The New Thing

Isaiah 45.19 God says: "I will do a new thing."

Time after time we hear of God doing a new thing.
I wonder: Do we know what we are talking about?

     Is "New" what we see around us?
          Is "New" what we already know?
               Is "New what we have experienced?

The truth of salvation by faith was seen New by Martin Luther
Sanctification was seen New by Wesley.
Missions was seen New by William Carey.
The Pentecostal experience was New at the beginning of last century,
and broke through to the mainline churches in the  1950s.
A New revelation sweeps all before it:

More than half a century has passed since the last general move of God, 
and the chaos in the secular and religious worlds brings with it a pain and a darkness which cries for a new manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

And yet:
Woe to us if in our looking to the future we see only the possibility of a repeat of the past moves of God.
Woe to us if our prayers are limited to a reliving of the old.
Woe to us if we pray from the place of our experience - and prophesy from there.

Jesus' last words were, "I am with you." (Mt. 28.20)
This is the vision which God would set before us today -
     a Vision of One.

It is God Himself coming in our midst, in a Glory beyond all we have experienced or read about.

It will be a Coming of Life beyond all we have ever known...     
     It will be Light beyond light, 
          It will be Faith beyond faith, 
               It will be Anointing  beyond anointing...

                               Is not this the New Thing?