by In an interview with Fox News Digital, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, speaking on the phone, that it is no accident that Asbury College in Kentucky was the host of a Christian revival among thousands of people at the same time (which has grown since then. locations), because that, too, the famous movie “Jesus Revolution” has come out – helping to inspire and lead millions of others back to a place of faith, belief and hope.
“If you were a skeptic,” Rodriguez said, “you would label this as a coincidence. But if you are a person of faith – you look at this as a divine discovery. This is not a coincidence.”
He said, “God is in control. God is up to something. And that’s the great news.”
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Rodriguez, based in Sacramento, California, is senior pastor at New Season Church.
He said he finds what’s going on right now “very interesting,” he said.
“During COVID,” he said, “Gallup and Pew have done surveys about ‘Generation Z’ and how it’s the biggest ‘non-Christian generation’ — some consider it the most anti- Christians in American history even. , how about that? Then God shows up — and we have the Asbury revival, and we have this emphasis on generational change and how a mess can be a miracle.”
Students raise their hands during a chapel service at Asbury University in Kentucky, which was attended by participants from all over the country. (Asbury University)
Again, he said, “It can’t be a coincidence. God is up to something. That’s why I truly believe that America’s mess is about to be God’s miracle.”
“Anarchy, chaos, crime and violence,” he said. There is the COVID pandemic. There were “so many problems,” he said – so many crazy ones.
People even asked themselves “are we living in a movie script, another universe. And yet God said, in the midst of all that, ‘Let me show you who is there?’ Seriously in charge.'”
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Rodriguez noted, “Young people are hungry for spirituality, for authenticity, for truth in a world full of fluidity and relativism today. There is a generation hungry for truth and something solid. So I love the fact that God, with a wink and a nod, says, ‘Yeah, sure, boys you think you’re in charge? And do you really think I mean it anymore? Let me show you who’s really in charge and who is on the throne.'”
Pastor Rodriguez said this is only about the Asbury revival.
“It’s what’s happening all over the country.”
People had said, he emphasized, that “Christians and followers of Jesus would not come back to church after COVID, that churches would lose 30% of their attendance. And now, suddenly, we are hearing explosions in church attendance. across the country, even in California,” he said.
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“I mean, go figure,” he said. “So what is it?”
People are hungry, he said, for faith, for spirituality. He said to recall John 1:5 – because “the light shines into the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome the light.”
“God shows up. And says, ‘I’ve got this. All you have to do is call me.'”
And “that’s why I truly believe that family messes will be God’s miracles, generational messes will be God’s miracles and personal messes will be God’s miracles.”
He said that this is just a “happy message. We don’t deny that there is a mess. Let’s look at what is happening in America with the fentanyl crisis. Over 100,000 people – mainly young people – have died as a result of the infiltration of this drug into in our country, coming in from the southern border.”
California-based Reverend Samuel Rodriguez is one of the nation’s most prominent Hispanic religious leaders. Fox News Digital spoke with him during his recent trip to the East Coast. (NHCLC.org)
He noted the crime problem in Chicago, Oakland, New York City and many other large cities across America. “We’re looking at discord, we’re looking at families without a father figure in 78% of African American homes, we’re looking at so many other issues in America – including political discord and discord. And we ask, ‘The is there an answer?'”
And yet, in the midst of it, “in this place – God shows up. And says, ‘I got this. All you have to do is call me. And I have this.’
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And that is where “we as a church,” he said, “must stop talking and crying and complaining — and we have to get out of the fetal position. God is not coming back to a broken, broken church. church, whiny church. He is coming back for a glorious church, according to the Apostle Paul.”
So “we really need to show the glory of Jesus to a broken world,” said Rodriguez.
That is what “motivated me,” he said, “to write this new book. Understand who you are. Let’s get rid of the perpetual victim mode – and let’s assert that we are conquerors in Christ. We can do things to truly change with truth. , love, hope and grace.”
Kelsey Grammer plays Pastor Chuck Smith in the new hit movie, “Jesus Revolution.” Pastor Rodriguez said of the film as well as the spiritual revival happening on college campuses and elsewhere right now, “God is in charge. God is up to something. And that’s the great news.” (Dan Anderson/Lionsgate)
What about all the people who feel inadequate or imperfect or unable to achieve this understanding?
Rodriguez did not mince words. “You mean all of us? We are all imperfect. We have all sinned and fell short. That’s us. That is each and every one of us. And that’s the beauty of the gospel.”
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He added, “No matter where the mess came from, only God has the power but the commitment to make a miracle out of our mess. What he says is, ‘Believe in me. Give me not only your dreams. , but your nightmare. . I’ll take care of the rest.”
“As soon as you start to grow and mature in your faith, you start to see the new life that God has for you.”
The speaker, film producer, bestselling author and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference has a new book out in April titled “Your Mess, God’s Miracle” (Baker Books, April 2023).
Inside Hughes Hall Auditorium at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. Pastor Rodriguez told Fox News Digital, “Almost anything that grows needs light, including your spirit as you walk by faith in the light of God.” (Nikolas Lanum/Fox News)
And there, he says, among other things, “How often do we realize that our desire for more of God in our lives is already present and available? the future.”
But “God has already given us all we need and more.”
Now, read this exclusive extract from the new book, ‘Your Mess, God’s Miracle’
Reverend Samuel Rodriguez: Almost anything that grows needs light too, including your spirit as you walk by faith in God’s light.
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).
As soon as you begin to grow and mature in your faith, you begin to see the new life that God has for you. Your new life in Christ allows God to fulfill all that He created you for.
“No matter what has happened in your life, God can use that soil – even the rocky, prickly, shallow soil of the past – to grow you beyond anything you can imagine.”
When you live without the power of the Spirit, you depart from God’s plan for your life.
When you live in the power of the Spirit, you experience the best of God throughout your life.
In the Word of God, he tells us, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, I planted you before you were born” (Jeremiah 1:5).
Likewise, we see that the psalmist confesses that “you made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13 NLT).
No matter what has happened in your life, God can use that soil – even the rocky, prickly, shallow soil of the past – to grow you beyond anything you can imagine.
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“‘To know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and hope'” (Jeremiah 29:11 NLT).
You have no accident, my friend. You are a son or daughter of the King of kings.
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From “Your Mess, God’s Miracle” by Samuel Rodriguez, April 2023 (Selected Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, bakerpublishinggroup.com). Copyright © 2023 by Samuel Rodriguez. Used by permission of the publisher.
