Lee Grady: Young People Will Launch a New Move of the Holy Spirit

Lee Grady
Lee Grady (Facebook)

Author Lee Grady believes the best day of his life was when he received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. At 18 years old, Lee didn't even know what a "charismatic" was, but he encountered one in his Southern Baptist Sunday school teacher. June Leverette experienced the power of the Spirit in her own life and led Lee closer to receiving the baptism for himself.

Turning to John 7, "she said, 'There's more. There's something more. There's more than just salvation,'" Lee said in a podcast celebrating the recent release of his new book, Set My Heart on Fire: Ignite Your Confidence, Boldness, and Passion for God. "I didn't know that. I thought Jesus was it. I thought you just tried real hard to be a good Christian for the rest of your life until you die. I didn't know there was something that could spring up inside of you and refresh you and become like a river that would flow out to other people."

At Thursday evening's gathering at the Charisma Media offices in Lake Mary, Florida, Lee shared his testimony of Spirit baptism from the mid-'70s, when the charismatic movement was going strong and Steve Strang started Charisma magazine, and what He believes the Holy Spirit is up to now, citing many examples from his own ministry.

That special day in 1976 was the defining point of Lee's life, which later led him to the editorial helm of Charisma for more than a decade and on to found a global ministry, The Mordecai Project, which recently relocated to LaGrange, Georgia.

"I love the Holy Spirit," Lee said. "That's why I ended up here at Charisma magazine so many years ago and worked here for so many years because that life-transforming moment completely changed me."

Lee is motivated to see that transformation for others in the body of Christ, especially young people who are in crisis, and he believes a supernatural move of God is coming.

"The Holy Spirit told me that this is going to happen and it's going to happen among young people," he said.

In the '70s, Watergate was all over the news, but God birthed the charismatic movement regardless of what was happening in the secular world. Today, our recent presidential election has spurred protests across the country, but it won't deter what God wants to do in His people.

"This is the biggest thing that I think He's going to do because personally I don't think anybody in the White House is going to be able to save us, but I think what is going to save us is another revival," Lee said. "It is fuel for another move of God."

Lee also knows that God created all races and ethnic groups, and He loves all people. No race or ethnicity will be left out of a move of God.

"I believe that God's heart is also for every ethnic group in this country to get blasted by the Holy Spirit," Lee said.

"What I live for today is to see another move of the Holy Spirit," Lee said. "And I really do believe we're on the edge of it."

Lee wrote Set My Heart on Fire simply so that young people can understand all that is available to them from the Holy Spirit and don't get stuck like he did as an 18-year-old in a traditional church.

"I really don't want people to approach the Holy Spirit like He's so complicated, and you have to figure Him out like a puzzle," Lee said. "I think that there is a simplicity to that truth."

Lee wants to dispel any confusion about the Holy Spirit and His work in believers today.

"Any age group can read this book, whether they're a new believer or whether they're a mature Christian, they're going to get a lot out of it," he said. "There (are) a lot of mature Christians whose hearts have gotten kind of cold, and they really are hungering for God to awaken something new and turn up the heat, so to speak. But I spend a lot of my time with young Christians, and I disciple a lot of young people, and I find that they really just don't have the resource that can help them get to first base in this."

The publisher, Charisma House, took the unusual step of placing a label on the book warning readers that the book could have "severe consequences for you and the people around you," encouraging Christians to "count the cost first before reading."

Lee knows all about that cost, as God sent him to 30 countries after he prayed a dangerous "send me" prayer in 1999. He has also included "dangerous" prayers of surrender at the end of every chapter in the book.

Visit the Charisma House Facebook page (facebook.com/charismahouse/) to view an interview with Lee on his new book and to see the book launch event.


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