The whole of my life is poised in such a way that if God were not real, my life would be a great mystery.My husband and I have been on a course since before we even married of doing what we see God doing and saying what we hear God saying.
Our lives are fully invested in His reality.If He was not, and there was no such reality, our lives would be very strange indeed.For we have dreams that come true. We have direction from Him that are coming to pass with greater fruition and favor than we could even imagine.
We planted a church some time ago with one motto: hear God and do what He is doing.Over the course of two years or more we have had multiple dreams that have already begun to come to fruition (some more fully than others), we have seen incredible miracles of healing, we have had people join us without any effort on our part.People we had in mind to invite would call out of the blue after years of not seeing the people at the very time that was precisely right.
We turned down an incredible opportunity afforded to us when we were just beginning because we felt God wanted to build this His way.His favor has been evident.Notwithstanding, there have been struggles and lots of hard work, but every time we have something major happen, it happened with no effort of our own.
The prophetic words spoken about our ministry are numerous and even though they come from a variety of people and a variety of ways they are all harmonious to the purpose God has given to this ministry.
A pastor from a foreign country even contacted us after people in his small home church had a vision of our church and wanted to connect with what we are doing here in the States. Our website, was the first that presented itself when they were trying to locate the church they dreamed about even though the website we had at the time was 100 pages down in a google search if you typed in all the right words. Today, over a year later, the small home church is now a network of over 60 churches covering three African countries.My husband visited the pastor and his church last summer and spoke to a group of pastors for several days that had assembled from the 60 churches.These people experienced over 30 miracles during a Sunday morning meeting praying for each other as they were taught.
Even in the traveling arrangements my husband had extreme favor. He was set to travel alone into a foreign land he has never been to when just weeks before he met man who was traveling that very week.The man had already chartered a plane that would land less than an hour away from my husband’s destination.Before meeting him, he would have had a day’s journey by truck to the church.Now his time with the pastors was increased and the traveling made much easier. Moreover, the contact provided my husband with a mobile phone where he could contact me daily whereas before it was likely I would not hear from him except possibly by e-mail for several days.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of all the amazing things that have happened in a way that shows God’s hand in our lives.I know people could just say it’s all coincidence, but the excessive level of coincidences I have seen in the last couple years would be miraculous just the same.As I said, if God isn’t real and we are not hearing Him, I live a very strange life indeed.It would be something of a fairytale, albeit a true one, if I wrote a book telling the story detail by detail of the last few years of my life.All I can say is it is exciting to follow God.
There are a few different terms used in the New Testament to referrer to a follower of Jesus. One term was “Christian”, which literally means “little Christ” this was used derogatorily, but caught on as a positive label. “Followers of the Way” was another label used, this time by the followers themselves.
The term “believer” was used also at times, and is commonly used today interchangeably with the term “Christian.”
However, I am finding that the using the language of “belief” and “believer” has created a misconception regarding our relationship to God.
Consequently, I looked up the word in the Greek to further research the original meaning behind the term. The Greek word translated as “belief”, “believe”, or “believers” repeatedly throughout the Gospels and Acts is “pisteuo” which is defined in detail below.
John 1:50-51 Jesus answered and said to him, "Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these." NASU
Therefore, the word is not just intellectual assent, but confidence, trust, reliance upon, not mere credence. The same Greek word is also translated as commit, intrust, and trust. Therefore, a believer is not one who accepts certain truth claims as fact in his head, but is one who trusts, commits, has confidence in, relies upon, Christ. It is not a passive word, but an active word.
God isn’t looking for people to believe He is real and that His word is true. He is looking for people who rely on Him because He is reliable. For people who have confidence in Him, because He is worth their commitment. For people who trust in Him, because He is worthy to be trusted. Moreover, all of these things are good for the person.
Man is made to have this symbiotic relationship with their God. We are made to live, and move, and have our being in Him. That is where we thrive and experience the fullness of the good reality, the Truth that is not an informational fact of knowledge, but a Person that can be known intimately.
It can be truly stated that believing is seeing, because believing is not mere intellectual assent, it is to be fully invested experientially. Moreover, this is why we find when we seek. Seeking isn’t an intellectual exercise, but an act of experience. We seek with our being to connect with God. It does something in us to seek to find God, for we are positioned to find when we are seeking.
This is why I agree with those who say they need an encounter to believe. Or when it is said that a believer who makes a claim of hearing God speaking, or a claim of seeing miracles, ought to be able to demonstrate this reality and not just tell of a past story when it supposedly happened. I have absolutely no contention with this request. Not every Christian would make the claims I am making that God can personally talk to us, and that we can say what He is saying, and that we can do miracles like Jesus did. Many Christians would want to see this evidenced as well.
There are people on the earth today that are moving in extraordinary revelation and extraordinary healing power. This ability is not relegated to a few, but so many Christians do not know who they are. We have identity crisis, and we do not live like we have God living through us because our idea of that is something different than the fullness of what being in Christ really means. We trust in what we see with our physical eyes, instead of living out of our new identity. We really, myself included, are not much different sometimes than those who do not believe in God at all, because we make claims we do not live because our belief is head deep instead of heart deep.
Some would object instantly and think I am making some kind of attack against the authenticity of their faith in Christ. I assure you I am not. I am speaking of myself as much as of any one else in Christ. Jesus often told the disciples they had little faith, and yet they lived right there with Him. They saw the miracles, but their faith continued to rest in their natural reality rather than the supernatural reality.
They shook with fear as the storm raged in the boat while Jesus slept. They woke him, begging Him to do something. He stands and speaks to the storm to still and it obeys Him. Where was their belief? It was in the natural circumstance of a storm. Where was Jesus’ belief? It was resting soundly in the reality of God where there are no storms raging. He didn’t need to stop the storm to rest; He calmed the storm for the disciples. He was already resting confidently secure in a heavenly reality. He made that reality manifest for the disciples to see it once again in their natural circumstances.
Jesus said that we could bring that Kingdom reality (the supernatural heavenly reality) to the earth. The Kingdom is not a matter of word, but rather a demonstration of the power of God. Jesus demonstrated that power by calming the storm. There really isn’t any reason for people to believe at this high level of experiential belief when there is no demonstration of His Kingdom. Believing is seeing, because when you experience it, you will see.
I do not expect sight before experience. I write to help clear out some of the misconceptions out there about God’s Kingdom. I do not expect my words to persuade the sort of belief of which I speak. I hope that they can come to remembrance when the time comes that experience occurs to help aid in the transition that may follow once someone has seen the demonstration of God’s Kingdom.
Thus, I do not aim to pressure anyone to intellectual assent or experiential belief. I am confident that His words are true that any who seek after the truth will find it. From what I observe atheists are looking for truth, real truth, something solid and sure and right. I applaud that resolute determination not to be swayed by anything less.
I don't usually post miracle testimonies I haven't personally been connected to because I can't personally vouch for the credibility of the story. But this caught my attention and I wanted to share it for anyone interested in a testimony of a person raised from the dead and verified by a cardiologist.
Follow this link for the video. For another telling of it see this link.
I was browsing through Ebon Muse website Daylight Atheism and I found Ten Questions to Ask Your Pastor. I am a pastor’s wife and I decided to provide my answers to these questions. My answers are brief, but I hope that they get to the essence of each question in a way that is fair and respectful to the question. If anyone would like me to elaborate on a point or a question later please ask me in the comment and I will try and accommodate you. I will post my answers in two post dividing them five questions at a time due to cut down on the length of doing it as one post. I welcome you to read and to think about my answers, some are repetitive of topics I have addressed before, but are readdressed for the sake of answering this particular list of questions. (This is the second part, questions 6-10)
6. If it was always God's plan to provide salvation through Jesus, why didn't he send Jesus from the very beginning, instead of confusing and misleading generations of people by setting up a religion called Judaism which he knew in advance would prove to be inadequate?
He didn’t set up a religion called Judaism. He set up a people called Jews. People make religion, God makes relationships. He established a covenant (a relational promise) with the Jews to have relationship with them, but that relationship wasn’t fulfilled until Christ came because we needed to see the difference between what was available without Christ and the greater with Christ. Christ didn’t abolish the previous covenant, He made it better. He renewed it to a greater covenant by fulfilling its requirements. His covenant with the Jews was not misleading; it was leading all the while up to Christ. It was pointing to Him. Remember the Church began with Jews. These were Jewish people that saw the fulfillment of everything they had been waiting for in Christ. Some rejected it and clung to laws instead to the reason for the laws. Jesus rebuked them for missing the point of the laws and the Prophets. He came to show them bodily what everything since the beginning of time had been leading up to. He, Himself was born as a Jew and His disciples were Jews. There are many Messianic Jews because they are seeing the truth of Christ in their own Scriptures. It isn’t something separate, it is part of the same faith.
7. Since the Bible states that God does not desire that anyone perish, but also states that the majority of humankind is going to hell, doesn’t this show that God's plan of salvation is a failure even by his own standard? If this outcome is a success, what would count as a failure?
Jesus spent very little time speaking about hell. There are only a few verses where it is even mentioned in the whole of Scripture. I think the Church has made a mistake to spend so much time talking about something Jesus spent so little time talking about. I’ve noticed that the atheists reading my blogspot spend lots of time ranting about hell, when I seldom brought up the subject. The only time I have written on it is in response to their demands that I address the subject. Maybe some churches still spend a lot of time on the subject, but in my lifetime I have not heard it addressed very often and I have read hundreds of Christian books and have been immersed in Christian culture my whole life, still I have never heard so much about hell until I started talking to atheists and hearing how much they bring it up.Jesus is establishing a Kingdom of people who have life in Christ and who are inheriting everything of heaven that belongs to Him.He came to share the good news. He came to give life and give it abundantly. He came to show us how to live the good life. He didn’t come to condemn us. He didn’t come to make our lives darker and more depressing. He didn’t come to oppress. He came to set free, to heal, to love to forgive.This is His message. This is the reality of what He offers.
8. Why didn't God create human beings such that they freely desire to do good, thus removing the need to create a Hell at all? (If you believe this is impossible, isn't this the state that will exist in Heaven?)
If God created humans who freely desire to do good, would not this mean that they cannot do bad? As soon as something is good, that which is not that something is be default bad or evil. So a choice is created. If the choice is removed, freedom is removed.
No, in heaven we have arrived at the fullness of freedom from the bondage of sin because it was dealt with on earth by freely accepting Christ gift of salvation. The chains of sin are broken here and we start learning to walk that that reality now on earth.
The Bible speaks far more about the Kingdom of God and life in Christ than it does condemnation or hell. I think this shows what is important to God is giving us life. He isn't desirous of our not finding life.
9. Is it fair or rational for God to hide himself so that he can only be known by faith, then insist that every single human being find him by picking the right one out of thousands of conflicting and incompatible religions?
God put the desire for Him in us and He put the reality of His existence all around us. Moreover He tells us all about Himself in the Bible. And He came into our world bodily to further show Himself to us. He also shows Himself to the world through each believer. He tells us to go out and be witnesses for Him showing the world His truth.
However, despite all that there is truth to saying He is hidden. Have you ever seen the joy on a child’s face when they find a treasure? The path to God is full of treasures and He wants us to share in all that glory of discovery.
Religions have sprung up because of man’s desire to be connected to God. We have funneled this desire into things that do not satisfy. We invent ways to earn God’s favor and God is all the while telling us we have His favor we just need to learn that we can belong just as we are without earning anything and His love will provide all we need to live life. Religion shows man’s deep desire for God. It proves we have a God need. But it is inadequate to bring us home to Him in life. He gives life, He gives it to anyone who wants to drink of it.
There are many reservoirs of water. If you try and drink the oceans salty water it will not satisfy. If you try to drink from a bitter spring it will not satisfy. If you drink from water that’s full of bacteria it can cause dysentery or worse. But water is necessary for life. But all reservoirs of water are not equal. You need to find the good water in order to have life giving water. It is the same with “religion” you need to find the right source to drink from in order to find what will be good.God provided that source in Jesus and He gave us much evidence of its veracity and goodness. Will we drink up His life or will we choice a substitute source? He doesn’t force our choice. We are free to make that for ourselves.
10. If you had the power to help all people who are suffering or in need, at no cost or effort to yourself, would you do it? If so, why hasn't God done this already?
God has done this and is doing this still. He’s doing it through each believer. He’s doing it directly as well. Muslims are having dreams and visions of Christ and are coming to know Him without ever hearing the Gospel from a missionary. Christians are going into some of the most hostile of territories and bringing healing, miracles, and life to the people and they are hungry for more.Many groups are providing food, drinking water, hygiene instruction, education, jobs, employment training, homes, health care, etc.
A Christian woman named Heidi Baker and her husband Roland went to the poorest country to the most poor people in that country and risk their lives regularly to help the orphans there. They hear about the worse crime ridden neighborhoods and it is there they go to bring life.They raise the dead, they see miracles, but most of all they love the ones society has not loved.
I listened to Rick Warren the other day address a group of Muslim dignitaries and politicians from various nations on CSPAN. He spoke to them about merging efforts to help the poor and needy world wide. He spoke about working together despite our theological differences and aiding this world in a grassroots effort to bring relief to the suffering. His church is doing much toward this end.
A church in California that I know of often holds a large banquet with the best food on the finest china and invites in the homeless and gives them a grand dinner and prays for them and helps them in their needs. A couple from the church invited the homeless to their wedding and instead of accepting gifts from their family and friends they registered at Target for sleeping bags, coats, clothes, and all kinds of things these people needed and had their guest give them to the homeless guest in lieu of any wedding gifts for the bride and groom. These stories are told in the book written by Bill Johnson “When Heaven Invades Earth.”
There are thousands and thousands of such stories in the world today.
I was browsing through Ebon Muse website Daylight Atheism and I found Ten Questions to Ask Your Pastor. I am a pastor’s wife and I decided to provide my answers to these questions. My answers are brief, but I hope that they get to the essence of each question in a way that is fair and respectful to the question. If anyone would like me to elaborate on a point or a question later please ask me in the comment and I will try and accommodate you. I will post my answers in two post dividing them five questions at a time due to cut down on the length of doing it as one post. I welcome you to read and to think about my answers, some are repetitive of topics I have addressed before, but are readdressed for the sake of answering this particular list of questions.
1. Why is God called loving or merciful when, in the Old Testament's stories of the Israelite conquest, he specifically orders his chosen people to massacre their enemies, showing no mercy to men, women, even children and animals?
The Old Testament shows us the natural consequence of sin. It shows us the severity of sin and the problem of sin. God physically gave them laws for their protection. These laws were not His whims, but rules to protect their heart and life. They needed to know these things and they needed external enforcement of these rules so that they could taste the goodness of life instead of taking on the weight of sin. God did not at this point co-habitat with man in our hearts for that was going to be made available once Christ came and fulfilled the requirements of the law and showed us and enabled us to live a new way a better way.
In the Old Testament, God was showing them His power. He demonstrated His authority. He gave them leaders to show them how to live in a way that was not going to lead to their destruction. He spoke to the people through Prophets and he gave them warning after warning. He was patient with them. Consider Jonah. God sent Jonah to Nineveh to warn the people that their ways were going to cause their destruction and they needed to repent. (Repentance means change the way you think turning around away from the path of destruction. It doesn’t mean being really sorry.) The people did just that and were saved from destruction. It wasn’t God’s desire to destroy them for their actions, if it were He simply would have done it without sending Jonah to warn them. Jonah is actually dismayed that God saved them; he says “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” (Jonah 4:2) He says this is why he didn’t want to waste his time warning the people, because he knew God could relent. He didn’t understand why he had to go through the trouble of warning them when God wasn’t going to end up destroying them. His selfishness was showing through. God tells him, “Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?” (Jonah 4:11)
If you pull these stories often cited by atheists out of context of the whole of what the Bible reveals to us about God it will look like God is a vindictive annihilator. I am not sure how you can read through Scripture and miss the warnings, the mercy, the compassion and see that all acts of judgment were few and far between and very slow in coming. But when you learn more and you see His holiness in context of His love and goodness and His justice in context of His goodness you will see more clearly. When Moses is working with God to free the Israelites, God sends these plagues as warnings to Pharaoh and the Egyptians. He doesn’t come sweeping in and destroy them all and have Moses leave with his people. He is patient. More patient than the Israelites wanted Him to be. He gives ample time for Pharaoh to do the right thing and when Pharaoh remains resolute in the face of all the demonstrations of God’s power, the consequences of His rebellion are brought to fruition.
Also many who are adamant about God having done something unjust the few times He exacted judgment must consider if they believe there is ever a just war? Is there ever a just reason for bloodshed on a human level? If so, why do you not see that there could also be a just reason that God had for doing what He did? We who can’t see the whole picture of the outcome of a war, or the outcome of a battle can see good reasons for going to war and taking lives even when some of those lives will be innocent lives of citizens and not soldiers. Yet God sees the big pictures, He knows the complete ramifications of His actions and He knows the hearts of man to know what the eternal consequences may be and what choices they would make if left to their own ways. Do you not think a perfect God capable of making such a choice and it be good? We have this idea in our minds that good always means pleasant and that just isn’t correct.
2. Does it make sense to claim, as the Bible does, that wrongdoing can be forgiven by magically transferring the blame from a guilty person to an innocent one, then punishing the innocent person?
Does this question forget about question one where it is proposed that God is wrong to punish a guilty person? One can’t have it both ways.
God shows us the severity of sin and then shows us the One who will take the pain of sin for us so that we can be redeemed and free from the judgment. It is a loving act. It isn’t a logical act. Is it logical for any person to die so another can live simply because of love? Yet this happens all the time. One person takes the bullet for another protecting the other by their love and sacrificing themselves. If a created person can act in such a way, why are we confused by a perfect person, Jesus, doing so?
3. Why does the Bible routinely depict God as manifesting himself in dramatic, unmistakable ways and performing obvious miracles even before the eyes of nonbelievers, when no such thing happens in the world today?
How do you know no such things happen today? I’ve seen them happen today. I’ve read countless stories of them happening today. I’ve met many people who can tell me example after example of it happening today. His miracles are a sign of His existence, His love, His kindness, His authority and the power that He gives to those who walk with Him through life. He demonstrates His love through us by healing the sick. We live in an age of an increase of miracles happening in and outside the Church. Many are happening in the malls, on the streets, and in daily life as we Christians are out about our business. Many Christians are actively going out and seeking the sick and injured and physically handicap to bring healing to them and many are seeing results, not every time, but enough to know God’s still doing miracles.
4. Why do vast numbers of Christians still believe in the imminent end of the world when the New Testament states clearly that the apocalypse was supposed to happen 2,000 years ago, during the lifetime of Jesus' contemporaries?
The Bible does not state that it was going to happen 2,000 years ago. Jesus said before this generation passes away you will see the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is here now and is demonstrated in the lives of each believer. Moreover, I do not believe the world will end. I believe the corruption of the world will end, but not the world. The Bible says that what can be shaken will fall away but what is unshakeable will remain. It also said the corruptible will put on incorruptibility meaning that what is now corrupted will be restored to something not-corrupted. The earth isn’t going anywhere because God gave humans authority and dominion over the earth. The earth will be made new and sin and corruption will be gone from it one day, but it’s not going to be destroyed.
5. Why do Christians believe in the soul when neurology has found clear evidence that the sense of identity and personality can be altered by physical changes to the brain?
The soul is something spiritual, not physical. I’m not sure science could find something metaphysical. I have not researched this area of science so I really can’t say more than that.
Yesterday I witnessed two miracles. One woman in our church had been suffering with a sore ankle from a pinched nerve. Her doctor had just told her she was going to need surgery to correct the problem. My husband prayed for her ankle and she felt warmth and tingles spread up her leg to her knee. She said it was beginning to feel better, about 20% she said. He prayed again and she smiled and said she again felt warmth and tingles in her leg and reported the pain was 80% gone. He prayed once more and she joyfully reported 100% pain free and demonstrated by jumping up and down on her foot. We told her to be sure to return to her doctor to have him check her out to be certain the problem is fixed.
About a half an hour later my husband and I were talking with his mother about the several miracles concerning her right hand which had been injured 31 years ago. Her hand had been accidentally shot off 31 years prior and reattached without a wrist as the wrist was completely shattered. The doctor had told her that she would never have wrist movement again. However, she had soon recovered wrist movement one day at a church meeting many years ago. The doctor was baffled and said she indeed had wrist movement where there should be none. She retold us this story. And then she was talking about how a year ago she regained movement in the joints in her fingers on that hand while watching a DVD by a minister giving testimonies of many healings. She hadn’t been able to individually move her fingers in 30 years; she could only move the four fingers as a unit and use the thumb with the four fingers to grasp things. Not anymore. She has very good mobility. Still due to the removal of her wrist 31 years ago her right arm was approximately 1 and ½ inches shorter than her left arm; a visible difference that also impaired her balance.
My husband asked her if she wanted God to lengthen it to be even with the other arm. We have never done this before. We have only heard stories of God growing out an appendage.She said yes.She extended both arms out and laid her hands on top of my husband’s open hands. We could see the shortness of the left compared to the right. We kept our eyes open as my husband spoke to her arm to grow in Jesus name. We watched as it grew approximately an inch and a half before our very eyes to match the other hand.We were all jubilantly excited. She said she had felt a gentle pulling in her arm as it took place. She ran around showing the other people in the church still fellowshipping after the meeting. When she returned home she showed her husband and other family members who knew her right arm had been shorter than the left arm for 31 years. Lots of people know it was short and all whom she shows are amazed to see the equal length of her arms. There had been no pain associated with the shortness, God in His good pleasure and loving kindness restored the length.
This is an eyewitness account of the power of God working through ordinary Christians today.This seems extraordinary, but compared to the miracles of Jesus in the New Testament, it isn’t out of the ordinary.I have heard hundred of modern testimonies of miraculous healings of all kinds. I am excited to be seeing them with my own eyes now!
I have just spent four days at a healing conference where I witnessed many miracles and many tangible experiences of God’s presence. I also heard hundreds of eye witness testimonies of miracles happening around the world including the United States. God is undeniably pouring out His love upon people across the world. He is working through His followers just as He did in the early disciples of Jesus.Biblical miracles are being experienced today.They never stopped being experienced. There are so many historical records of the power of God in all the great revivals of history around the world.
I speak so much on cerebral defenses of the truth of Jesus Christ. However, if all I ever did is present an intellectual belief system I would never paint the full picture of the reality of heaven available to us today.God is not merely a matter of the mind to answer the big philosophical questions of life. If that was all there was to it, what would be the point.
The Kingdom of God is at hand. He is actively moving in the world today. I’ve seen His work. I’ve experienced His presence. I saw a three year old praying for the sick and them getting healed. I saw her pray for someone and the power of God flow over them.I saw children prophesying the things of God over people with great accuracy bringing life and healing to them. I had a woman I had never met prophesy over me so specifically exactly what I needed to hear from God about concerning an area of ministry.About 60-80 people were healed each night.Some had injuries for as long as 10 years and were healed miraculously.
One young man, a musician I know personally, was 50% deaf in one ear and his hearing was completely restored so much so that the noises around him was hurting his now sensitive hearing. Another man had partial paralysis on the left side of his body due to a stroke. Strength returned to him and his limp arm was restored and he could grip a man’s hand in a hand shake where before he could not. This man shared his testimony and demonstrated his returned mobility and strength before the church that knew him well and was jubilant at his healing.
God is restoring the gift of healing and the supernatural to the Church. If you have not seen such demonstrations of the reality of Jesus I believe you will one day soon. This is quickly changing from something common overseas and not so common in the States, to something common throughout the church at large. Don’t you think if most of the Christians you encountered loved like Jesus did and healed the sick and set people free from bondages and such that you would know that the Gospel we share is true? Would not that be proof?The day is fast approaching where this will be what the ministry of Christians will look like. The Bible says that the power of God must accompany the preaching of the Kingdom of God. It confirms the truth of the Kingdom when it is preached accompanied by the demonstration of the supernatural. This is normal Christianity. Normalcy is being restored.
I am reminded of the phrase in The Chronicles of Narnia when the spring was breaking forth through the winter and all the Narnians knew, “Aslan is on the move.” The Kingdom of God is breaking into the Kingdom of this world and we are seeing the God is on the move through His people.
I work on the fourth floor of an office building with old elevators in continual need of repair. The elevator doors rush open with a loud bang and one of them closes extremely slowly while the other has a tendency to close on you as you enter.As it passes each floor there you feel a disconcerting lurch of sorts and when you reach your floor there is a sudden jolt and grind. For years this has been a daily experience.
Several weeks ago, my husband and I stayed at a newly remodeled hotel and our room was on the tenth floor. We entered the elevator and selected floor 10.About 60 seconds passed in quiet stillness and I told my husband that the elevator must not be working as we weren’t moving yet. He pointed out the counter at the top of the doors to show me we were indeed traveling upwards and were nearing our exit. I was amazed.
I was using the nearly broken elevators as a standard instead of an elevator in working order. Therefore, I was amazed by something that should be normal.
Does this not happen with the Christian life? Do we not take what we have always known as a standard instead of using Christ as our standard?
I’ve observed that the common response regarding leading a supernatural life to be that it is something that’s not for everybody – it’s not normal Christianity. People see it as a lifestyle that is amazing, but not the standard. The standard has become what we see everyday and not what Jesus modeled it to be. We are to be imitators of Christ, are we not?
When I first starting learning about healings, miracles, and the like as being a part of normal Christianity, I resisted the idea because I thought those who lived that way had something special – something abnormal and I took aversion to being told that it should be normal in my life.I had grown up in the church; I knew what normal Christianity was all about. Or did I?Could it be that my standard was my experiences and not Jesus?
Just like the elevator story, I was measuring normalcy by the wrong standard. The standard should have been an elevator in good working order and not one that is constantly inept.
Jesus said to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cleanse lepers. Does that mean that He isn’t pleased with me because I don’t do that? No, absolutely not.I am made righteous by Him, not by the works that I do.But if I readjust my standard to be Him, He can enable me to do these and greater things because it is He that does them through me. If my eyes are on Him and I am seeking His Kingdom, I will begin to see the things He spoke of happening in my life. I will then be about my Father’s business. I will hear and see what He wants to do in people for my eyes are set on Him.
When Jesus approached the disciples’ boat walking on the water he called Peter to walk out to Him. Peter fixed his eyes on Christ and walked upon the water for His standard was not that everyone knows this is impossible, but His eyes were joined with Christ’s eyes.However, when he took His eyes off Christ he began to falter and sink, but he quickly fixed them back on Jesus.
Jesus has to be our standard. We can’t look at what everyone says is possible or impossible. It is written in Philippians 3:16 that, “I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength.”
