Mastering the Miraculous: How to Release the Full Power of God’s Promises

Sometimes we can lose sight of the demonstration of God’s power because we do not see it in the context of simplicity of our faith.

Perhaps because we confuse simplicity with ease. In 2 Corinthians 12:12 we learn that signs, wonders, and miracles require perseverance. They are not easy, but they are characteristics of the simplicity of our faith. Simplicity is focus, priority, no nonsense.

Paul saw this as the answer to earth’s wisdom. The Greeks in Corinth had pursued wisdom (sophia) to such an extent that they believed, in some instances, that they did not need God. Yet Paul stated that earth’s wisdom, even though given to man by God at creation, could not bring God to earth; only heaven’s wisdom could do that.

We live in days of words, knowledge, debate, polarization, speculation, and conspiracies. The answer to these lies not in more words or clever speech, but in demonstrating the power of God, although it may appear as foolishness.

My challenge is that, in our everyday personal lives and in our corporate church lives, we always give opportunity for the demonstration of God’s power intervening, healing, providing, and guiding. It will require faith, we may often feel blind, but it is the very nature of our Christianity: faith. Jesus did not say, “When I come back, I will find all blind eyes healed.” On the contrary, He asked a question, “Will I find faith?” Will He?

Cherishing The Presence/Temple

The awareness that we are temples of the Holy Spirit—chosen vessels—is the key to avoiding immorality, partisanship in relating to our leaders, and even preventing the culture of celebrity among ministers of the gospel.

If some of the problems of our day continue to be immorality in the church, the division around which leaders we serve, and the temptation to create a celebrity culture for men and women who are doing what they are called to do, then we need look no further than the answer Paul gave us. Do you not know that you carry His presence with you? You were bought with a price, a sanctified and cleansed temple made out of your sinful body. If you understood that, you would drive your ministry car as close to the center of the road as possible. You would see all men after the Spirit and not elevate one over another. Our roles may be different, but our Kingdom value will never be different.

The price He paid cleansed us. Moses built a cleansed tabernacle, estimated at $16 million by today’s value. Solomon built a temple, again cleansed and filled at an estimated $60 million in today’s currency and value. But Jesus bought you with a price far exceeding those, and sanctified and cleansed you to be worthy of carrying His presence.

We must never limit His presence to singing worship songs, but neither should we miss the opportunity that our modern world gives us in the form of extended worship meetings where we experience the presence both individually and corporately. We have seen the progression in our lifetime giving us unlimited access to psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that can help us to focus, to turn our eyes upon Jesus, and as we do, to know that He is with us.

Salvations/Responding to The Resurrected Jesus

It is clear from Corinthians that there were gospel deniers and the deconstructed in Paul’s Corinth. Yet again, his answer was not clever speech or wrangling with words. The answer to denying the resurrection was to preach the resurrection. Again, Sue’s one-liner says it best, “He is either who He says He is, or He isn’t.” He is either the resurrected Jesus or He didn’t resurrect, and if He didn’t, we have nothing left. You decide.

If I can once again put it this way, Paul was obsessed with the resurrection and the resurrected Jesus. After all, it was the only Jesus he knew. Saul knew Him, encountered Him, embraced everything He taught, married it with his knowledge of the Old Testament, and didn’t doubt it. He was not ashamed of the gospel of the resurrected Jesus. My friend Andrew Cannon, saved in 2010 on the streets of Liverpool, homeless, suicidal, cocaine addicted, and totally lost, testifies that he never has a day of his life without a tear in his eye, thankful for being saved with the certain hope of resurrection. I suspect that Paul lived that way too, and so should we.

My challenge to myself and to you is to live that way, to personally express to Him daily our gratitude for salvation. For those of us who lead in a church setting, I challenge you to always corporately give opportunity for a response to the preaching of the gospel of salvation and to lead people to the resurrected Jesus. It was Saul’s answer to deconstruction, denial, dilution, and division of the gospel, and it is our best one too.

Christ is Risen, He is Risen indeed.

Cultivating Communion and Fellowship

I often hear people desire to return to the church of Acts 2. I understand the desire. Our world, though, is very different, but I suggest that there is a central theme from the Acts 2 church that we can pursue. My challenge is to cultivate a culture of communion, celebrating together our Lord’s death and out of that finding fellowship. The breaking of bread prepares us for fellowship. Once again, Sue has words that focus me on what matters and what is the truth: It is very difficult to hold something against someone while taking communion with them.

Paul, at some point, received the Lord’s instruction for communion. Jesus gave him a context: It was the night He was betrayed. We are without excuse if we think we can say, “If you knew what they have done to me.” It is no comparison to the night when Jesus was betrayed. In our recent pandemic, we craved one thing around the world: being with other people. Fellowship. It is our great privilege to be members of the human race, made in His image. So much of our world wants to destroy our common origin. Yet we are a family that derives its name from our Father.

So many moves of God began with encounters. Our challenge is to keep the raw alive. Sometimes practices are adopted and over time they become tradition, waiting for another generation to find its origin and power. Our faith began with fellowship—twelve brothers in the Old Testament, twelve disciples in the New. Our shared sacrament is communion, celebrating Jesus every time. We were not created to be alone—we were made for family, for fellowship, for celebrating together.

Ambassadors

I have covered this in detail in our earlier discussions about the apostolic and being sent. Yet it is worth mentioning again because it is a life principle. Every believer needs to know and be reminded that they are sent. We carry assignments of restoring or reconciling what is broken, of bringing what is missing.

The identity of the apostle is a sent one, and their most simple job description is for every believer to know that they are sent: sent to represent Jesus, ambassadors of reconciliation, assigned to bring heaven to earth.