Thoughts
on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength (Vol. 1) - #
288
Michael’s book is
available through:
ABIDING LIFE MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL
Littleton, Colorado
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For a world living in the “natural,” it is the “supernatural”
that holds all sorts of emotional attachments.
And yet, is it the same for those privileged to Live in the
supernatural???
Michael gives us some interesting insights to that
Life in this day’s writing…
DAY 261
The Christian and The Supernatural
As the crowds were
increasing, He began to say, “This generation is a wicked generation; it seeks
for a sign, and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah.”
–Luke 11:29
The fact that believers often clamor for the supernatural
is understandable, since many have been covertly taught that God’s stamp of
approval is His supernatural response in our daily activities.
Having God continually act in supernatural ways for us personally is viewed as
proof that we are special, not mere dots on the planet. Those who have accepted
and identified with the above theory make the following types of statements.
“God noticed me! I have worth, value, an identity.” “God sought me out. I had
no intentions of getting married, of becoming a minister, of moving to another
place. I said, ‘God, if You want me, You will have to come and get me!’ Then
God spoke to me, He visited me, He turned my car around.” In other words, “I am
special, He wants me, He comes after me supernaturally.” This emphasis also
leads the “less fortunate” to make the following statements: “God let me down,
He does not notice, care, or work in my life.” “I guess I do not measure up or
will ever be good enough,” or, “I will no longer trust God! He allowed my wife
to die of cancer, a child to rebel, my unwed daughter to get pregnant, financial
bankruptcy, my marriage to be a failure, or my ministry to dissolve.” In short,
so this belief system goes, those God loves He blesses, and those He wants to
get even with find evil! What seems good reflects His pleasure, and what we
perceive as bad indicates His displeasure. The measure of God’s concern for us, then, is seen as His
supernatural activity in life to the degree that it makes us comfortable and
leaves us feeling good.
Maintaining this kind of thinking is, first of all,
anti-God; second, it is Taoism; and third, it is eating from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. This rationale places incredible
pressure on believers to act and speak in such a way as to solicit the
supernatural activity of God. We are strained, hating ourselves for not doing
enough to reap God’s pleasure and angry with Him for not noticing us. We
dislike the partiality that He shows, then hate ourselves for disparaging God,
and feel we must protect God’s image as well as our own.
Now for a moment let us lay aside all thoughts of the
supernatural and move in a different direction to ponder God’s working in the
natural.
Often when discipling
a discouraged believer I will ask the question, “Did you sometime in the past
five years, five weeks, or maybe five days, while reading your Bible, listening
to a sermon, or reading a good book, happen to say to God, ‘You can have my
life. I want all that is possible for a human who knows You. I want the deep
spiritual life; I want a marriage that works’?” Invariably the believer will
say yes! I then respond, “Well, that explains it. If you wanted to remain
unchanged and comfortable, God would not be using the natural in your life to
perfect the answering of your expressed desires.”
What is God’s goal for the believer? We can read it in
Matthew 5 - 7, the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, Christ’s life, now the
Christian’s life. Everything that we read there is supernatural.
Any believer who has attempted to love an enemy knows just how supernatural it
is. It takes more Spirit activity
to walk across the living room and kiss a mate who offends us than it does to
walk on water. In order to reveal the supernatural, the Lord created and
dropped man into the natural world, wherein all that comes to him by way of
mind, emotion, and body is intended to produce what is unnatural as the natural
gives way to the supernatural. The supernatural does not give birth to the supernatural; angels
are angels. However, men made of dust, dwelling on the natural earth, can
become the sons of God! Supernatural? I think so! Explaining the process of allowing the natural to make us
supernatural is somewhat like describing childbirth; it is never really
understood until it is one’s own experience.
Let me give some
examples. We go through the natural experience of having no money, no job, and
no hope in sight. All of this drives us to look to Him whose presence makes us
sense the true wealth in which we participate. Next we can find ourselves
relaxed with a lightness of heart concerning finances in the midst of a
clamoring world. Supernatural!
We develop
out-of-control feelings that come from watching a government make decisions
that we cannot live with. First we attempt to change the flesh in the power of
the flesh, then we eloquently describe the inconsistencies we see, at length we
become disheartened, and in the end we pray. His presence gives comfort, His
power fills us with assurance, and His love brings us hope. We know the whole
lot in life passes through His hands, and so we rest, we trust, we get on with
the real mission, and we live supernaturally in a world falling apart.
The media reports
each night how someone, somewhere, is being abused, and we are left feeling
hopeless and negative, a state that may suit the world, but it drags down the spirit
of the believer. We were
made to love God, love life, love our fellow man, and love our work. We
draw near to Him to be a positive in a negative world. The sense of wrongness with our lot gives way to
the relationship as
we experience the greatest positive, Jesus, and become light in the world.
Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point Green
– IT, Incredible Truth
Red – GP, Greatest Promises
Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches Pink
– PV, Priceless Victory
Sort of like that old song, “Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places,”
it is foolish, as Michael points out, to keep looking for the Supernatural in
natural ways. Plus, God uses the natural
in our life to perfect the answering of our expressed desires.
Experiencing Christ…that is The Positive.
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NOTICE: another blog on
Michael Wells’ book, Sidetracked In The Wilderness, called Getting Out of the
Wilderness. You can access by logging onto
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