Longest Night Service

You keep track of all my sorrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book.
Psalm 56:8 NLT

I participated in our church’s Longest Night Service last night. This is an experiential service designed for those dealing acutely with grief, loss, and pain in this Christmas season. The atmosphere, lighting, song selection, and beauty of the violin were amazing. The theme of the night was, “Jesus is with you in the pain and grief. His presence is healing.” We took communion, lit candles, sat with Jesus, took home tassels, and released our pain. But more than that, the presence of Jesus was palpable in the room.

I went thinking I didn’t have anything to grieve. I was there to help lead the service and be there for others. But almost immediately, without warning, I began to weep. I was grieving something deep inside of my soul, but I couldn’t discern immediately what it was. So I asked Jesus about this.

He not only revealed what I was grieving, but He brought Isaiah 53:3 to mind. Jesus revealed to me that when He shows up in a room as the One who is “a man of suffering, and familiar with pain,” things that we didn’t even know we needed to grieve come to the surface.

When Jesus shows up as “a man of suffering, familiar with pain” and the Holy Spirit shows up as the Comforter, the things that have been trapped in the deep places of our soul feel safe to emerge. And I know of a few others who experienced the same thing. They came to the service to support others and ended up experiencing both unexpected grieving and unexpected healing.

Tears flowed last night but in a way that was healing and cleansing. Jesus kept his promise from Psalm 34:18, that He “is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Why We Ask For Healing

“…whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31

It’s been about nine years since I started really praying for physical healing for people. By this I don’t mean the kind of cursory prayer that just assumes God is going to do what God is going to do, basically nullifying the necessity of prayer. No, I mean it’s been nine years since I started stepping into the delegated authority of Christ and praying for healing in a way that expects God to heal the person right then and right there as we pray.

This is the kind of praying that believes in the gifts of healing listed in 1 Corinthians 12 and believes that God wants to use His people as conduits of His power bringing about His Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10)

In those nine plus years, I have seen a number of reactions to praying for physical healing. Some people are hesitant to receive healing prayer because of bad previous experiences. They are concerned that if they are not healed, they will get blamed for not having enough faith. Or, they are concerned that they’ll somehow disappoint the person praying for them if they aren’t healed. Or, they’d rather not get their hopes up one more time if they are just going to be let down again. All of these reasons for being hesitant about healing prayer are understandable.

One of the most common unhealthy reactions to receiving healing prayer that I’ve encountered is to downplay the importance of receiving prayer for physical healing. There’s a kind of Platonic dualism that still exists in western Christianity that exalts things labeled “spiritual,” like the soul, and reduces things labeled “material,” like the body.

This most often shows up in the evangelical world when people exalt “winning souls” and downplay care for the poor. But the other place this dualism shows up is when people believe the God cares deeply about their emotional and spiritual health but that their physical health is not that important to God.

The fruit of this dualism is that people believe God will heal their heart but likely not their body. This belief leads people to come forward easily for prayer when it involves their emotional or spiritual health. Yet, it is more difficult for people to come forward for prayer for their bodies. They wonder if their physical ailment is even worth praying for. After all, our bodies are destined for death anyway. Why pursue or persist in healing prayer?

But the same could be said for feeding the poor. Why care? Why do it at all if we’re all just going to die anyway? (You can see how unhealthy this dualism can get.)

Orthodox Christian theology rejected this kind of dualism centuries ago, but it still lingers on in the hearts and minds of many modern Christians. The incarnation of Jesus forever put to rest whether God cares about the body. He didn’t show up as a spirit. Jesus came in a body. This same body was crucified and buried. Then in His resurrection, again He was not resurrected as just a spirit. No, He came to life again in a resurrected body, as will all those who believe in Him. In other words, bodies matter to God. We are a whole person – spirit, soul, and body – and God doesn’t appreciate it when we diminish one aspect of ourselves that He created.

This unhealthy dualism which diminishes the importance of the body often leads whole denominations not to prioritize praying for the sick in a way that truly believes God will heal today. It not only reduces the faith and prayer life of the church, but it also leads people to say something like this, “Oh, I don’t want to receive prayer for this sickness. God can heal me if He wants, but there are bigger, more important things to pray about.” This way of thinking reflects a kind of Christian fatalism.

This “God will do what God will do” kind of thinking is deterministic and assumes we have no part to play in God’s Kingdom coming to earth. But this isn’t how God designed things to work. Our cooperation and obedience matter. God chose to use us as vessels to bring about His Kingdom on earth. It matters if we pray. It matters if we act. It matters if we cooperate with Him in obedience.

Another misconception of healing prayer is that it is all about the person and their ailment. People sometimes have a weird feeling like it is somehow selfish to receive healing prayer. But praying for someone’s healing isn’t primarily about them or their sickness. We pray for healing for a number of reasons and only one of those reasons is to see them get well.

Let me give you three reasons we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing that all come before the motivation to see someone get well.

We pray for healing for God’s glory. As shocking as this may sound, praying for healing is not primarily about the sick person getting well. It is primarily about the glory of God (Ephesians 6:7; 1 Cor 10:31). Jesus paid a high price on the cross for our healing. And if anyone ever gets healed, it is because of that price that He paid. By His wounds we are healed (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). So whether we pray for someone’s healing or we receive prayer for healing, in both cases we are primarily doing it for God’s glory. In both cases, it is so Jesus can receive His reward for the great price that He paid. The act of faith of both praying and receiving prayer, regardless of the outcome, brings glory to God.
We pray for healing out of obedience. Praying for healing and receiving prayer for healing are both things we are commanded to do in the New Testament. Jesus told His disciples to “heal the sick” on multiple occasions (Matthew 10:8; Luke 10:9) and then told His disciples to teach the next generation of disciples to do the same (Matthew 28:20). Receiving prayer for healing was something that was expected in the early church (James 5:14-15).
We pray for healing to see God’s Kingdom come to earth. Praying for healing and receiving prayer for healing become evidence (a sign) that God’s Kingdom is breaking into our world right now. We’re not waiting for the Kingdom to start invading this world; it’s already happening. That was Jesus’s message. The Kingdom has come. When we pray for the sick and when we receive prayer for healing, we are declaring that we believe God’s Kingdom has already started to invade this broken world.

And, of course, we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing in order to see the sick get well. There is so much suffering that comes with sickness. Part of our job as followers of Jesus is to push back against the brokenness of this world. We’re also called to join Jesus’s mission to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). For both of these reasons, we want to see the sick recover. To not care about seeing the sick get well would show an egregious lack of compassion and love for people.

Yet, we also must keep in mind that there are other important reasons that we pray for the sick and receive prayer for healing. If we are the one who needs prayer, we need to cast off that feeling that receiving prayer is somehow selfish. It’s not. Receiving prayer (and praying for the sick) is primarily about Jesus and His Kingdom. Receiving prayer and praying for the sick are acts of worship; they are acts of obedience. In doing so we bring glory to God and to His Kingdom.

The western church needs to shake free from the shackles of a gnostic dualism that keeps us from prioritizing healing prayer. Whether a person gets healed or not, we pray for healing and receive prayer for healing for God’s glory. And when someone gets miraculously healed, we exalt the name of Jesus for the high price He paid, and we share the testimony of healing as a sign of the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom on earth.

If you need physical healing (or any other kind of healing) go get prayer. Join a church that believes in healing and prioritizes healing prayer. More of God’s Kingdom is waiting to break in to our world. We just need to be bold enough to ask for it.

The Evil Eye

You may have heard of “giving someone the evil eye.” It’s a saying that sometimes get thrown around in our culture and usually refers to looking at someone with disdain or disgust. It is often associated with another common phrase about giving someone “side-eye.” This is when someone looks at another person out of the corners of their eyes with an expression of contempt.

However, the idea of the “evil eye” is much more than just looking at someone with disdain. The evil eye is an idea that goes all the way back to ancient cultures and was believed to bring real harm into a person’s life.

We even see the idea of the evil eye being addressed in the New Testament by Jesus. The evil eye was a daily part of First Century culture, and although most translators have scrubbed this language from English translations of the Bible so as to not lend credibility to this superstition, Jesus addresses the notion of the evil eye directly on more than one occasion.

For instance, the cultural belief in the evil eye shows up a couple times in how Jesus heals a blind person. In John 9:6, Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud with his saliva, and puts it on a man’s eyes. After the man washes, his blindness is healed. In Mark 8:22-23 Jesus spits directly on a blind man’s eyes in Bethsaida, places his hands on him, and the man’s blindness is healed.

These stories don’t make any sense unless you understand a bit about their culture. Ancient cultures believed that the eyes were the windows to the soul. If you were blind, it must mean that there was darkness in your soul. They didn’t believe light came into your eyes so that you could see as medical science tells us today. They actually believed you were able to see because light was coming out of your eyes.

They also believed other things could come out of your eyes from your soul. If you were envious of someone and you stared at a person or if you were angry at that person, they believed that envy or anger could come up out of your soul, through your eyes, and end up cursing the person you were looking at. This became known as giving someone the “evil eye.”

This is what Jesus was referring to when he says this:

Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be just as full of light as when a lamp shines its light on you.”
Luke 11:34-36

The Gospel of Matthew has Jesus saying it almost identically:

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
Matthew 6:22-23

The word in the Greek translated here as “healthy” is actually the word that means “undivided” or “singular.” In other words, “without a double agenda.” It’s the antonym for the Greek word for double. And the word here translated as “unhealthy” is the word “evil.” It could literally be translated, “…if you have the evil eye, your whole body will be darkness.”

Jesus is using their cultural understanding of the “evil eye” to tell them that if they are duplicitous in the way they look at things, they’ll end up filling their life with darkness. But if their heart is pure, their soul is full of light, then they won’t look at things with envy and jealousy. In other words, if your insides (your heart, your motivations, your thinking) is full of light, then that light will shine out and impact everything around you.

The context of the Matthew 6 passage is Jesus’s conversation in the Sermon on the Mount about storing up treasure in heaven. Just as He finishes talking about not storing up treasure on earth, He talks about the need for the eye being “undivided” or “singular” in order to have a life full of light.

Then Jesus concludes by saying you can’t serve two masters; you’ll hate the one and love the other. Therefore, you can’t serve both God and money. An “unhealthy” or “divided” or “evil” eye in this case is one that is greedy and covetous about material wealth and possessions. It’s an eye that is divided between serving God and serving money.

But what about Jesus using saliva and spit to heal?

In that culture, one of the main ways to ward off the “evil eye” was to spit or use saliva in some way. This belief that saliva wards off the evil eye still exists today in some of the older cultures like the Mexican and Greek cultures.

If an old Mexican grandma or an old Greek grandma finds herself staring at you too long, she may come up and start making spitting noises around you. This is so that she doesn’t accidentally give you the evil eye. This happened to our nephews when they lived in McAllen, Texas right on the border between Mexico and Texas. They were the only blond-haired, blue-eyed kids walking through the grocery store down there. So, they’d have these grandmas staring at them and then coming up and making spitting noises toward them in the store. The grandmas were actually trying to care for them by protecting them from the evil eye.

Jesus knew all about his own culture’s view of the evil eye as well as the belief that saliva could combat it. Knowing this, Jesus spits on the ground, or spits on the man’s eyes, and uses his saliva to cure the evil eye. And curing the evil eye cured the blindness.

All of this might beg the question: “Is Jesus suggesting, with his words and actions, that the evil eye is real?”

I don’t think Jesus is saying that the superstition of the evil eye is real. I don’t think He was confirming that you could curse someone by looking at them sideways. There is no physical substance coming out of our eyes and impacting someone else negatively.

However, I do think Jesus is confirming that, in many ways, the eyes are the windows to our soul. We already know this intuitively. We can see so many emotions express themselves through a person’s eyes. Sadness, anger, joy, confusion, and so many more emotions show up in our eyes whether we like it or not. Our heart often does speak through our eyes.

And there is a different way that the eyes are a window to our soul. My friends and I who do deliverance ministry can often tell if a person is demonized by their eyes. The more heavily demonized a person is, the more it shows up in their eyes. The eyes of a demonized person tend to be darker than normal or more empty than they should be. This is hard to explain because you see darkened eyes as much with the “eyes of your heart” as you can with your physical eyes. It’s not as much a physical reality as it is a spiritual one.

I’ve also had occasions in prayer sessions where demons have manifested in a person’s eyes or in their facial expression. What I mean by “manifested” is that a demon can sometimes take over part of a person’s body who is heavily demonized. I’ve had demons take over arms that will start flailing or swinging at me. I’ve had demons take over legs that then move spontaneously on their own. I’ve even had demons take over the person’s whole body as they tried to get up and leave the room.

All of this to say, sometimes demons can pop up in a person’s eyes to “look around” or to make an expression. The most common demonic expressions I’ve seen are either mocking me, angry at me, or completely terrified of Christ in me. The eyes end up being, in a very literally way, the windows to the person’s soul.

Jesus, of course, has authority over all of this. Our desire, ultimately, is that people look through the windows to our own souls and see Jesus there. Christ in us the hope of glory. Or better yet, that when they look at our eyes, they would see the eyes of Jesus.

Jesus had eyes of compassion and love. He saw people that no one else saw. He loved people no one else loved. He also had eyes of fire. After all, when John had a vision of Jesus on the Island of Patmos, he described Jesus as having eyes that “were like blazing fire”(Revelation 1:14; 2:18; 19:12). So when John looked through the windows to Jesus’s soul, what John saw there was a blazing fire! Jesus is a consuming fire, even down to His very soul!

How about your eyes? Are they “healthy?” What’s coming out of them these days?

Other People’s Gifts

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good…All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
1 Corinthians 12:7, 11

Sometimes when a conversation comes up about spiritual gifts, I hear someone say something like, “I don’t want that gift,” or “I’m not interested in that.” This is especially true if we’re talking about gifts like tongues or prophecy or healing, etc.

But all the gifts, including these kinds of gifts, are good gifts from a good Father distributed by the Holy Spirit. Is that how we’d want our child to respond if we gave them a bike or a gaming console?

Usually, this defensive response comes from a place of hearing of others who have those gifts and not wanting to feel like a second class Christian if we don’t have them. These kinds of statements really come from a deeper question which is asking something like, “Am I still okay if I don’t have that gift?”

Imagine if you had a son who was watching the neighbor kid get a bike and your son was trying to fight off insecurity or jealousy. He might be asking himself, “Why didn’t I get that?” Or, “Does he think he’s better because he has that?” He might ultimately resign himself to thinking, “I didn’t want that anyway.” But we wouldn’t want our son to feel that way or think those thoughts. It’s not the right response to seeing others get a gift that we don’t have. And it’s not the right heart posture.

Instead, we would want our son to celebrate other people getting gifts even when (and maybe especially when) he doesn’t get that gift. We would also want him to ask for those gifts if he wants them. And we would want him to be secure in the gifts he’s already been given.

All of this applies to us with regards to spiritual gifts. We need to celebrate others who have gifts that are different than ours. We need to pursue and ask for certain gifts if we desire them. And, in the meantime, we need to be secure in the gifts we already have. Fighting off any sense of insecurity, jealousy, or worry that others will think we’re second class Christians will be essential for this. And we need to make sure we don’t denigrate the gifts of the Spirit–any gifts of the Spirit–but especially those we don’t have.

Unhealed Healers

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
Matthew 10:1-4

In the popular television series, The Chosen, they often tackle some difficult issues in the life of Jesus and His disciples. One such issue is the question of why some people get miraculously healed and others do not. They tackle this issue in Season 3, Episode 2 by having James son of Alphaeus (or “Little James” as he’s called on the show) ask Jesus why Jesus hasn’t healed him. Little James walks with a limp and deals with “a kind of paralysis” on the show, yet, Jesus still chose to send Little James out to do ministry where James is used by God to bring healing to others. (You can watch this poignant scene here.)

This scene is particularly powerful because the actor who plays Little James, Jordan Walker Ross, isn’t acting when he walks with a limp. He was born with cerebral palsy and scoliosis. The struggles and questions of the character Little James were similar to Ross’s own real life struggles and questions.

Whether you agree with the particular answers Jesus gives in the scene or the particular theology of healing that the show portrays, it still raises and important question.

Why would Jesus use a person to heal others while not healing the person He’s using?

This question hit home with me as I listened to Ross being interviewed about this scene. He was very honest about his struggles with not being healed and the insecurities that he has battled. (You can watch that interview here.)

I had just finished a lunch meeting with someone and was sitting in my car, outside of Panera, watching the interview on my phone. And before I had a chance to even ask the Lord why He chooses to heal through people whom He hasn’t yet healed, the Lord answered the question. Maybe my spirit asked the question before my brain could catch up, and God decided to answer my spirit before my brain knew what was happening.

So, as I sat there in my car, the Lord brought to mind my own prayers about myself, that God would change certain parts of me to look more like Jesus. I had just prayed those prayers that morning. And as the Lord brought those prayers to mind, suddenly I knew what God was telling me.

“I only heal through people who are still unhealed.”

God was reminding me that He has healed people through me, and yet there are parts of my life that are still unhealed. The parts of my life that are unhealed are not as obvious as Ross’s or Little James, but they are still there. There are parts of my character, my heart, my thinking, and more that are yet to be fully healed. In fact, I will never be “fully healed” in totality this side of heaven. No one will.

So, yes, God will heal through people who are still unhealed because that is all of us. That is all He has to work with. The only One who walked this earth who was completely healed and whole was Jesus Himself. So, now, whenever Jesus heals someone through the prayers of another person or through the laying on of hands of another person, He is healing through someone still unhealed in some way. That’s all He has to work with.

Sometimes our “unhealed” parts are physical. Sometimes they are emotional or spiritual. Sometimes they have to do with parts of our personality or character. Sometimes it has to do with the condition of our heart or mind. All of us walk this earth partially healed and partially not. In Christ, we have been made new creations, yet that new creation is still working its way through us toward fullness.

We are already new creations in Christ, and we are not yet living in the fullness of it all.

Jesus healing others through people who themselves are not yet physically healed is a prophetic sign to us all. It’s a mirror showing us the reality of our own lives. It’s both a celebration of the grace of God who is willing to dwell in and use imperfect vessels of clay, and it is a humbling reminder of our own unhealed, unwhole parts yet to be brought into their fullness.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
2 Corinthians 4:6-10

Partnering with God: A short bible study

Let’s try a little bible study thought experiment. Read the following passage of scripture and answer this question, “Who performed the miracles?” It’s a simple question, but I don’t want you to answer based on your theology or preconceived notions. Answer only based on what the text actually says.

Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
Acts 2:43

So, who performed the signs and wonders according to this passage? Answer: the apostles. Here’s what the passage didn’t say but what our own theology might expect it to say, “God performed many signs and wonders through the apostles.” Maybe that is what we wished it said. It would certainly be a bit less messy theologically if it was phrased that way. But that’s not what it said. It said the wonders and signs were performed “by the apostles.” Interesting.

Let’s try it again. Read the following passage of scripture and answer this question, “Who performed the miracles?” Answer only based on what the text actually says.

The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people.
Acts 5:12

Just to provoke a little more reflection, I’ll ask this question. “According to this passage, not your theology, was it God who did the signs and wonders or the apostles?” I know, I know. Humans can’t do miracles, only God can. But this passage is clear that it was the apostles who did the signs and wonders.

Let’s look at some more passages and ask the same question, “Who performed the miracles?” Answer only based on what the text actually says.

Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.
Acts 6:8

Answer? Stephen. Now this passage helps us a little in telling us that he was “full of God’s grace and power,” but the passage is once again unapologetic about naming Stephen as the one who “performed great wonders and signs.”

Or how about this next one. “Who performed the miracles?” Answer only based on what the text actually says.

When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.
Acts 8:6-7

Answer? Philip.

Last one. Except this time, I’ll change the question slightly. For this one I’m asking, “Who cast out the demon?”

Finally, Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her.
Acts 16:18

I know, I know. We want to be able to say God cast out the demon or Jesus cast out the demon or, even, the power of the Spirit cast out the demon. But what does the word of God actually say? Paul is clear when he says, “I command you….” Paul commanded that demonic spirit to leave and, at that moment, it left the woman.

So what am I getting at?

When God does the miraculous on the earth, He chooses to partner with us in doing it. The partnership is so close that scripture often fails to say the qualifiers that we would expect, like, “God did X through such and such person.” It often skips all of that and just says that the person performed the miracle.

What are we to make of this?

Scripture often describes the relationship between Christ and the Church as a marriage between husband and wife (see Ephesians 5:31-32 & John 3:28-29). There is a partnership and a union between us and Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, where the two become one (like husband and wife).

Imagine a husband who works and brings home all the household income and a wife who stays home to manage the house and the kids. Now imagine the wife is the one who organizes their family budget and makes sure all the bills get paid on time. So here’s the question, “Who pays the bills?”

On the one hand, the wife is the one who actually pays the bills, but on the other hand it’s the husband who provides all the income to pay the bills. There is a partnership happening here. It’s not totally correct to say the husband pays the bills (although he is the source of all their resources to do so). It’s also not totally correct to say the wife pays the bills (although she actually executes the action of paying the bills and the bills might not get paid if she didn’t). They both play a role in the bills getting paid. If one or the other didn’t do their part, the bills might not get paid.

This same dynamic is at play when we partner with God to see supernatural signs, wonders, and miracles. Jesus’s death and resurrection provided all the resources for healing. The power of the Spirit in us (not our own power) is what is operating in and through us as we pray for healing. Yet, we do have a part to play. And while our part is small, it is important. We must exercise the delegated authority given to us. We must release the power that is in us. By faith, we must act in prayer.

This is why the scriptures so often say that it was the apostles who performed the miracles, or Stephen, or Philip, or Paul. While we all know the power didn’t originate with them, it did flow through them. They were an essential piece of the partnership to see the Kingdom of God breakout on the earth.

There are other passages of scripture that highlight the fact that God wants to partner with us and work through us to see the miraculous happen around us.

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul…
Acts 19:11

This passage makes it more clear that God is the one working through Paul. And Paul mentioned this supernatural partnership himself when he wrote to the Romans.

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done—by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
Romans 15:18-19

Notice the back and forth. Initially, Paul’s ministry is “what Christ has accomplished through me.” Then it’s “what I have said and done–by the power of signs and wonders.” Then it’s back to, “through the power of the Spirit of God.” This back and forth (it was God, it was me, it was God, it was me, it was God in me, etc) is all an attempt to use limited human language to try to describe this mysterious partnership and oneness with Christ (Christ in you the hope of glory – Colossians 1:27).

James does something similar when he discusses healing prayer.

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.
James 5:15

So, is it the “prayer offered in faith” that makes the sick person well? Or, is it that “the Lord will raise them up?” And of course the answer is “Yes.” Both/And. Partnership. Union.

In our previous analogy, if we asked the husband, “Who pays the bills,” what do you think he would say? I think he would say, “My wife does.” This, to me, explains Acts 2:42; 5:12; 6:8; 8:6; 16:8 and many other passages of scripture. Who did the miracles? The apostles did. Stephen did. Philip did. Paul did. You and I do.

Yet, if you asked the wife the same question, what do you think she would say? I think she would say something like, “I click the button but my husband is the one who brings home the bacon.” This is essentially how Peter responded after the lame beggar got healed in Acts 3:6-8. Peter said, “Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?…It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see” (Acts 3:12-16).

The Supernatural

I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done—by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.
Romans 15:18-19

Inevitably, when you bring up the desire to engage in the supernatural parts of the Kingdom of God or the desire to operate in the power of the Spirit, you’ll have at least one person in the room say something like, “But I believe everything is supernatural,” or “The Holy Spirit is working in all of our interactions and activities.” It’s sort of like when you invite God’s presence and power to fill the room and the guy in the back says, “But God is omnipresent. He’s always here.”

When people say these sorts of things, sometimes it’s just an attempt at a theological “gotcha” moment. But in my experience, more often, it’s an indication of a lack of understanding of the way the Spirit works and the way the Kingdom works.

The reality is that there are things we do as the church that we can absolutely do on our own strength without any help from the Spirit. We can make people feel welcome, create community, engage in relationships, etc. all without ever depending on Jesus. In fact, many businesses do this better than the Church and they don’t give a rip about the Spirit or Jesus. A lot of people feel more connected and loved at their CrossFit gym than at church. You don’t need Jesus for this. In other words, things like this are not what we mean when we use the word “supernatural.” We can choose to have Jesus at the center of these things (which opens the possibility for powerful Holy Spirit moments), or we can do it in our own strength. It’s up to us.

But there are other things that we absolutely cannot do in our own strength. We can’t see people truly surrender their life to Jesus and get saved in our own strength. We can’t heal people in our own strength. We can’t cast out demons in our own strength. We can’t deliver an accurate prophetic word or word of knowledge in our own strength. These things are supernatural precisely because it is impossible to do them without God’s activity and our dependence on Him.

That is what we mean when we talk about “engaging in the supernatural aspects of the Kingdom.” That is what we mean by “operating in the power of God.” It means engaging in ministry where, if God doesn’t move in power, nothing happens. The results make it very obvious whether it was God’s power moving or just our own.

In the same way, those of us who invite the Holy Spirit to come, who invite the increased presence and power of God in the room, already understand that God is omnipresent. What we are inviting is God’s tangible (or manifest) presence. We are inviting God to step a little more through the veil that separates the natural world from the spirit realm so that we can feel His presence and encounter Him holistically–physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Lives are changed when God’s tangible presence fills the room. People are impacted in greater ways when this happens. This is why we invite God to do it. We desire to host His presence and make ourselves available to Him. When His tangible presence fills a room, He does more to transform lives in minutes than we could do in years.

Our society is fascinated with the supernatural but is mostly engaging with the counterfeit forms of it (New Age, mediums, psychics, Reiki, Therapeutic Touch, energy healing, witchcraft, the Occult, etc). But, ultimately, what they are looking for is the real thing, they just don’t know the real thing can only be found in Jesus through the Spirit.

Here’s an unpopular opinion that I believe is true: Any church that doesn’t know how to operate in the power of God or the supernatural aspects of the Kingdom will find themselves very limited in reaching this next generation. The next generation knows that there is more to this world than the natural, but what they don’t know is that the true power and authority to engage in the spirit realm comes only through Jesus. Everything else is a poor counterfeit from the kingdom of darkness. A revival atmosphere where they can actually experience an encounter with God is what they’re longing for.

Are you seeing regular physical healings at your church? Are people regularly finding freedom from demonic oppression at your church? Are the prophetic gifts cultivated at your church so that people hear from the Lord regularly through these gifts? Are people just singing songs and hearing a message or are they having encounters with the living God? These aspects of the Kingdom will be essential for reaching the next generation. If your church isn’t yet engaging in these, it’s time to start now.

Fruit of the Fear of the Lord

Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.
Acts 5:3-5

I believe God wants to return the church to the fear of the Lord. But before we could return to the fear of the Lord, we had to learn about the love of the Father. Once we know we are loved completely, then we can have the right heart posture when it comes to the fear, awe, and reverence of the Lord. Fear of the Lord isn’t about being scared of an abusive father. Fear of the Lord is about being in total reverence of an awesome God such that obedience is all we want to do.

And the fear of the Lord brings really good fruit. Ananias lied to the church and to God about his offering. After he dropped to the ground dead, the rest of verse 5 says, “great fear seized all who heard what had happened” (Acts 5:5).

Then when his wife Sapphira came in three hours later, she delivered the same lie to the church and to God. After she dropped dead before them all, the Bible says, “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events” (Acts 5:11).

But fear is bad, right?

Well, some kinds of fear are bad. Certain kinds of fear can be used by the enemy to paralyze us into inaction and disobedience. But this kind of fear, the fear of the Lord, led to really good fruit. Notice the report that happens right after this event.

The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade. No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people. Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.
Acts 5:12-14

When people take a heart posture of awe, reverence, and holy fear of the Lord, God seems to love to move powerfully through that. Something similar happened to the apostle Paul.

Paul was doing “extraordinary” miracles as he saw people healed from illness and delivered from demonic oppression. Some of the Jews who witnessed Paul’s ministry were so impressed that they tried to imitate what he was doing. Though they didn’t believe in Jesus, have a relationship with Him, or have the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, they still attempted to use Jesus’s name to cast demons out of people who were demonized.

It didn’t go well.

The demons recognized the name of Jesus, and they even recognized Paul’s name. But the demons saw that these seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were operating outside of the delegated authority of Jesus and the power of the Spirit. So these seven brothers got completely beat up by the demonized man they were praying for. It was so bad that these seven guys ran out of the house naked and bleeding (see Acts 19:13-16).

The very next lines of scripture are instructive:

When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power.
Acts 19:17-20

Did you see the fruit of the fear of the Lord?

The name of the Lord was held in high honor.
People began to openly confess and repent of their sin and rebellion.
People left their old way of life that involved the occult and witchcraft.
People were willing to surrender things of tremendous monetary value just to follow Jesus.
The gospel spread widely.
The message of the gospel grew in power.

A couple years ago I had an encounter with the tangible fear of the Lord. It is hard to describe but I try to do so here. It was like the Lord pulled back the curtain and gave me just a taste of the fullness of His Presence, and I was completely undone. God is indescribably awesome, powerful and fearsome. God is love, more than we even know. God is also holy. He isn’t someone to take lightly.

Romans 11:22 advises us to, “Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God…” The word in the Greek translated here as “sternness” means “severity or sharpness,” like a sheer cliff. You know that feeling you get when you walk to the edge of a sheer cliff that drops hundreds of feet either to the ocean or to the rocks below? That feeling of awe, wonder, and heart-pounding fear? That’s what the fear of the Lord is like, and we, as the church, need to return to it. If we do, good fruit awaits us there.

Amazement

People were overwhelmed with amazement.
Mark 7:37

Jesus went into the region east of the Sea of Galilee called the Decapolis. This region was known for ten cities that were networked with each other and Greek in culture. It would have been likely to find a high Gentile population in this region. Yet, word of Jesus’s miracles had spread and people brought Him a man who was deaf and mute.

Jesus touched the man’s tongue, put His fingers in the man’s ears, and commanded them to “Be opened!” In the original language this is a passive imperative in the second person. That means it is a command that can only be obeyed passively. One way we see Jesus heal in the Gospels is to command parts of the body to “be healed” or “be opened” or “be made well.” Jesus isn’t commanding the unhealthy body part to heal itself. Instead, because these are passive imperatives, He’s essentially speaking to the unhealthy body part and commanding it to receive healing from God (passive).

When the man’s hearing and speaking were immediately healed, the people “were overwhelmed with amazement.” And these were likely Gentiles or, at the very least, Hellenized Jews. Jesus was getting a better response from these folks than from many of the Jewish leaders.

Being overwhelmed with amazement is the proper response to the Kingdom of God invading earth. It is the proper response to seeing or hearing about a healing, a miracle or a deliverance. This is how we were supposed to react to these things. Unfortunately, cynicism, skepticism, and the fear of being tricked by charlatans has left a deep wound in the heart of the American church. And this has caused muted reactions to moments when God moves in power.

Here are some reasons why many Christians are no longer overwhelmed with amazement when God moves in power:

Unbelief: they’ve heard too many stories, or witnessed it themselves, of fake healings or church leaders trying to use the miraculous for personal and financial gain. So when they hear of a testimony of someone getting healed or set free from demonic oppression, they just don’t believe it.

Indifference: they don’t necessarily doubt the stories of healings and miracles, they just have been taught that these things aren’t important. They’ve been taught an almost Gnostic version of the gospel that says the really important story is the one where a soul gets saved. Material/physical stuff doesn’t matter. Or an updated version of this is where a person gets really excited about a person outside the church finding loving community inside the church, yet all other stories of God moving in power get a shrug of the shoulders.

Confusion: they hear these stories and don’t really have a compartment in their brain to put it. They’ve lived in the American culture that is saturated with the worship of rationalism and empiricism, so God doing the supernatural is disorienting. They don’t know what to do with these stories of healing and miracles so the stories are mostly met with blank stares.

Familiarity: they have been a part of a church community where healings and deliverances happen regularly. Over time, people become so accustomed to God moving in supernatural power that they take it for granted. It becomes so commonplace that people stop living in awe and wonder of the Lord.

All of the above reactions are understandable, but they’re also unhealthy. The people of the Decapolis had it right. When God moves in power, when the Kingdom of God invades the kingdom of darkness, when someone gets healed or delivered, the proper response is worship. The proper response is awe and wonder. The proper response is deep gratitude and thanksgiving. And if we see it happen right in front of us, the proper response is to be overwhelmed with amazement!

Expensive Miracles (Part 2)

In my original post entitled Expensive Miracles I discussed how Jesus expects our thinking and our actions to change if we have experienced miracles in our midst. We can’t go back to business as usual. Here is a summary quote from that post.

As Bill Johnson said, miracles are expensive. Once they are happening in our midst, we can’t go back to business as usual. Jesus expects more. He expects that they change how we operate in the world, that they change how we think and reason. If they don’t, we become like the Pharisees who saw so many of Jesus’s miracles and walked away with hardened hearts.

In this post I want to explore the consequences of seeing miracles happen and then not responding. Jesus warns that there is a greater responsibility for those who have witnessed the supernatural. When we’ve seen people radically saved, miraculously healed, or powerfully delivered from a demonic presence we are held accountable to those experiences. We don’t get to ignore them, hide them, or make little of them. Here is Jesus in His own words:

Then Jesus began to denounce the towns in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades. For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.”
Matthew 11:20-24

Jesus expected that the people of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum––after having seen so many healings, deliverances and miracles––would embrace the miracles and repent. But repent of what?

We should always repent of our sin regardless of whether we’ve seen miracles in our midst. Yet here in this passage of scripture Jesus is specifically expecting repentance for unbelief. They had the absolute honor of seeing miracles in their midst, yet their response to them was lukewarm at best. Rather than embracing the miracles and Jesus––the One who did the miracles––they were likely offended or embarrassed by them. Jesus does not take lightly that kind of response to His supernatural work. It’s as if we are almost better off not experiencing the supernatural side of the Kingdom of God than experiencing it and rejecting it.

Remember what happened in Jesus’s own hometown when they responded similarly.

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue,and many who heard him were amazed.
“Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? What are these remarkable miracles he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Jesus was amazed by the people in His own hometown but not in a good way. He was amazed at their lack of faith. Their rejection of Jesus and His supernatural ministry caused a limitation in what happened in their midst. Miracles did not happen. What we learn here is that God will not continue to move supernaturally in a community that continues to reject Him and His miracles.

This is a sobering warning for those of us who have experienced the Holy Spirit move powerfully in our midst. God is slow to anger and abounding in love. But He will not throw His pearls to pigs and see them trampled (see Jesus’s words in Matthew 7:6). He will not continue to entertain the sin of unbelief. He is a good Father who disciplines His children. Part of His love for us includes leaving places where He and His miracles are not welcomed.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled“(Matthew 5:6). God is looking for the teachable, the humble, and the hungry. He is looking for those who won’t be offended by His supernatural work. He’s looking for a people who refuse to be cavalier about His wonder working power. He’s inviting those who are curious about the supernatural possibilities of God’s Kingdom to lean into faith and embrace the impossible.

Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Matthew 19:26

When miracles happen in our midst, we can choose to lean into them rather than away from them. We can choose to get curious about the supernatural gifts of the Spirit and how they can operate in a healthy way in the church. We can choose to take greater risks praying for healing and deliverance. We can see the miraculous in our midst as an incredible honor rather than a burden to be managed. The Holy Spirit didn’t have to come in power and perform miracles in our midst. But if He decides to show up in this way, we can embrace Him with open arms. We can celebrate that a measure of the Kingdom is breaking out among us! Praise God for His generosity and kindness! Praise Him for His miraculous power in our midst!