June 12, 2011

  • Sunday Devotional: Pentecost Sunday

    Today is Pentecost Sunday. It's a day of celebration for Christians, as according to our Scriptures, this is the day that God powerfully showed he would still be with Christians even though his Son Jesus was no longer on this earth. The way this was demonstrated is that Christians spoke in languages they did not know, and were understood by people who knew those languages. Pentecost Sunday, however, also makes me think about the mystical and powerful side of Christianity.

    So often in the Bible, I'm struck by how active Christians are. They are doing things. And not just activities such as preaching or helping sick people or giving to the needy, which is what many of us who are Christians recall. No, they are experiencing the supernatural and then using the supernatural to bear witness that Jesus is God and that God is to be served and loved.

    The question remains, then; if you are a Christian, are you experiencing the supernatural? Do you hear the voice of God? Do you see events in your life that cannot easily be explained as coincidence? Are you more than merely the physical sum of your senses and thoughts? I think that in Western society, we desperately seek to rationalize Christianity, to make it logical and palatable, to merely propose it as another way for human flourishing. But that's not how it really works. Christianity is supposed to be rather unruly and difficult, to the point that early critics complained that it was turning the world upside-down. Christianity is supposed to be supernaturally infused, so that it can be seen as not a human invention.

    I am a highly logically person. But for me, the true confirmation of Christianity is more supernatural than logical. If Christianity never shows signs of being supernatural, then how can Christianity truly offer a connection with God? If prayer never works, if no one ever gets healed, if I never feel that I gain insight and wisdom that did not come from myself...then what kind of relationship with God do I have?

    So this is my Pentecost Sunday challenge. Find a way to make your Christianity truly mystical and supernatural. Don't get so caught up in logic and ritual (two things I adore, for the record). Instead, seek miracles and divine guidance, and see what happens. Pursue the supernatural...because I believe it has been pursuing you.

Comments (17)

  • Here are some of the passages in which Jesus and the first Christians
    indicate that Christianity should be accompanied by supernatural events:

    Believers will be given the power to perform miracles: they will drive
    out demons in my name; they will speak in strange tongues;
    if they pick up snakes or drink any poison, they will not be harmed;
    they will place their hands on sick people, and these will get well. --Jesus

    I am telling you the truth: those who believe in me will do what I
    do: yes, they will do even greater things, because I am going to the
    Father. And I will do whatever you ask for in my name, so that the Father's glory will be shown through the Son. --Jesus

    Repent, then, and turn to God, so that he will forgive your sins. If you do,
    times of spiritual strength will come from the Lord, and he will send
    Jesus, who is the Messiah he has already chosen for you. --Peter

    The Spirit's presence is shown in some way in each person for the good
    of all.
    The Spirit gives one person a message full of wisdom, while to another
    person the same Spirit gives a message full of knowledge. One and the
    same Spirit gives faith to one person, while to another person he gives
    the power to heal.
    The Spirit gives one person the power to work miracles; to another, the
    gift of speaking God's message; and to yet another, the ability to tell
    the difference between gifts that come from the Spirit and those that
    do not. To one person he gives the ability to speak in strange tongues,
    and to another he gives the ability to explain what is said. But it is
    one and the same Spirit who does all this; as he wishes, he gives a
    different gift to each person. --Paul

    It is true that we live in the world, but we do not fight from worldly
    motives. The weapons we use in our fight are not the world's weapons but
    God's
    powerful weapons, which we use to destroy strongholds. We destroy false
    arguments; we pull down
    every proud obstacle that is raised against the knowledge of God; we
    take every thought captive and make it obey Christ. --Paul

  • I am content with the miraculous work of God being that he saved me from Hell.  That is a miracle everyday in my life, and it's enough for me.

  • The fact that I'm alive is "miracle" enough for me and for others who've witnessed where I've been. I shouldn't be alive today, no one could logically have survived what I've survived. When people begin to learn of my past they either think I'm lying, praise me for being so "strong" or they recognize the author of my life. Those who passed through the fire with me or have enough knowlege of the situations to know I tell the truth have one by one come to believe. I'm not strong, but my father is the keeper of my life and he lends me his strength when I need it. Miracles?, Supernatural ? Those words don't quite fit though; for me what God has done and is doing is completely natural and normal.

  • Wow, I am impressed by this post by you.
    I was thinking thoughts along these same lines just last week... about the supernatural aspect of God.  How in the past supernatural things were common, but how today we fear them, instead of seek and embrace them.  How the power of God in our lives is meant to be supernatural.  I all the time say, 'there are no coincidences'... I see a power beyond mere coincidence, but most people do not embrace that thought.  I know too many people who think, because they go through the rituals, they are pleasing to God, but they never seek that actual connection with Him in the spirit.  I too believe it is meant to be supernatural.

  • Amen, brother

  • This is very interesting take on it. And Pentacost explains why the the theme color was red... sadly I couldn't hear all of the service being muffled by crying/ screaming children in the area I was sitting and the priest mic wasn't working but no one complained so I guess that's all I missed. Yea, I see how logic can help loose the mystical essence of believing. I will try and take you challenge. :)

  • there have been certain events in my life that I haven't able to explain, so I suppose that this can be explained as "supernatural."

  • such a good post GP. I take your challenge. He who has ears, let him hear.

  • I'm so happy you decided to talk to me! :) yay!! <3

  • evidences of grace are evident if you can look... supernatural?  depends on what you mean... arms regenerating defying the natural laws of science?  not yet... people responding to the saving grace of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ... yessir... healings... not yet... raising of the dead... again, not yet... but then again... isn't that another miracle?  a soul that was once dead is now alive in Christ?  so in THAT light, then yes, I have seen the supernatural...

  • In many ways I can relate to your frustration.

    First off, much of the Church operates out of her own strength and resources, not at all seeking the Holy Spirit because they see no need for His power. They've been taught the Holy Spirit is some sort of an add-on or optional. They've not been taught that He is a vital necessity to our living the Christian life. (How can we live the Christian life apart from Christ's life?) They've not been broken, they've not been brought to the point Peter and the disciples were. The members of the early Church were humbled; they came to see their own insufficiency and to understand that without Christ, they could do nothing. Therefore the early Church actually listened to Jesus and tarried in prayer in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to fall, so they might fulfill the calling God had for them, to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth. And then they continued to seek the Spirit's power for holy living and ministry.

    I also see people not expecting much of God; as a result they are not asking God for hard things. They are content with a mediocre, lukewarm Christianity. They are not like Caleb and Joshua, but rather like the 10 spies and the rest of Israel who ended up wandering 40 years in the wilderness. They are only biding their time until heaven. What a travesty! We are children of the living God and we have the power of the living God, and yet how often does that show in our daily life? How often do we resemble the world in which we live rather than walking as children of light? We HAVE eternal life beginning today – in this life.

    All that said, we have to remember that any movement of God is according to His sovereign will and timing. We certainly should be praying with expectation, but God always pours and moves where and when He wills. He is God, we are not. He does not bow to us. All we receive from Him is by His mercy and grace.

    We need to guard against seeking miracles/giftings/signs, etc. over seeking the face of God. And we have to keep in mind that all of God's gifts are given to advance the cause of Christ in the world and to edify the Church. It's too tempting for us to seek after the Holy Spirit for wrong reasons (e.g. - Simon in Acts 8). We also need to be careful not to seek the spectacular at the expense of overlooking the "ordinary" (Do not despise the day of small things.). As Christians, we can trust God is always working to glorify Himself, to make Jesus Christ preeminent, and for the good of His people and the furtherance of the Gospel – and often that happens in inconspicuous and humble ways, e.g.- the mustard seed and the speck of leaven.

    First and foremost eternal life is our knowing God and His Son Jesus
    Christ. We too often lose sight of the high and miraculous privilege it
    is that helpless sinners are cleansed and reconciled to a holy God through the blood of Christ so we might have fellowship with the living God. If You, O Lord, would mark iniquities, who could stand? But with You there is forgiveness that You might be feared!

    If Job had prayed for healing and restoration of his material possessions and had gotten the answer immediately, would he have come to such an intimate fellowship with the living God?

    Job 42:5  I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. 6  Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.

    Romans 11:33-36.

    God has so many spiritual blessings for us, e.g. - joy and peace in believing, peace that passes understanding, knowing the breadth and length and height and depth of God's love for us, power to mortify sin and so on – and, as we grow in those, as we are conformed into the image of Christ, we are able to walk with a boldness and confidence, with a quality of life that distinguishes the believer from the world and presents a strong testimony to the world, and yet how often do we ask for those things? Peace in the midst of a storm, joy in barrenness, living as lights in the midst of a perverse generation – those are true miracles.

  • I do look for supernatural occurrences, very often. (And yes... I'm Pentecostal.) I've had spiritual experiences where I have felt God's presence, and had things happen in my life that I could write off as coincidences - IF I believed in those.

  • @naphtali_deer - This is the opposite of a stupid comment :)   I concur.

  • The very moment of my salvation was a miracle, and death itself would never stop me from admitting that. The healing that took place in me that moment was impossible. People go through years of therapy and don't even see that kind of improvement. 

    I've had spiritual dreams before and possibly a couple of visions too, I'm not sure about the visions. 
    I love the way God works. :)

  • "Are you more than merely the physical sum of your senses and thoughts?"

    This was a very thought-provoking passage. I am much like yourself, rational and logical in my thinking. I think I am very skeptical of the supernatural aspect of Christianity because I have only seen it turn out negatively in this modern day. I.e. people using prayer to gossip, people slandering others on mission trips, people claiming amazing salvation experiences and then doing the unthinkable to harm another shortly after. To me it sounds ideal, it sounds much like Christ once intended for it to be. But I dont see it lived out or realistic today, especially in Christian society. I see more beautiful, spiritual acts occur from unsaved people that I know than the Christians that I do.

    Love always

  • thank you dear. I'm glad too! :)

  • @nobrakess - This same thing is being said over and over and over on this forum.    What it amounts to is a repudiation of Christ....as though people without Christ are far superior to those who know Him.   And that goodness and love evaporate from a person's life once they have been born into God's family.

    The fact that so many unbelievers and fringe believers say these things doesn't make them untrue, but it is a biased opinion nevertheless.  We who are believers should still follow Christ and not the world - even if the world hates them, as Jesus said it would.

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