are destroyed and the King of Kings is manifest in all his glory.

Sometimes we are surprised by these signs of the future. We find ourselves experiencing the miraculous in many dif­ferent ways. Often it is in prophetic words about the future, or in healing and deliverance from the powers of this age. Again, it may be in direct revelations from God of specific unknown situations (“words of knowledge”).

A Shepherd in the mist

It was Christmas in Calcutta. We were celebrating. I had given lights to this bustee family. As Hindu neighbors came to see the lights, we would tell them a little of the Christmas story.

I asked a 78-year-old man: “How do you know God? I mean really know God?” I knew that there were many nominal Christians who have never really known God, and I wanted to discover more about this man’s faith.

“Let me tell you a story,” he said. “Eighteen years ago, I was climbing a mountain with my baby daughter in my arms. Some mist came, and in the mist I became trapped, unable to move up or down.

“Suddenly in the mist a big man appeared, leaning on a staff. He helped me put my foot on the next step and then the next until we arrived at the top of the mountain where the rest of my family was watting. I reached into my pocket to give him two rupees for his help, but when I looked up, suddenly . . . .he was gone!”

“From that time,” he said, “I have known the Shepherd.”

God had reached into the slums and revealed himself. But nobody in the 18 years since had come to tell more about how to follow that Shepherd!

The Spirit and justice for the poor
    In the last phrase of Luke 4:18, we find Jesus speaking of bringing in an age of justice, the age of the kingdom—a time when equality will reign, when the poor will be uplifted and the rich brought low.

He had been cursed by a tribal enemy. As he died, he had a conversation with Jesus, who told him to go back to the living, for it was not his time yet. He must go and minister to the poor.

He began to pray for the sick. Lame, deaf, and blind were healed. Once, he raised a man from the dead. During a rebellion, the leaders of both sides would come to him, for he had become known as a holy man.

He encouraged the police not to fire, not to use real bullets. He encouraged negotiations. He helped develop trade unions to deal with the fundamental cause of the rebellion—the loss of the people’s ecological environment through open-caste copper mining.

 The man who knows the Spirit will often be the man whom God chooses to effect justice.

I believe that from among movements of men and women who will live among the poor, God will call some who, feeling the pain of the poor, are able to speak prophetically to those in authority. In India, only a holy man could speak in such a way, and holy men live as poor men. Incarnation among the poor is a prerequisite for this kind of prophetic role to the rich.

Notes

1. Wimber, John, Power Evangelism, San Franciso: Harper and Row, 1993

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© Viv Grigg & Urban Leadership Foundationand other materials © by various contributors & Urban Leadership Foundation,  for The Encarnacao Training Commission.  Last modified: July 2010