Manifesting Presence of the Holy Spirit

Performance

Flashing glittery stage full of light,
anticipation, spectators’ expectant delight.
Music now flowing, perfection now showing.
Or speaking a word, articulately going.

Perfection and excellence in clear view,
all while sitting idle in my pew.
No threat of sacrificial need.
No way to express my call or deed.

Comfortably hidden in the front,
or just as so in the back.
Flesh unchallenged, His Face long since gone.
My thirst bone dry, in such lack.

“We do everything with excellence”, I hear them say.
When it’s over, pat their backs and just walk away.
Walk away from the call that’s so dear,
“I wanted to love My Bride in there!”

Locked out of His own church from His deeper touch,
by people unwilling to die to what they hold fast.
Or unwilling due to fear of the unseen,
or might it be loves lost, long since past?

People starving at the expense of man’s pride.
Walking wounded, a leprous divide.
Few salvations, little change, nor evidence inside.
But then comes one with guts to turn the tide!

“I’m not sticking to the old dead ways.
See, I’ve had this vision of a River, coming neigh!
Flowing mighty from the throne of God!
Now I see, now I know, it’s time to die!

A lover that’s come to a personal end,
stands up to say, “I’m going to relinquish command.
Suddenly I see, it’s been all about me,
I repent, Oh Lord, so the blind can now see.”

The threshing floor is ready.
His knife in His hand.
He beckons us in.
He calls us to stand.

On the south side of change, it’s so hard to make.
But on the north side, when done, “that wasn’t so hard to take”.
Then suddenly is realized what we have missed.
We grieve then rejoice in this newfound fullness.

Filtering rooftops coming off the churches of this nation,
leadership has given up the reigns!
Now they’re connected to the Cornerstone foundation,
the Spirit released to bring rains.

Praise once horizontal,
suddenly shifted,
becomes worship now vertical,
intimately lifted!

Love now revealing.
People enter healing.
Power’s releasing.
Miracles unceasing.

Untimely devotion this self-death notion.
But is there ever a good time to die?
But do it we must and now is the time,
if His Eagle is ever to fly.

What once was the norm has now been discarded,
The offendable long since gone.
And performance along with it, sent out with the trash,
Father’s Church has now moved on.

T. Scott Morton