Allow the fire of this current season to refine you and your message.

When I met Sujo John, the man on Charisma’s cover this month, I had already heard his amazing testimony of surviving 9/11. But when he shared his gripping story with me face to face in 2006, it was as if he still carried the smell of smoke from those burning skyscrapers. Until I heard about his

experience, the tragedy was just an event I had watched on TV. But when he told me about his narrow escape from the World Trade Center North Tower, and how he led victims to Jesus before they died, I realized how God’s mercy was at work under all that melted steel and crushed concrete.

On that dark day, God plucked a young Indian immigrant out of the flames and commissioned him to be an evangelist. I believe Sujo’s story carries a profound message for us all.

Sujo had been pursuing the American dream of wealth and success, but on 9/11 he made a major life adjustment. Everything changed when he heard the screams of dying people. Suddenly, in the light of eternity, his materialistic goals seemed pitifully shallow. Amid the coughing, the sirens, the unanswered cell phones and the mangled bodies, Sujo pledged to spend the rest of his life reaching people who don’t know Christ.

We all need to make that decision.

I wish I could say that 9/11 woke up America. It is true that church attendance spiked for a few weeks after the tragedy. Now, eight years after the wake-up call sounded, we seem as arrogant and distracted as ever—in spite of the worst economic recession in decades.

The saddest part is that God’s people did not learn the lesson of 9/11. Most of our churches today are still lukewarm and anemic. Our testimony is tarnished because of moral failures among our leaders. Our gospel is cheap.

We’ve abandoned the message of the cross and replaced it with the tasteless pablum of pep talks and motivational seminars. We focus on what is marketable to the masses and how we can cash in now on God’s blessings while people perish around us.

The urgency of evangelism has become a foreign concept. Will it take another 9/11 to jolt us into reality?

More than 100 years ago British revivalist Charles Spurgeon sounded an alarm to an apathetic church in his country. He told them that the chief object of glorifying God was winning souls. His cry was fervent: “We must see souls born unto God. If we do not, our cry should be that of Rachel: ‘Give me children, or I die.’”

I am sorry this is not the burden of the American church. We major on minors and preach to the choir, but we have all but forgotten our core message. We must reclaim it out of the fire like my friend Sujo did on 9/11. Perhaps we need to be reminded of the basics of the gospel:

Human beings are sinners. The depravity of man is not a popular doctrine in this selfish age. Tolerance has become the supreme virtue. But people have to be convinced they are filthy before they can see the need for a Savior to wash them clean.

God is just, and He judges sin. When was the last time you heard a sermon about eternal punishment? The soft-sell approach has become the norm. We dare not offend anybody, especially by mentioning that hell is a real place. So we rob the gospel of its power by removing the threat of punishment.

God’s love is revealed in Jesus. It was the essence of love for the Father to give His Son for us. We cannot fathom the depths of that love, but we must try to convey it to a love-starved world.

Jesus provided full atonement. Many people don’t respond to our appeals for salvation because we don’t fully explain what Jesus did on the cross. We have to make it clear! Salvation is available because Christ did all the work of redemption and said, “It is finished.” We can’t earn forgiveness, but by simply trusting in His finished work we can receive it freely.

The only hope for our country is a wave of mass conversions. Please ask God to break your heart for lost souls. Allow the fire of this current season to refine you and your message. Let’s stop preaching fluff and reclaim the true gospel.

Read J. LEE GRADY’s weekly online column at fireinmybones.com. Or follow him on Twitter at leegrady.

Spending time last week with a persecuted Christian brother ruined me forever.

I can’t reveal my new Pakistani friend’s name, even though he gave me permission to use it. I could never live with myself if he died because of something I wrote, but he wants the world to know his amazing story. So I’ll just call him Saleem.

I met this young church leader last weekend during a missions conference in a northeastern state. The same day we met, Islamic radicals were burning Christian houses to the ground in Gojra, an area not far from Saleem’s city. So far, the body count in Gojra has been estimated to be as high as 20, and 19 others were injured when masked militants associated with the Taliban attacked a peaceful Christian settlement.

Last week’s violence flared after a Christian was accused of desecrating a copy of the Quran. One of Saleem’s friends was severely wounded. This happens often in Pakistan, where so-called blasphemy laws make it a capital offense to tear a page of the Islamic holy book or to insult the name of Muhammad. Right now, a 4-year-old girl is waiting in a prison cell to be executed for damaging a Quran.

“The Muslims hate us,” Saleem told me. “But Christians are protesting the Islamic violence. We are peaceful.”

Saleem lifted up his sleeve and showed me two scars near his elbow and wrist. They mark where a bullet passed through one end of his arm to the other when Islamic militants shot him in the city of Lahore in 2005. If you take a close look at Saleem’s scalp, under his thick black hair, you will find many scars from where he was beaten on the head with sticks.

“Many members of my church have been put in jail because of these ‘blasphemy’ laws,” Saleem said—noting that the charges were false. Saleem receives untraceable text messages almost every day from Taliban members threatening to kill him.

Islamic militants are upset because Christianity is growing more rapidly in Pakistan than anyone in government will admit. Official statistics say Pakistan is 2 percent Christian. Saleem claims the figure is much higher. He says many former Muslims won’t state their religion in surveys because they fear reprisals from radical Islamists-and because Christians are denied jobs and forced to live in ghettos.

Although Saleem leads a network of 900 house churches in his city (with an average membership of 200 each), he is not a wealthy man. He and his wife and son share a small house with six other family members. There are bullet holes in their front gate. They keep a water buffalo nearby and sell its milk to make extra money.

Miracles have followed this young pastor, who began directing his church network in 1997. In May 2008, a Muslim man brought his dead 6-year-old son to an evangelistic meeting. Said Saleem: “I saw the fire of God on that child and he was revived. It was the presence of God. It wasn’t me. The doctor stood in the meeting and gave a report. He said the child had been dead.”

In most of Saleem’s outdoor meetings, up to 80 percent of the audience is Muslim. Huge numbers of them are converted to Christ when they see displays of God’s miracle power. “We have seen blind eyes opened, the paralyzed walk, deaf ears opened,” he said. “We see people get out of wheelchairs. We see many miracles in Jesus’ name.”

Saleem added that Presbyterian Christians in his country are totally open to the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit: “The Presbyterians speak in tongues. They believe in miracles. They believe that without the Holy Spirit we cannot preach and teach.”

It is one thing to read about persecuted Christians. It was quite another experience to eat several meals with this brother, listen to him pray in Urdu and look at the brand marks on his body. Two days with Saleem forced me to do a reality check.

I realized I’ve been complaining in my heart in recent days about trivial things—the price of gasoline, the sour economy and the slowness of some Internet connections. Now I feel ridiculous. I’ve repented for my ungrateful attitude. I’m going to start each day remembering Saleem and the millions like him who suffer joyfully for Christ.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady. If you would like to help Saleem rescue children from forced labor in Pakistan’s factories, send tax-deductible donations to Christian Life Missions here.

Confusion over the real meaning of “headship” often leads to marital conflict, but the Bible doesn’t give husbands the right to be tyrants.

As a Bible-believing Christian, Mike* was the spiritual leader of his home. He believed that in order to be a faithful man of God he must always “be in charge.” His wife, Jill*, and their four children graciously submitted to his authority.

Mike insisted on controlling every aspect of home life. Jill was not allowed to handle any aspect of the family finances.

Jill felt God wouldn’t be pleased if she didn’t respect Mike’s headship, so she eventually became numb to her husband’s demands. Mike was never physically abusive, but his constant criticism made Jill feel like a worthless spiritual zombie.

It all erupted one day when their 5-year-old son, Tyler*, got the flu. Usually Mike and Jill tried natural remedies before seeing a doctor, but in this instance Tyler didn’t seem to be responding to the natural products. After he’d had a high fever for several days, Jill took the boy to the doctor, who told her Tyler had a respiratory infection that required antibiotics.

Jill had a prescription filled and intended to give a dose to Tyler immediately. But when Mike learned about the doctor’s report, he told Jill not to give Tyler the medicine.

No matter how much Jill pleaded, he refused—saying that the antibiotics might have negative side effects. Jill was so concerned for her son’s safety that she threatened to give the medicine to Tyler anyway. Mike then shot back: “I am the head of this house! You have to do what I say!”

Jill felt she’d been pushed into a corner by her husband’s ironclad demands. Finally she placed the matter in God’s hands.

The next morning Tyler was so sick he couldn’t get up to the table to eat. Jill was desperate and dared to express her concerns. “Is it right to withhold something from him that you know will alleviate his symptoms and help him get well?” she asked.

Mike finally gave in. Within 24 hours Tyler had improved, and in only a few days he was well.

Mike and Jill, meanwhile, were nursing the wounds that had resulted from this quarrel. Mike’s pride was hurt because he felt his leadership had been challenged.

Jill felt exhausted from having to push so hard to help her son. Their marriage was frayed in the process—and they eventually had to seek counseling.

These kinds of disagreements occur in Christian homes every day. In many cases, husbands and wives who argue over an issue agree to sit down, listen to each other, try to understand the other spouse’s perspective and then decide on a resolution. That’s the way conflict management is supposed to work.

But domestic strife can’t be resolved if the husband believes: (1) that he is always right; (2) that it is wrong for him to defer to his wife; or (3) that his masculinity is weakened if he admits a mistake. If he believes all three of these fallacies, he qualifies as a first-degree tyrant.

Patriarchs Don’t Live Here Anymore
When I preach about gender equality in the church, many women come to me and say, “But I have been taught that my husband is the priest of the home.” I challenge them to look up that phrase in the Bible. Show me one scripture that says husbands should serve as priests for their wives!

Many Christian traditionalists maintain that women should live in the background and allow their husbands to represent them to the church and to God. They also teach that the husband is responsible for the wife’s behavior, as if she were some kind of puppet on a string whom he must manipulate.

They have the audacity to use this unbiblical concept of the priestly husband to justify abusive, authoritarian behavior. This is emotionally crippling to women—and it is heresy!

The Bible tells us that under the old covenant, before the redemptive work of Christ and the advent of the Holy Spirit, God dealt with men through priests. But now that Jesus has secured our access into the presence of God, we all have been qualified to be priests unto God.

Peter says we are part of a “royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9, NKJV). He does not say that this priesthood is exclusively male or that it refers to husbands. There is no reference to gender because “there is neither male nor female…in Christ” (Gal. 3:28).

Women have been clothed with the priestly garments of holiness, and they have been commissioned to exercise His authority. No husband has the biblical right to stand in his wife’s way, and no wife should use “male headship” to excuse herself from fulfilling God’s call on her life.

“Headship” is another popular word thrown around in conservative religious circles. Many Christian men believe their spirituality is measured by the level of control they exert over their wives through “male headship.”

These guys think they are being “real men of God” if they refuse to listen to their wives’ counsel. Where did we get the idea that an authoritarian style of leadership is even remotely Christlike?

The rigid view of the Christian family says that men have been placed in the God-ordained role of full-time boss. The husband’s role, according to the conservative religious model, is to lead and protect his wife, while her role is to trust him and submit to his authority at all times without question. Since he is supposedly smarter, stronger and more spiritually capable, the woman has no option but to accept this arrangement.

This view has been derived by misreading the words of Paul in Ephesians 5:23–24: “For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

We must remember that at the time Paul penned these words (probably A.D. 60), women had no rights and were viewed as the property of either their fathers or their husbands. In Ephesus during New Testament times, a man’s idea of “ruling the family” was to keep his wife shut away in the house to do backbreaking chores, tend the family farm, provide sexual gratification and bear as many children as possible.

If she died in childbirth, he found another wife. If she didn’t please him in bed, he paid a younger woman outside the home to meet his sexual needs. If his wife shamed him, he beat her.

Historian Ruth Tucker notes that in ancient Greek society, most men considered their homebound wives boring—so they typically sought the companionship of heterae, or professional female escorts. Yet when Paul introduced the Christian message to the Ephesians, he came with a radically new model of family that went to the very core of what was wrong with the world: “Husbands, love your wives” (Eph. 5:25).

Perhaps we don’t realize what a revolutionary concept these four words were in the first century! It was even more radical when Paul told the men of Ephesus to love their wives “as their own bodies” (v. 28).

This meant that men and women were equals. It meant that Christian men would have to break out of their pagan Middle Eastern mind-set and stop looking down on the wives as if they were brainless, inferior animals. Paul’s simple words shattered gender prejudice at its core.

And when Paul told the men to love their wives “as Christ also loved the church” (v. 25), he implied something even more revolutionary: Women are just as deserving of the grace of God as men are. We find in these tender verses the bedrock foundation for the Christian idea of gender equality.

Two Kinds of Christian Husbands
Paul’s words to the Ephesians blatantly contradicted the worldly philosophy of the ancient world, which taught that men and women live in two different social strata. In the kingdom of God, Paul declared, men don’t beat their wives, rule their homes like despots or threaten divorce as a means to manipulate or control. In God’s kingdom, husbands treat their wives with respect—yes, even as equals.

Paul was declaring in this passage that men are no longer “over” women. Husbands can no longer dominate their wives or treat them like chattel.

Now that Jesus Christ has come, the curse of male domination over females that began in the Garden of Eden has been broken. Women have been restored to a place of respect and dignity! This was good news for the women of Ephesus; it is good news for all women today.

But if this is true, then why does Paul still say the husband should function as the “head” of his wife? (See Eph. 5:23.) Does this not give him the right to dominate her? That depends on whether we want a Christian model of leadership or a worldly one.

The husband does function as a leader. But the gospel of Jesus Christ—who was the ultimate example of the compassionate “servant leader”—does not allow men to impose leadership in an authoritarian way, nor can men view their role as “head” as part of a God-sanctioned hierarchy that places them over their wives to domineer them or to deny their rights.

Ephesians 5 is not about hierarchy; it is about equality. But if we read Paul’s words through a warped lens, it’s easy to impose our own misconceptions about male-female relationships on the text. That’s why we need the Holy Spirit to help us when we read the Scriptures.

Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, in her book, Good News for Women (Baker), explains that there are really two kinds of male headship from which to choose. One is what she calls “life-giving headship,” which was instituted by God in the Garden of Eden when He took Eve out of Adam’s side.

The opposing model is what she refers to as “ruling headship,” which began with the fall, when man and woman came under the curse of sin. Christian men today often view ruling headship as the godly way to lead a family—but it is the wrong model.

Writes Groothuis: “The biblical headship of the husband described in Ephesians 5 is redemptive, in that it mitigates the effect of the fall which places the woman under male rule, and it helps to reinstate woman in her creational place of cultural responsibility alongside man. In life-giving headship, the social privilege and power of maleness is shared by the husband with the wife, and utilized by him according to the terms of love rather than of male conquest and demand.”

Some Christian husbands have made a lifestyle out of being benevolent dictators—and they quote portions of Ephesians 5 to defend their behavior. Tragically, many women have embraced the idea of being Christian doormats, and they have made their subservience such a part of their identity as women that it has become a place of security for them that they cannot abandon.

I pray you will not let a false concept of “male headship” stop you from fulfilling your high calling in Christ.

*Not their real names

J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma and author of 10 Lies the Church Tells Women (Charisma House), from which this article is adapted. He and his wife, Deborah, have been married for more than 25 years.

Confusion over the real meaning of “headship” often leads to marital conflict, but the Bible doesn’t give husbands the right to be tyrants.

As a Bible-believing Christian, Mike was the spiritual leader of his home. He believed that in order to be a faithful man of God he must always “be in charge.” His wife, Jill, and their four children graciously submitted to his authority.

Mike insisted on controlling every aspect of home life. Jill was not allowed to handle any aspect of the family finances.

Jill felt God wouldn’t be pleased if she didn’t respect Mike’s headship, so she eventually became numb to her husband’s demands. Mike was never physically abusive, but his constant criticism made Jill feel like a worthless spiritual zombie.

It all erupted one day when their 5-year-old son, Tyler*, got the flu. Usually Mike and Jill tried natural remedies before seeing a doctor, but in this instance Tyler didn’t seem to be responding to the natural products. After he’d had a high fever for several days, Jill took the boy to the doctor, who told her Tyler had a respiratory infection that required antibiotics.

Jill had a prescription filled and intended to give a dose to Tyler immediately. But when Mike learned about the doctor’s report, he told Jill not to give Tyler the medicine.

No matter how much Jill pleaded, he refused—saying that the antibiotics might have negative side effects. Jill was so concerned for her son’s safety that she threatened to give the medicine to Tyler anyway. Mike then shot back: “I am the head of this house! You have to do what I say!”

Jill felt she’d been pushed into a corner by her husband’s ironclad demands. Finally she placed the matter in God’s hands.

The next morning Tyler was so sick he couldn’t get up to the table to eat. Jill was desperate and dared to express her concerns. “Is it right to withhold something from him that you know will alleviate his symptoms and help him get well?” she asked.

Mike finally gave in. Within 24 hours Tyler had improved, and in only a few days he was well.

Mike and Jill, meanwhile, were nursing the wounds that had resulted from this quarrel. Mike’s pride was hurt because he felt his leadership had been challenged.

Jill felt exhausted from having to push so hard to help her son. Their marriage was frayed in the process—and they eventually had to seek counseling.

These kinds of disagreements occur in Christian homes every day. In many cases, husbands and wives who argue over an issue agree to sit down, listen to each other, try to understand the other spouse’s perspective and then decide on a resolution. That’s the way conflict management is supposed to work.

But domestic strife can’t be resolved if the husband believes: (1) that he is always right; (2) that it is wrong for him to defer to his wife; or (3) that his masculinity is weakened if he admits a mistake. If he believes all three of these fallacies, he qualifies as a first-degree tyrant.

Patriarchs Don’t Live Here Anymore

When I preach about gender equality in the church, many women come to me and say, “But I have been taught that my husband is the priest of the home.” I challenge them to look up that phrase in the Bible. Show me one scripture that says husbands should serve as priests for their wives!

Many Christian traditionalists maintain that women should live in the background and allow their husbands to represent them to the church and to God. They also teach that the husband is responsible for the wife’s behavior, as if she were some kind of puppet on a string whom he must manipulate.

They have the audacity to use this unbiblical concept of the priestly husband to justify abusive, authoritarian behavior. This is emotionally crippling to women—and it is heresy!

The Bible tells us that under the old covenant, before the redemptive work of Christ and the advent of the Holy Spirit, God dealt with men through priests. But now that Jesus has secured our access into the presence of God, we all have been qualified to be priests unto God.

Peter says we are part of a “royal priesthood” (1 Pet. 2:9, NKJV). He does not say that this priesthood is exclusively male or that it refers to husbands. There is no reference to gender because “there is neither male nor female…in Christ” (Gal. 3:28).

Women have been clothed with the priestly garments of holiness, and they have been commissioned to exercise His authority. No husband has the biblical right to stand in his wife’s way, and no wife should use “male headship” to excuse herself from fulfilling God’s call on her life.

“Headship” is another popular word thrown around in conservative religious circles. Many Christian men believe their spirituality is measured by the level of control they exert over their wives through “male headship.”

These guys think they are being “real men of God” if they refuse to listen to their wives’ counsel. Where did we get the idea that an authoritarian style of leadership is even remotely Christlike?

The rigid view of the Christian family says that men have been placed in the God-ordained role of full-time boss. The husband’s role, according to the conservative religious model, is to lead and protect his wife, while her role is to trust him and submit to his authority at all times without question. Since he is supposedly smarter, stronger and more spiritually capable, the woman has no option but to accept this arrangement.

This view has been derived by misreading the words of Paul in Ephesians 5:23–24: “For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

We must remember that at the time Paul penned these words (probably A.D. 60), women had no rights and were viewed as the property of either their fathers or their husbands. In Ephesus during New Testament times, a man’s idea of “ruling the family” was to keep his wife shut away in the house to do backbreaking chores, tend the family farm, provide sexual gratification and bear as many children as possible.

If she died in childbirth, he found another wife. If she didn’t please him in bed, he paid a younger woman outside the home to meet his sexual needs. If his wife shamed him, he beat her.

Historian Ruth Tucker notes that in ancient Greek society, most men considered their homebound wives boring—so they typically sought the companionship of heterae, or professional female escorts. Yet when Paul introduced the Christian message to the Ephesians, he came with a radically new model of family that went to the very core of what was wrong with the world: “Husbands, love your wives” (Eph. 5:25).

Perhaps we don’t realize what a revolutionary concept these four words were in the first century! It was even more radical when Paul told the men of Ephesus to love their wives “as their own bodies” (v. 28).

This meant that men and women were equals. It meant that Christian men would have to break out of their pagan Middle Eastern mind-set and stop looking down on the wives as if they were brainless, inferior animals. Paul’s simple words shattered gender prejudice at its core.

And when Paul told the men to love their wives “as Christ also loved the church” (v. 25), he implied something even more revolutionary: Women are just as deserving of the grace of God as men are. We find in these tender verses the bedrock foundation for the Christian idea of gender equality.

Two Kinds of Christian Husbands

Paul’s words to the Ephesians blatantly contradicted the worldly philosophy of the ancient world, which taught that men and women live in two different social strata. In the kingdom of God, Paul declared, men don’t beat their wives, rule their homes like despots or threaten divorce as a means to manipulate or control. In God’s kingdom, husbands treat their wives with respect—yes, even as equals.

Paul was declaring in this passage that men are no longer “over” women. Husbands can no longer dominate their wives or treat them like chattel.

Now that Jesus Christ has come, the curse of male domination over females that began in the Garden of Eden has been broken. Women have been restored to a place of respect and dignity! This was good news for the women of Ephesus; it is good news for all women today.

But if this is true, then why does Paul still say the husband should function as the “head” of his wife? (See Eph. 5:23.) Does this not give him the right to dominate her? That depends on whether we want a Christian model of leadership or a worldly one.

The husband does function as a leader. But the gospel of Jesus Christ—who was the ultimate example of the compassionate “servant leader”—does not allow men to impose leadership in an authoritarian way, nor can men view their role as “head” as part of a God-sanctioned hierarchy that places them over their wives to domineer them or to deny their rights.

Ephesians 5 is not about hierarchy; it is about equality. But if we read Paul’s words through a warped lens, it’s easy to impose our own misconceptions about male-female relationships on the text. That’s why we need the Holy Spirit to help us when we read the Scriptures.

Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, in her book, Good News for Women (Baker), explains that there are really two kinds of male headship from which to choose. One is what she calls “life-giving headship,” which was instituted by God in the Garden of Eden when He took Eve out of Adam’s side.

The opposing model is what she refers to as “ruling headship,” which began with the fall, when man and woman came under the curse of sin. Christian men today often view ruling headship as the godly way to lead a family—but it is the wrong model.

Writes Groothuis: “The biblical headship of the husband described in Ephesians 5 is redemptive, in that it mitigates the effect of the fall which places the woman under male rule, and it helps to reinstate woman in her creational place of cultural responsibility alongside man. In life-giving headship, the social privilege and power of maleness is shared by the husband with the wife, and utilized by him according to the terms of love rather than of male conquest and demand.”

Some Christian husbands have made a lifestyle out of being benevolent dictators—and they quote portions of Ephesians 5 to defend their behavior. Tragically, many women have embraced the idea of being Christian doormats, and they have made their subservience such a part of their identity as women that it has become a place of security for them that they cannot abandon.

I pray you will not let a false concept of “male headship” stop you from fulfilling your high calling in Christ.

J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma and author of 10 Lies the Church Tells Women (Charisma House), from which this article is adapted. This April he and his wife, Deborah, celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.

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We often pray for more of the Holy Spirit’s anointing. But if God gives you His power, will you actually use it?

A few years ago the Lord challenged me about my level of spiritual hunger. He showed me that even though I had stood in many prayer lines and repeatedly sung the words, “Lord, I want more of You,” I wasn’t as passionate for Him as I thought I was.

In 1999 my church sponsored a conference on the Holy Spirit. At the close of one service I was lying on the floor near the altar asking God for another touch of His power. Several other people were kneeling at the communion rail and praying quietly for each other.

Suddenly I began to have a vision. In my mind I could see a large pipeline, at least eight feet in diameter. I was looking at it from the inside, and I could see a shallow stream of golden liquid flowing at the bottom. The oil in the giant pipe was only a few inches deep.

I began a conversation with the Lord.

“What are You showing me?” I asked.

“This is the flow of the Holy Spirit in your life,” He answered.

It was not an encouraging picture; it was pitiful! The capacity of the pipeline was huge—enough to convey tons of oil. Yet only a trickle was evident.

Then I noticed something else: Several large valves were lined up along the sides of the pipeline, and each of them was shut.

I wanted to ask the Lord why there was so little oil in my life. Instead I asked: “What are those valves, and why are they closed?”

His answer stunned me. “Those represent the times when you said no. Why should I increase the level of anointing if you aren’t available to use it?”

The words stung. When had I said no to God? I was overcome with emotion and began to repent. I recalled different excuses I had made and limitations I had placed on how He could use me.

I had told Him that I didn’t want to be in front of crowds because I wasn’t a good speaker. I had told Him that if I couldn’t preach like T.D. Jakes does, then I didn’t want to speak at all. I had told Him that I didn’t want to address certain issues or go certain places. I had placed so many cumbersome conditions on my obedience.

After a while I began to see something else in my spirit. It was a huge crowd of African men, assembled as if they were in a large arena. And I saw myself preaching to them.

Nobody had ever asked me to minister in Africa, but I knew at that moment I needed to surrender my will. All I could think to say was the prayer of Isaiah: “Here am I, Lord, send me.” (Isa. 6:8). I told God I would go anywhere and say anything He asked. I laid my insecurities, fears and inhibitions on the altar.

Three years later I stood at a pulpit inside a sports arena in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. As I addressed a crowd of 8,000 pastors who had assembled there for a training conference, I remembered seeing their faces in that vision. And I realized that God had opened a new valve in my life that day in 1999. Because I had said yes, He had increased the flow of His oil so that it could reach thousands.

Many of us have a habit of asking for more of God’s power and anointing. But what do we use it for? He doesn’t send it just to make us feel good.

We love to go to the altar for a touch from God. We love the goose bumps, the shaking, the emotion of the moment. We love to fall on the floor and experience one filling after another. But I am afraid some of us are soaking up the anointing but not giving it away. Our charismatic experience has become inward and selfish. We get up off the floor and live like we want to.

Pentecost is not a party. If we truly want to be empowered we must offer God an unqualified yes. We must crucify every no. We must become a conduit to reach others; not a reservoir with no outlet.

Search your own heart today and see if there are any closed valves in your pipeline. As you surrender them, the locked channels will open and His oil will flow out to a world that craves to know He is real.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at LeeGrady. He will be speaking at the Embrace ’09 Women’s Conference in Blackshear, Georgia, Aug. 14-15. For information go to crosswaychurch.com and click on Embrace ’09.

Legalistic religion is dangerous. Here’s how you can detect and avoid the poison of a religious spirit. Take our test by examining these eight characteristics of a religious spirit.

1. A religious spirit views God as a cold, harsh, distant taskmaster rather than an approachable, loving Father. When we base our relationship with God on our ability to perform spiritual duties, we deny the power of grace. God does not love us because we pray, read our Bibles, attend church or witness, yet millions of Christians think God is mad if they don’t perform these and other duties perfectly. As a result they struggle to find true intimacy with Jesus.

2. A religious spirit places emphasis on doing outward things to show others that God accepts him. We deceive ourselves into believing that we can win God’s approval through a religious dress code, certain spiritual disciplines, particular music styles or even doctrinal positions.

3. A religious spirit develops traditions and formulas to accomplish spiritual goals. We trust in our liturgies, denominational policies or man-made programs to obtain results that only God alone can give.

4. A religious spirit becomes joyless, cynical and hypercritical. This can turn a home or a church completely sour. Then, whenever genuine joy and love are expressed, this becomes a threat to those who have lost the simplicity of true faith.

5. A religious spirit becomes prideful and isolated, thinking that his righteousness is special and that he cannot associate with other believers who have different standards. Churches that allow these attitudes become elitist and dangerously vulnerable to deception or cult-like practices.

6. A religious spirit develops a harsh, judgmental attitude toward sinners, yet those who ingest this poison typically struggle with sinful habits that they cannot admit to anyone else. Religious people rarely interact with nonbelievers because they don’t want their own superior morals to be tainted by them.

7. A religious spirit rejects progressive revelation and refuses to embrace change. This is why many churches become irrelevant to society. They become so focused on what God did 50 years ago that they become stuck in a time warp and cannot move forward when the Holy Spirit begins to open new understanding. When religious groups refuse to shift with God’s new directives, they become “old wineskins” and God must find more flexible vessels that are willing to implement change.

8. A religious spirit persecutes those who disagree with his self-righteous views and becomes angry whenever the message of grace threatens to undermine his religiosity. An angry religious person will use gossip and slander to assassinate other peoples’ character and may even use violence to prove his point. Jesus, in fact, warned His disciples: “There will even come a time when anyone who kills you will think he’s doing God a favor” (John 16:2, The Message).

If the poison of religion has contaminated your walk with God, ask Him to pour a fresh understanding of His grace into your barren spirit—and then expect His new life to flow through you.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady.

Legalistic religion is dangerous. Here’s how you can detect and avoid the poison of a religious spirit.

After Elisha watched Elijah ascend into heaven, the prophet went to the city of Jericho and performed his first miracle. The men of that city faced an environmental crisis: Their water was toxic, most likely because of the sulphur and other chemicals that had rained down upon nearby Sodom and Gomorrah years earlier. This poison had made the land barren (see 2 Kings 2:19-22) and it was probably affecting people and animals as well as plant life.

So Elisha performed a bold, prophetic act. He threw salt in the water and proclaimed: “Thus says the Lord, ‘I have purified these waters; there shall not be from there death or unfruitfulness any longer'” (v. 21, NASB). His proclamation brought immediate cleansing.

This obscure story in the Old Testament offers us a picture of the gospel’s power. The message of Jesus Christ heals us. The Holy Spirit brings life where death has reigned. He neutralizes the poisons that cause spiritual barrenness. He balances the pH level so that spiritual growth and vitality is possible.

All of us would like to enjoy a healthy spiritual life. But the sad truth is that many of us are barren because of hazardous additives. We have believed a different gospel—one laced with legalism, performance-based religion and salvation by works—when Christ alone is our only source of life.

Jesus Himself referred to these toxins as “the leaven of the Pharisees” (Luke 12:1, NASB). He told us that the Pharisees’ brand of religion, which looked good on the outside, was deadly—and contagious.

Have you been infected? You can take your own pH test by examining these eight characteristics of a religious spirit.

1. A religious spirit views God as a cold, harsh, distant taskmaster rather than an approachable, loving Father. When we base our relationship with God on our ability to perform spiritual duties, we deny the power of grace. God does not love us because we pray, read our Bibles, attend church or witness, yet millions of Christians think God is mad if they don’t perform these and other duties perfectly. As a result they struggle to find true intimacy with Jesus.

2. A religious spirit places emphasis on doing outward things to show others that God accepts him. We deceive ourselves into believing that we can win God’s approval through a religious dress code, certain spiritual disciplines, particular music styles or even doctrinal positions.

3. A religious spirit develops traditions and formulas to accomplish spiritual goals. We trust in our liturgies, denominational policies or man-made programs to obtain results that only God alone can give.

4. A religious spirit becomes joyless, cynical and hypercritical. This can turn a home or a church completely sour. Then, whenever genuine joy and love are expressed, this becomes a threat to those who have lost the simplicity of true faith.

5. A religious spirit becomes prideful and isolated, thinking that his righteousness is special and that he cannot associate with other believers who have different standards. Churches that allow these attitudes become elitist and dangerously vulnerable to deception or cult-like practices.

6. A religious spirit develops a harsh, judgmental attitude toward sinners, yet those who ingest this poison typically struggle with sinful habits that they cannot admit to anyone else. Religious people rarely interact with nonbelievers because they don’t want their own superior morals to be tainted by them.

7. A religious spirit rejects progressive revelation and refuses to embrace change. This is why many churches become irrelevant to society. They become so focused on what God did 50 years ago that they become stuck in a time warp and cannot move forward when the Holy Spirit begins to open new understanding. When religious groups refuse to shift with God’s new directives, they become “old wineskins” and God must find more flexible vessels that are willing to implement change.

8. A religious spirit persecutes those who disagree with his self-righteous views and becomes angry whenever the message of grace threatens to undermine his religiosity. An angry religious person will use gossip and slander to assassinate other peoples’ character and may even use violence to prove his point. Jesus, in fact, warned His disciples: “There will even come a time when anyone who kills you will think he’s doing God a favor” (John 16:2, The Message).

If the poison of religion has contaminated your walk with God, ask Him to pour a fresh understanding of His grace into your barren spirit—and then expect His new life to flow through you.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. You can follow him on Twitter at leegrady.

We need voices from the past—like Andrew Murray, Corrie Ten Boom and Charles Spurgeon—to help us find our way to the future.

During a visit with my parents in Georgia, two of my daughters asked if they could listen to a tape recording my father made in 1962 when I was only 4 years old. So my dad rummaged through some drawers and found the old reel-to-reel tape, which was amazingly still intact. Then he went to the garage and found the old Realistic tape player that no one in the family had used since the Nixon administration.

To our surprise the scratchy tape actually played without breaking, and my girls laughed when they heard me—in a babyish Southern drawl—describing a Florida vacation and a fishing trip with my grandfather. After my “interview,” it switched to an older recording made in 1956. It included a conversation with my dad’s mother, who died before I was born.

It was eerie to hear her voice. I’d never heard it before yet it sounded hauntingly familiar. After that brief segment of the tape ended we listened to comments from my other three grandparents—all of whom died in the 1960s or 1970s. Their voices unearthed long-buried but fond memories.

These sounds from the past reminded me of some other distant voices I have been listening to recently. They are the voices of dead Christians—writers of classic books and songs that we are close to forgetting today.

Their names are probably somewhat familiar to you. Jonathan Edwards. John Wesley. Charles Finney. Catherine Booth. Andrew Murray. Evans Roberts. Charles Spurgeon. Fanny Crosby. E.M. Bounds. Watchman Nee. A.W. Tozer. William Seymour. A.B. Simpson. Corrie Ten Boom. Leonard Ravenhill. Fuchsia Pickett.

All of them could be labeled revivalists. All challenged the Christians of their generation to embrace repentance and humility. They understood a realm of spiritual maturity and a depth of character that few of us today even aspire to obtain.

When I read their words I feel much the same way I did after hearing my grandparents’ voices on that old tape. I feel as if I am tapping into a realm of spirituality that is on the verge of extinction.

What was the secret of these great Christians who left their legacies buried in their books? They considered humility, selflessness and sacrifice the crowning virtues of the Christian journey. They called the church to die to selfishness, greed and ambition. They knew what it means to carry a “burden” for lost souls. They saw the glories of the kingdom and demanded total surrender. They challenged God’s people to pursue obedience—even if obedience hurts.

Even their hymns reflected a level of consecration that is foreign in worship today. They sang often of the cross and its wonder. Their worship focused on the blood and its power. They sang words of heart-piercing conviction: “My richest gain I count but loss / And pour contempt on all my pride / Forbid it Lord that I should boast / Save in the death of Christ, My God.”

In so many churches today the cross is not mentioned. The blood is avoided because we don’t want to offend visitors. And worship is often a canned performance that involves plenty of rhythm and orchestration but little or no substance. We can produce noise, but often there is no heart … and certainly no tears.

In the books Christians buy today you will find little mention of brokenness. We are not interested in a life that might require suffering, patience, purging or the discipline of the Lord. We want our blessings … and we want them now! So we look for the Christian brand of spiritualized self-help that is quick and painless.

We’re running on empty. We think we are sophisticated, but like the Laodiceans we are actually poor, blind and naked. We need to return to our first love but we don’t know where to begin the journey.

These voices from the past will help point the way. I’ve found myself drawn to reading books by Ravenhill, Ten Boom, Murray and Spurgeon in recent days. I’ve even pulled out an old hymnal and rediscovered the richness of songs that I had thrown out years ago—because I thought anything old couldn’t possibly maintain a fresh anointing.

I realize now that I must dig for this buried treasure. We will never effectively reach our generation if we don’t reclaim the humility, the brokenness, the consecration and the travail that our spiritual forefathers considered normal Christianity.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. He is sharing some of his favorite quotes from these classic books on Twitter. You can find him at leegrady.

It took an independent film company to make a movie that exposes the cultural oppression of women in the Middle East.

Millions of women around the world live under the ironfisted rule of male domination. They are gang-raped in Latin America; their genitals are mutilated in parts of Africa; they are forced to wear burkas in Afghanistan; they are sold as sex slaves in Thailand; they are denied education in India. Yet most westerners are oblivious to this cruel injustice. It’s out of sight, out of mind.

But now, thanks to an independent film company and a director who cares about issues that Hollywood ignores, we have a movie that exposes the plight of women in Iran. It hit theaters last weekend, just a few weeks after Iran’s authoritarian government came under international scrutiny.

I must first warn you: The Stoning of Soraya M. is based on a true story. A woman is executed publicly by stoning—and, yes, her death is portrayed in a graphic scene. Obviously this movie is not for children. But if you care about the global oppression of women, or the current crisis of freedom in Iran, this movie is a must-see.

The story begins when a French-Iranian journalist named Freidoune Sahebjam (played by Jim Caviezel, who was Jesus in The Passion of the Christ) has car trouble outside a rural Iranian village. We are introduced to a woman named Zahra (Shohreh Aghdashloo) who is gathering bones from a stream and burying them while dogs watch.

While Sahebjam waits for his car to be repaired, Zahra begs him to listen to her story while the men of the village try to shoo her away. Sahebjam records her testimony on a cassette player. That tape becomes the basis of both his 1994 book and this movie.

Zahra is distraught because the men of her village (she calls them “devils”) have killed her niece, Soraya (Mozhan Marn). Through flashbacks we learn that Soraya’s immoral husband wants to put her away so he can marry a 14-year-old girl. He has also turned his two sons against their mother but shows no interest in his two young daughters. When Soraya dares to defy her husband’s scheme, he trumps up false adultery charges against her with the help of the local Islamic mullah.

Zahra tries to stop the madness, but in the end the villagers commit the Islamic version of a lynching. Along the way we learn how thick anti-woman attitudes are in this part of the world.

“Women now have no voices,” Zahra says at one point. We see how Iran’s women, under the regime of the Ayatollah Khomeini, were forced to live in prisons of silence and were valued only as sex objects and domestic servants.

The 20-minute stoning sequence is horrible. (I expect some comparisons to The Passion of the Christ, since Stephen McEveety produced both films). But if you close your eyes during some parts, don’t miss how various villagers—including even Soraya’s two sons—participate in her execution. You’ll find it difficult to forget the way young men in the village click their rocks together while they wait for the signal to kill.

The triumph of this film lies in the character of Zahra, who ends up telling the whole world about a horrible injustice that men tried to hide in a dark corner of Iran. Aghdashloo, the actress who plays her, is equally triumphant: She seethes onscreen with righteous rage against an unfair system. We see the story from her viewpoint, and we find ourselves cheering for her as she bravely confronts the men who have the power to stone her along with her niece.

An Oscar nominee, Aghdashloo is an Iranian-born actress who has told reporters she hopes this film will help the cause of freedom in Iran. She told the Orlando Sentinel that she has seen video footage of a real stoning that took place in Iran, and she wants to stop such violence, even if it means that the world’s image of Iran might be tarnished in the process.

Said Aghdashloo: “At the end of the day, I think about that woman, sitting alone in her cell, waiting to be stoned. I must stand with her and not worry about Iran’s image.”

Some movies are purely entertainment. The Stoning of Soraya M. is not that. It is artfully filmed, yet in the end this movie is meant to educate us—and hopefully inspire us to cry out for justice against all forms of gender oppression. It is the Christian community’s job to do just that.

The Stoning of Soraya M. is in English and Farsi, with subtitles. It is rated R for a scene of brutal violence.

J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. He is ministering in South America this week. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady.

Over the past 30 years many of our churches have developed a sterile religious atmosphere. How can we reclaim relational Christianity?

A friend in Alabama recently told me about a preacher who came to his city in unusual style. The man arrived at a church in a limousine and was whisked into a private waiting room behind the stage area. The evangelist told people in his entourage to leave the engine running so the temperature inside his car would remain constant.

This evangelist then preached to a waiting crowd, took up his own offering and retired to the waiting room for refreshments. Then he left the church without speaking to the host pastor.

Slam! Bam! Gone! It was like a spiritual drive-by shooting.

This guy’s faith may have been inspiring, but his love was as cold as the air inside his oversized vehicle. His behavior shows us why so many ministries today are in crisis. We’ve created a monster—a version of Christianity that is slick, marketable and event-driven but lacking in authentic impact. It is as one-dimensional as a flat-screen TV—and a total turnoff to people who are starving for genuine relationships.

This preacher’s style is the opposite of the apostle Paul’s. He wrote: “Even though we had some standing as Christ’s apostles, we never threw our weight around or tried to come across as important. … We weren’t aloof with you. … We were never patronizing, never condescending, but we cared for you the way a mother cares for her children” (1 Thess. 2:6-7, The Message).

Paul’s ministry style is best visible in his relationship with his spiritual son Timothy, who often traveled with him. More than one-fourth of the 27 books in the New Testament were written either by Paul to Timothy or by Paul and Timothy to various churches. This proves that real Christianity is not about pulpits, meetings, suits and ties, microphones, entourages or air-conditioned limousines. It has everything to do with relationships.

How can we reclaim relational Christianity? Here’s a start:

1. Become accessible. Jesus modeled accessibility against the backdrop of an austere religious culture. The rabbis in Jesus’ day were obsessed with robes and public pontifications while they avoided the common people. Meanwhile Jesus held children, ate with tax collectors and showed affection to His disciples.

Over the past 30 years many of our churches have developed a sterile religious atmosphere that includes clerical titles, “armor bearers” and long-winded sermons that always end on cue with a financial appeal. The younger generation is rejecting this because they can see the emperor has no clothes. Churches that want to grow will have to ditch the old paradigms.

2. Open your life. I regularly meet ministry leaders who say they have no friends. Some fear that if they admit struggles or weaknesses they will lose their jobs. Others have never had spiritual mentors. They are relationally empty.

This dam must break. Hearts must open, honest confession must flow and godly friendships must be forged if we hope to offer healing to our fractured, love-starved generation.

3. Develop effective discipleship models. I’ve never seen a healthy, growing church that didn’t have an organic small-group system. Real disciples are not made on an assembly line; they are fashioned with loving care in intimate, relational settings.

One of the main reasons I am serving God today is that a youth leader named Barry St. Clair took me under his wing when I was 15 and nurtured me in a small-group Bible study for more than three years. Barry, at age 30, was already a successful author and speaker and a busy husband and father, but he took the time to invest in a Southern Baptist teenager by including me on ministry trips and praying with me about personal problems.

Barry became a trusted counselor after I went into ministry. He stood with me at my wedding. He prayed over me at my ordination. He still writes me encouraging notes—35 years after he taught me to have a quiet time with God.

Let’s get back to the basics. After the inaccessible preachers have driven off in their limousines, we are still called to make disciples. And we can’t fulfill that mandate until we stop this silly ego show and embrace a humble ministry style that puts relationships first.

J. Lee Grady is the former editor of Charisma. You can find him on Twitter at leegrady.