The Real Thing
by Rolland Baker

We talked about two models for revival in our last lesson. The first is to work hard to convince God to move. The second is to simply receive as God takes the initiative to pour out from the mighty waterfall of His spirit. In other words, we simply cooperate with God as He takes the initiative to move among us, to demonstrate His power and His great love in our midst. The second way is easier. It is the better way.

How are we going to counsel God or clue Him in on how to do things? He doesn't need our money. He doesn't need our talents, or our gifts. He uses all of that as He wills. But He is not stuck, His hands aren't tied. He's not waiting to see what evangelistic program or missionary program we can come up with. He's not watching to see what's going to happen. No, He is the real thing.

I shared about my friend Bob's experience about the waterfall in his house. It was not a gentle trickle, it washed away everything in it's path. And Bob's experience taught me something. In the kingdom of God there is absolutely no compulsion. Zero. There's no pressure, there's no push, there's no compulsion. There's no wait. Understand? We can't help what happened in Africa. It's not our fault. We are under huge pressures, we're under tremendous pressures. Anyone who visits us for a while and gets involved says "My goodness! How do you handle all of this?" John Arnott came over and said "The real miracle here, Rolland, is that you're still sane."

Paul says in the beginning of Second Corinthians, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death, but this happened that we might not rely on ourselves, but on God, who raises the dead."

And all these terrible pressures and problems that drive us to the edge of our sanity, they don't happen just to see how tough we are. They happen to teach us something. They happen to teach us to rely on the God who raises the dead, and not ourselves. When you get pressured enough, you will finally stop relying on yourself. When you get pressured enough you will probably just say "That's it! That's enough, I quit. I don't have it, I don't have what it takes. I'm not going to carry the pressure anymore. I'm not going to carry the challenge, I'm not going to be pushed or weighted down anymore, anymore, anymore." Jesus said in that very famous section of Chapter 15 of John about "I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit. Apart from Me, he can do nothing, because he's grafted in."

Now I just want to know. Who wants the real thing, so much that there is no pressure at all anymore on you? You are not trying to succeed as a Christian, you are not trying to bring revival, you are not trying to find God. You are not trying, struggling, struggling, struggling, struggling, to make it in the Christian life. You are not trying to live up to all the demands, and you're not trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, and you're not struggling to get God to do something. We think He's cold, that He is not emotional. We cry and we try to get Him to do something by our tears and by our pleading. We try to get Him to respond and do something. That's not the real thing, that's not the life I'm after. That's not faith! I couldn't live anymore. I face so many pressures in Africa, I couldn't keep doing that another 24 hours. I'd quit tomorrow and move back to Southern California. I can't do that.

The truth is the exact opposite. God has all the emotion, God has all the romance. He's got all the feelings. He's got all the ideas. He has all the power. He has all the plans. He's got the initiative. He's got the energy. He's got the life. He knows what to do. He knows what's around the corner. He's got everything it takes. We're the ones who are cold, we're the ones that are unresponsive. We're the ones that don't feel. We don't have to get Him to do anything. He's the one that's just brimming with things to do. He never gets tired, He is the one that spends time using all His power to get to you, to your heart, to conquer you. He knows how to do it. You just have to get grafted in, to connect, to get plugged in. We just have to communicate that we want the real thing. That's faith! The real thing!

Let me share an example with you.

A pilot in South Africa volunteered to help us out with a project. We had a bush conference, and everyone attending walked in from the bush. They were hungry. I mean, people haven't had a good crop in two years. They haven't had meat in a year, and we wanted to feed them all. How are you going to feed them? We wanted to give them meat, but there is no meat. We couldn't find twenty chickens in the town, so some friends in Pretoria decided to help by purchasing the chickens for us. But how are they going to get chickens all the way to Mocuba? Well, they found a pilot in South Africa who was willing to use his own plane. So they stuffed it with 500 frozen chickens -- all on one day's notice. It is not easy to find a pilot who is willing to fly to Mozambique --they hate Mozambique, they're afraid of Mozambique.

But this one pilot said he would do it. So he took out the passenger seats and stuffed his plane with chickens. It was so heavy it could barely take off. He got all his chickens to Beira, the port of entry. There was a Muslim bureaucrat at the airport. They tried hard to get all their papers in order for the boarder crossing. They've got their nine papers and all their customs forms and everything else, but they forgot one paper. And this Muslim decided to stop them in their tracks, telling them that they need one more paper, a veterinarian certificate to guarantee these chickens are safe. Never mind that the poor, starving people haven't had meat in a year. He's going to let those chickens rot in the sun rather than get them to Christians. Then the authorities wanted to throw this pilot in jail because he was short $80 on customs duty for these chickens that were donated to the starving. The poor pilot just about had it, and he refused to fly the rest of the way. He threw up his arms and said, "Send the police, whatever. I'm leaving." Then he got in his plane and flew home, leaving the chickens with the customs officials.

I had to come the next day in my plane, pay everything, and sort out everything. I had to calm down all of the immigration people, and take the chickens myself. We fed everybody in the pouring rain and the mud. They didn't know how to cook these things, it's just mud and water everywhere. We finally got some charcoal and some wire and managed to grill those chickens until midnight --and it was terrific. All over the Muslim countryside, the word spread about the chicken church. The Muslim leaders began saying "Man, this is how to do it." They came to church and they got full of the Spirit and all of that.

Later I find out more of this pilot's story. He was willing to do it, but he had full-blown AIDS, and he was very sick and feeling terrible. On top of that, his wife had just divorced him, so he was an emotional and physical wreck. But he said, "All right, my life is not mine, it belongs to God." So, he decided to do it, for the church and for the Lord. He stuck these 500 anointed chickens in his plane. The trip was frustrating for him, it felt like a failure when he had to abandon the chickens at the boarder. But he got home and God-things started to happen. The very next day, his ex-wife called him and said, "I want to get back together with you." He began feeling so good that he went back to get a check-up, and his AIDS was gone.

Was that hard work? Did he strain and pray and cry and seek and push and press? None of the above. You cannot serve the King without getting blessed. You cannot come anywhere close to Jesus without getting blessed. All you do is plug in. You just say "Here's my life." It's the real thing, it's real faith.