Oswald Chamber’s November 3rd devotional titled, “A Bond-Servant of Jesus Christ,” comes from the scripture in Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” This theme of living for Christ rather than oneself has begun to transform members of University of Pennsylvania through the mighty move the Holy Spirit.
While many take respite from the college atmosphere and throng beaches to collect the summer sun, numerous young adults have found themselves in the midst of Malachi 4:2, revering the King of Glory and resting in the Sun of Righteousness that healing might arise in the city of Philadelphia.
Chambers concluded his brief excerpt with the following statement, which undoubtedly characterizes the move of God presently at work in Philadelphia:
“One student a year who hears God's call would be sufficient for God to have called this College into existence. This College as an organization is not worth anything, it is not academic; it is for nothing else but for God to help Himself to lives. Is He going to help Himself to us, or are we taken up with our conception of what we are going to be?”
Surely collective campuses, the ecumenical body and community centers alike, are no more than institutions for God to represent his transformative and redemptive nature. When God draws in faces of many nations to campuses such as Penn as well as any other academic or non-academic spaces, it should look like Acts 2. However, without laborers of Matthew 6 to tend to a harvest of Acts 2, we are met with irreverence both in and outside of the church.
Burdened by the many issues affecting both young and old, members of Penn for Jesus and Young Adult Ministers from Christ Community Church of Philadelphia (CCCP) hosted a tour headed by International House of Prayer’s (IHOP) Burn 24-7 called The Burn Wagon, on Tuesday June 22nd. The main goal of the group was corporate prayer and worship led by the Holy Spirit to engender a culture of prayer in numerous regions. We dwelt heavily on Psalm 2:8 which reads, “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession,” desiring a reconciliation between God an the city of Philadelphia.
The move of God was undeniable, as many received an overflow of the Holy Spirit and others received prophetic words. Even a member of the CCCP congregation, who was hit by a car ten years ago and used to see double out of his left eye, was healed of his impaired vision. Following the ministration, a group of us left the church near 12-midnight and headed over to Pat’s King of Steaks, since the group from IHOP never had a Philly cheese steak. Although we came for food, we soon began to pray for many people at nearby tables and the presence of God continue to go with us.
On Thursday of the same week, Penn for Jesus held the first of many corporate prayer sessions in the basement of the Meyerson Hall, the main building for University of Pennsylvania’s design school. Not many weeks later, we gathered in the basement of an apartment just a few blocks from campus; some Penn students, others Penn alumni and one, former IHOP intern, now wife of a Penn Design School PhD student. As diverse were our Penn affiliations, all the more diverse were our Christian experiences, races and ethnicities. Nevertheless, what joined us was a unified desire that the glory of the Lord to be made manifest through the revelation of the Holy Spirit on campuses, in the church body and even the community of Philadelphia. Together we are proclaiming the words of Matthew 6:10, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”
As God continues to answer our prayers, the Holy Spirit is moving mightily, building connections while bring convictions. We, therefore, cry out in the same manner of exhortation as Peter, who testified saying “Be saved from this perverse generation,” with an expectation situated in Act 2:41, that even three thousand souls might be added.
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