Saturday 14 January 2017

Notes from Rolland Baker

My quick notes and impressions - not necessarily Rolland's exact words:

One of the 'toughest' things about revival is we get to "rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice".
"I don't have to be happy - and you can't make me!"

God's not gonna stop working on you 'til He can stand to live with you forever.

God likes hanging around happy people.

We could say of someone, "He's 'depression-challenged'".

You think laughter is useless? It's your biggest weapon! Laughing in the devil's face. That's faith! I can see how much faith your have by your teeth - by the expression on your face.

It doesn't really matter how much ministry and anointing or anything you have....as long as you don't enjoy God, like a little kid. You can be all spent on your own ambitions and goals, but don't waste time being intimate with Him!

I'm not talking about silly, crude, grose - I'm talking about the 'joy of the Lord'. It's what sustains you, motivates you, it's your reward. You don't survive 20 years in Mozambique without it. The critics don't survive.

What is the Christian life?

Some say "If there's a mood in a Christian that doesn't make people a servant, it's the devil." But I say if you can make people 'drunk', you can teach them anything.

We won't talk about cessationism - it's a waste of time, talking about a God Who doesn't do anything. All the other false gods do stuff. Imagine one missionary family fighting 3 million false gods without any power!

So we know God does stuff. But how does it work? Do we get good at it? Learn how to release it? Do you have to be nice to Him? Beg? Pray long and hard to get more power? Just whisper in His ear? Quote the right Scripture? Say it out loud with your tongue? Maybe tongues works better? How are we supposed to deal with this idea that God has power? Looking around the world it seems like we need some power, right? So is the idea to learn how to get His power so we can use it to fix everything?

Some criticise "the love of power" over "the power of love". But does love have any teeth? Are we just supposed to love people without being able to do anything for them?

You can tell about the dead being raised. Lengthen legs. But to make sunny Queenslanders happy? That takes power! To laugh in the face of the trouble the devil is causing you.

Does God have power? Will He use it? Under what conditions will He use it? How do we get Him to use it? What kind of power? What does it mean to be a powerful Christian?

We are more than conquerors. Conquering what? In what way? What does it mean to be powerful?

Love your enemies.

I don't know of a revival that was birthed out of people feeling comfortable. You don't want a revival that's going to disrupt your routine, with a big God telling you where to go - you want to go to a church that teaches you how to tell God what to do for you. You want to stay where the economy's good, near the beach.

Someone fellow-Arminian said, "If God's in control, He's doing a bad job of it". You ever had bad stuff happen? What is Christianity. What's going on? God can't do anything - or He can do everything. On the mission-field, neither one made sense. So what's going on?

What would make somebody love God (the first commandment)? That's His first desire - that you love Him - rather than that you just run around being amazingly supernatural.

Suppose you have an amazing spiritual gift, or just value it, does that make you love God more? We charismatics act like the gold is to get stuff and do stuff. But they are not people, a person - they're tools. Of course we need tools. What person doesn't need tools. But it's not all about tools. That's like saying "If only I had Rembrandt's brushes". It's just a tool. The tools are not the house. We spend all our time trying to get the tools, displaying the amazing power of our tools, thinking they're so amazing. Awesome - look what this jack-hammer can do. It's powerful!

Often we measure our lives and ministries by how much power we've exercised, how much anointing we've displayed, how much success we've achieved, have we got to the top, assessed our goals, gotten to where we should be at our age, what have we done because the Bible says we get rewarded for what we have done, at this age we should have got this far.

It takes a lot of experience with God to know God. You don't just take a quick course, get some hands laid on you. At the end of your life what matters is not so much what you have done, but how much you love Him at that point. Lovely thought. Haha.

It's never about how much you accomplish with power - it's always about how much you love Him.

Okay, how do you measure that, how do you get that, what does that look like?

Do we measure our Christian life by how much transformation we've achieved around us, in our town. Of course we don't want them to suffer. We don't get some joy about them staying poor. We all like prosperity. But if the point is, How much do you love God, how is that displayed, proven to the glory of God? How do you get more joy. How do you lean more to God.

An imprisoned martyr can lean more to God than an empowered minister on a stage. "That's disempowering" some say. But the real point is something not necessarily displayed by power.

Healing someone doesn't necessarily mean you love that person - you might just get a kick out of healing. It has nothing to do with love sometimes.

"Prophesy who my husband is." Let's talk about Jesus.

Real power is not just getting something physical in front of your eyes - real power is the character and strength and love that will give up what you can see to get what you cannot see, set your mind on things above not on things on the earth, realising you're a stranger and pilgrim on the earth, waiting for a kingdom not made with hands, willing to give up everything on this earth if necessary to get Jesus, to put off pleasure now for something better now, the ability to gladly give up everything without complication - that's power!

Power to have a heart that just loves God. Takes up the cross. For the joy set before you, you will follow Him. That's what the Christian life is about. It's about so much love for God that you are absolutely eager to show it and prove it. You're not running from persecution, from people that hurt you, asking God to protect you from everything, you're anxious to show that you love Him, not anxious for more anointing, for trips to show amazing things, but desiring to love Him, not being shielded from everything - this is the only time we have the chance to show how much we love Him. You don't have that chance in heaven, to show faith. Faith is the most important thing.

It's the outcome of healings we're after - not the moment itself.

Even if you don't have prosperity yet, you have joy right now, because you love Him now, so you have joy now, you can laugh now. It's amazing! To be thrilled by God. That's what the Holy Spirit's for, because we human beings can't do it, we cannot rejoice in the Lord always.

The Holy Spirit give you that love for Jesus that produces the joy of the Lord.

Sometimes you go through the fire. You don't just get transported without being singed.

Ten years ago Heidi had such amazing visions of heaven she wanted to be martyred so much. She's been shot at so many times she thought, "Aw he missed!"

But if she didn't love Him that much, we would never have survived.

So if you have problems, the issue is not, how to fix it, why is it happening - it's how much do you love Him.

Those who are forgiven much love much; those who are forgiven little love little.

It happens when things are desperate. Prosperity, blessings, gifts, success, comfort - does not necessarily make you love God more, make you happy, abundant life. God knows what will. He knows how to get you to where He wants you to be for your own good, joy, reward, eternity, future. He is in control. He knows what He's doing.

Trials produce perfection. Is that what you want - to be perfect and entire, lacking nothing.

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