I have heard it said that “Jesus is imprisoned within many believers and desperately wants out. “ It’s not that he wants to separate himself from any of us.  It’s just that Jesus decided to take up residence within us by his Spirit so that he could continue to have a physical presence on the earth through us.

Paul put it this way, “ I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live but Christ lives in me” (Gal.2:20).  The implication of that statement is that Paul lived constantly by the leading of the Spirit so that in any given moment he would do what Jesus would have done and say what Jesus would have said.  In that way,  Christ was incarnated once again in Paul.

We all remember the WWJD bracelets that were popular a few years ago.  The idea seemed to be that when confronted with an issue, a challenge, or a dilemma, we should ask, “What would Jesus do if he were in my shoes?”  It’s a great question, but I think most of us want to consult with Jesus or meditate on his life when we get to a fork in the road and we are uncertain of our path, when crisis rolls in and we are uncertain how to pray, or when temptation is pulling at us and we are thinking about giving in.

But Paul’s statement seems to encompass every moment of every day rather than moments of crisis or indecision.  Have you ever wondered…

• What would Jesus do if he were just wandering around Wal-Mart?
• What would he do in the midst of screaming parents at a little league game?
• What would he do when no one was looking?
• What would he do in the face of tragedy as he sat with a family who just got a diagnosis of stage-four cancer in the mother of two small children?
• What would he do with the homeless man on the corner hustling money?
• What would he do with a thirteen year old girl who just came home and announced she was pregnant or gay?
• What would Jesus do at the scene of an accident where a six year old boy who was hit by a car just died on the side of the road?
• What would he do as he sat at board meeting for a Fortune 500 business?
• What would he do while he was on the job checking people out at an all night convenience store?

My point is that Jesus wants to live through us in every circumstance of life – not just when we are stuck or in a moral dilemma.  To let Jesus out, we need to sense through his Spirit what he would do or say in any of those settings. What would he talk about with the people paying for gas at midnight?  Would he immediately pray for supernatural healing for the cancer victim or pray for life to reenter the six year old body of an accident victim? Would he take the homeless man for a meal and talk about his life?   If he would, then we should.

If we are to let Jesus out of his prison, we must do whatever he would do. Sometimes I believe he would just tell someone that God loves them.  Sometimes he would just carry a heavy grocery bag for an arthritic grandmother. Sometimes he would get the in the face of a religious tyrant and at other times he would heal the sick, cast out demons, raise the dead, and talk to someone about the kingdom of God – even at Starbucks.   He might even mow his neighbor’s yard just for fun.

So…just for fun, let’s all be Jesus today in every setting in which we find ourselves.  Let’s ask the Spirit to prompt us to absolutely be Jesus not only in the extraordinary moments of our day but also in the most ordinary moments of our day as well. For today, let’s let Jesus out and then do it again tomorrow.

If I had written the script, I probably would have painted Christ’s greatest opposition as unreligious pagans who would have accused him of being narrow, bigoted, and judgmental as he preached God’s truth in an uncompromising way.  And yet, his greatest opposition and the primary force pushing for his execution were the religious leaders of his day. Was it just ignorance or a misunderstanding of scripture that created the opposition or was there something else behind the hatred they felt for this young Rabbi?

In John 8, Jesus had presented a stinging indictment of many of the religious leaders of the Jews.  He said to them, “I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me because you have no room for my word…If God were your Father you would love me…You belong to your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire.”

The healing of the man who was born blind (John 9) may give us some additional insight into this violent opposition.  In this section, Jesus comes upon a man who was blind from birth.  Jesus spit on the ground, made an ointment of mud, rubbed it on the man’s eyes, and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. When the man obeyed, his sight was restored.

Apparently, everyone in the neighborhood new this man and so the news of such a miracle traveled at the speed of gossip (a little faster than the speed of light). Soon the Pharisees were investigating the matter. Their first response to the miracle was that Jesus could not be from God because he had healed on the Sabbath.

The first indicator of “religion” (and I think a spirit of religion) rather than relationship is that events are judged first by their form rather than by their fruit. Jesus had not acted in accordance with their rules and their expectations of how God works so that the fruit became irrelevant.  Never mind that their forms had never healed a rash much less the eyes of the blind.

Secondly, they denied the miracle. They assumed it was a scam and that this man had never actually been blind. Religion always establishes parameters within which God is permitted to function.  Anything that occurs outside of those parameters cannot be authentic or from God.

The next indicator was pressure for everyone to conform to the rules.  Even though an undeniable miracle had occurred, the Pharisees continued in their attempts to discredit the claims. When undeniable evidence was produced that this man, who now had sight, was born blind, they focused their attention on discrediting Jesus – the one who had performed the miracle in the name of the God of Israel.  I love their logic.  If a man does not conform to our rules then he can’t be of God. If he performs an undeniable miracle that could only come from God then it didn’t come from God because he didn’t conform to our rules and our rules don’t produce miracles. Therefore, he must be a sinner. Not only that, but we’re not so sure about the one who received the healing either.

The fourth characteristic is control.  The parents of the man who was healed would not give a positive testimony for Jesus for fear of being put out of the synagogue.  Clearly, they understood that disagreement with the leaders about how God operates would mean excommunication.

A last ditch effort by the Pharisees in response to other undeniable miracles that operated outside their rules or parameters was to simply claim that a miracle had occurred but that Satan had suddenly gone into the healing business. Many religious folk will paly the “deception card” when confronted with something outside their theological comfort zone.

The response of religion, which is defined here as an organization that operates on the basis of form and ritual rather than relationship with God, was to immediately deny the work of God because it didn’t fit their well crafted definitions nor was it subject to their control.  It is not that we should accept a claim that anything and everything done in the name of Jesus is approved by God but neither should we reject out of hand an event or an interpretation of scripture that we have not seen before or heard taught before.  It’s great to refer to precedents established by scripture but every precedent began with a “first time.”

With that reasoning we could dismiss out of hand Moses’ experience with a burning bush.  God never did it that way before.  Ten plagues on Egypt must have been from the devil or meteorological anomalies because God never did it that way before. Don’t pass through that opening in the Red Sea – it can’t be of God. Whoops! No precedent for true prophets walking on water or feeding thousands with a few loaves and fish.

Rather than asking if there is a strict biblical precedent for every way in which God is moving today, we need to look at the fruit of certain ministries.  Do they produce righteousness?  Are they consistent with the Spirit of Christ and the redemptive heart of God? Do they draw people to Jesus? I think biblical precedent is important and should be looked at but should it be the final word?  If it is, then God will do no new things in the earth today even though Jesus said we would do even greater things than he had done. Certainly we are to test the spirits and prophecies, but the question becomes the criteria for testing.

We should be careful of using the same criteria as the Pharisees who had no room for the words of Jesus and whose father was the devil.  Paul warned of those who had a form of godliness but who denied the power of godliness.  Too many believers today fear and distrust any display of power in the kingdom…healing, deliverance, or miracles of any kind. John warned us that the spirit of anti-Christ had gone out into the word – not the spirit of anti-Jesus but anti-Christ.  Christ refers to the anointed one of God.  It makes you wonder if that spirit works against God’s anointing for his people because without it there is no power in the church.

It’s easy to think of “all those churches” out there that are just religious but the bigger issue is to look at our own hearts to make sure that a spirit of religion doesn’t settle there.  Even those of us who believe in the power of God and the move of the Holy Spirit quickly judge others who do it differently or have experiences beyond our own.  Let’s judge righteously but not rush to judgment.  What is the fruit? Is it bringing people to Christ?  Is it done with love? Does it promote righteousness? Are we wanting to control what God does at some level?  These are questions I must ask myself from time to time.  Maybe they would be helpful for you as well.

Blessings.

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. (2 Tim.1:6-7)

Timothy was a young man who, like many of us, tended to discount his gifts, his ability and his influence.  By nature he apparently was loving and gentle and was much more comfortable standing in the shadows than being center stage.  You can imagine traveling with Paul who was bold to a fault and didn’t mind picking a fight with anyone (even Peter) when a principle of faith was on the line. I’m guessing that Timothy’s temperament was so opposite from Paul’s that Paul’s faith, boldness, miracles, and even his academics fueled a great sense of inadequacy in Timothy.

Most of us have felt that inadequacy when we have been around men and women who are world-shakers with “over-the-top” spiritual gifts. As much as possible, I pursue a greater understanding of the Holy Spirit and a greater anointing by going to conferences that are being led some of God’s “generals” in the faith.  It’s a dangerous pursuit because although I may receive the fresh word or revelation I was looking for and although I jumped in line for every impartation, I often go home feeling so spiritually inadequate that I want to check in my Bible and turn every ministry responsibility over to anyone that will take it. After a day or two of hearing their teaching, their insights, their testimonies, and then watching them minister in their gifts, I often crawl back home feeling like a totally inadequate servant of God.

That’s why Paul tells us never to compare ourselves to others because we will end up thinking too much or too little of ourselves. By the grace of God I usually recover in a few days and get on with being who God made me to be for the moment with a vision for more.  But, I can absolutely identify with Timothy.  Paul had to encourage him at times to speak with authority, to stir up the spiritual gifts that had been deposited in him, to step up in his leadership roles, and, at times, to not give into fear.

An amplified translation of the verse above might read, “Timothy, quit standing in the shadows. Quit holding back. Get busy exercising and developing the spiritual gift that was imparted to you through my hands. Step up and use it because God has not given you a spirit of fear or cowardice but of power – the same power that created the universe and that raised Jesus from the dead.  He has also given you a spirit of love and any spiritual gift exercised out of love for God’s people is powerful and life changing. And remember, He has also given you a spirit of sound thinking and self-discipline so don’t let your emotions rule you – especially doubt and fear.”

In Timothy’s case, his fear may not have been the fear of man and much as the fear of inadequacy. I think that form of fear restrains most of us and keeps us from becoming world-shakers ourselves.  We forget that spiritual gifts, like muscles and skills, must be developed and to be developed they have to be exercised.  Too many of us sit back and pray that God will give us a fully developed gift of healing, prophecy, leadership, teaching, worship, etc. and as soon as we feel that anointing settle on us we’ll get out there and start using that gift to change the world. God usually doesn’t operate in that way. To do so would be like giving a nine-year old the keys to a 650 horsepower Shelby Cobra and telling them to take it for a spin whenever he feels like it. Not a good idea.

If you have the Spirit of God in you, then you should have dreams of doing great things in the Kingdom of God because that greatness is in your spiritual DNA. If you have the dream, there is a good chance the Spirit is revealing your potential future and that the gifts are already in you for that destiny.  But they must be exercised, coated with love, and used with wisdom to produce their greatest fruit.

So, let me encourage you.  Stop standing in the shadows being held back by the fear of inadequacy because it is God who makes us adequate.  Let your sound mind rule your emotions and step out.  Fan into flame the gifts that are in you. Start exercising them today.  Don’t worry about making mistakes. You’re growing.  You’re practicing.  It’s always good to go to conferences, read another book, or ask for another impartation.  It’s always good to go after “more,” but God won’t give us more if we are not using what we already have.  And remember, the power that spoke worlds into existence and raised Jesus from the dead is literally resting in you waiting to be activated for those who will not give into fear.

I want to recommend a book to you that has just been released – God’s Double Agent by Bob Fu. The book is his autobiography.  Bob lives in Midland, Texas and directs a non-profit called China Aid Association. China Aid is dedicated to exposing human rights violations in China and works hard to advance the cause of religious freedom there.

I have served on China Aid’s board of directors with Bob for a number of years.  I have traveled to China on two occasions to meet and pray with house church pastors and human rights attorneys that Bob encourages and defends on the World stage.  I want you to know that Bob and those Chinese Christians like him are the real deal.

Without giving the book away, I will just tell you that Bob grew up impoverished in China.  He did not know God and was a student activist in the years of the Tiananmen Square protest.  He became a follower of Jesus after being disillusioned by the failure of student movements in China and the government crackdown on freedom. Eventually he was imprisoned for his faith and escaped to the United States with his wife Heidi after being released.  Since then he has dedicated himself to promoting human rights and freedom of religion in China. The book is his story.

Bob’s story is the story of many believers in China who have risked everything for the kingdom of God and who have paid the price through imprisonment, confiscation of homes and finances, brutal interrogations, house arrests, kidnapping and threats by government representatives, and so forth.

But as you hear their stories, you also hear of the miracles that God has granted them.  Some have experienced supernatural escapes from prison that echo Peter’s escape in the book of Acts when an angel led him out of a Roman prison in the middle of the night. Many have experienced supernatural healings from wounds inflicted by torture and supernatural protection and provision while on the run. If we could detail the stories of the miraculous they would make their own large volume.  Many of those stories cannot be told now because it would put these men and women of faith in the sights of the communist regime again.

Many American Christians remain skeptical about God’s amazing miracles around the world and ask, “If God still moves in miracles like we see in the N.T., why have I never seen one?”  I’ll offer two possibilities.

First of all, perhaps these believers have never really asked for a miracle.  James says, “You have not because you ask not.”  I’ve heard too many prayers asking God to help the doctors do their best to save a loved one.  Why don’t we ask God to save their loved one without the doctors?  So many times we pray for the ordinary and receive it. Doctors are going to do their best with or without the help of Jesus. So many of us have been trained to not believe in the miraculous that we can’t bring ourselves to ask for it even when we are desperate.

A second reason a believer may have never seen a miracle of the “Acts quality” is that they have never put themselves in a place where the power of God was unquestionably needed.  God shows up when his people step out in faith and risk death, imprisonment, failure, or mockery if God doesn’t manifest his power.

In China, simply to be a member of a “non-sanctioned” church places a believer in constant jeopardy.  Most of our brothers and sisters there are helpless before the State.  God has to show up in miraculous form on many occasions for the church to continue to exist and grow.

But even in America, where torture and imprisonment for believing in Jesus is not yet a reality, believers can still step out in faith and put themselves in situations where if God doesn’t come through there will be at least disappointment or embarrassment.

Believe me, it is risky to step into a hospital room full of unbelievers or Christians who don’t believe in miracles and pray for direct, supernatural healing while binding spirits of infirmity at the same time. It is risky to speak to a stranger at Starbucks and tell them you believe God has a word for them and you have a prayer for them.  It is risky to talk to your hell-raising brother-in-law about Jesus.  It is certainly risky to place your faith on the platform when you are running for political office or to speak out against sin in a culture that covers everything with the whitewash of “tolerance.” I know families who have put every penny into a risky business venture because they believed the Lord was directing them to do so.

The list can go one.  But in those moments you need a miracle and when you choose to step into those moments often enough you begin to see God move in power.  Bob Fu and many Chinese believers step into those moments frequently with a kind of reckless abandon. They see miracles.  I personally know many American Christians who will not settle for the ordinary but lay it all on the line by asking for the extraordinary in the presence of unbelievers. They see miracles all the time as well.

If you want to see God move in your life like he moved in the Bible then put yourself in situations where the natural will not get it done. You will desperately need Jesus and he will be faithful to show up.  After all, nobody loves a good miracle more than Jesus.

I would much rather talk about the power and glory of Jesus and the advancing kingdom of God than the kingdom of darkness, but demons are still a spiritual reality that must be dealt with.  I have decided to do a series on the demonic because each of us will face them in our lives and I believe there is a great deal of demonic activity in America and the world today.  The only question is whether we will recognize what we are looking at and will we know what to do if we recognize that demonic spirits are in the mix.

A study of demons is both intriguing and frustrating.  They are simply a given in scripture with little or no explanation of their origins.  They are referenced in both the Old and New Testaments.  The first reference to demons is found in Deuteronomy.

Jeshurun grew fat and kicked; filled with food, he became heavy and sleek. He abandoned the God who made him and rejected the Rock his Savior. They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to demons, which are not God— gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. (Dt.32:15-17). [Jeshurun is a poetic name for Israel who had begun to sacrifice to idols behind which were demonic spirits].

The Psalmist also declared, “But they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. They worshiped their idols,which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood.”  (Ps.106:35-38).

In both references demonic spirits are attached to idol worship.  If we understand prophetic sections of the Old Testament correctly, Satan became proud and jealous and determined that he should be on the throne of heaven rather than Jehovah. It makes sense, then, that demons pose as gods and solicit worship.  Not only would their assignment include drawing people and nations away from the one true God, but surely they would also share the character of the one they serve and desire to be worshipped as he does.

The Old Testament refers to a number of spirits that are also demonic in nature – a lying spirit (2 Chr.18:22), a spirit of jealousy (Num.5:14 ESV), a haughty spirit (Prov.16:18-19), a spirit of heaviness or despair (Isa.61:3), a spirit of prostitution or spiritual adultery (Hos.4:12), and a spirit of perverseness (Isa. 19:14).

In Daniel 10, the curtain is drawn back on the spiritual realm and we see the angel sent in response to Daniel’s prayer engaged in cosmic warfare with the Prince of Persia who is resisting the plans of God.  This demonic spirit is so formidable that Michael, the arc angel, is released into the battle so that the first angel can deliver his message to Daniel. Later in the chapter the Prince of Greece is referenced which seems to be a demonic spirit as well.

So, throughout the Old Testament we see the move of demonic spirits who are opposing the people of God and pushing back against God’s will being done on the earth.  Some seem to be posing spirits who are not of great consequence while others seem to have power and authority in the kingdom of darkness. All of this lines up with Paul’s declaration in Ephesians 6 that the real battle is being waged in spiritual realms.

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Eph.6:12)

Old Testament references to demons are somewhat scattered and vague but in the New Testament, the people of Israel seem to be quite familiar with the demonic.  Jesus, the twelve, the seventy-two and the church engaged in deliverance on a regular (almost daily) basis.  The pattern given to the followers of Jesus to announce the kingdom of heaven was to preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons, cleanse lepers and raise the dead. Many times, those who came to Jesus seemed quite clear about whether a person had a physiological condition or a demon.  Demons manifested in torment, physical conditions that looked like an illness, demonic doctrines taught by men without conscience (1 Tim.4:1-2), and, of course, all kinds of temptation to draw men away from the Father.

In general then, we see that demonic spirits are present throughout scripture.  They are indicated before the flood since every imagination of man was evil all the time (Gen.6:5), as Moses faced the occult practices of Pharaoh’s magicians (Ex. 7:11), during the time of the Law and the Exile and most certainly in the New Testament. We will talk more about how these spirits manifest in men later, but tomorrow we will examine a few of the theories about the origin of these spiritual beings.

As I close the beginning of this study, I want to emphasize that however we understand the demonic, the bottom lines is always, “He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world” (1 Jn.4:4).  Believers who understand who they are in Christ should not fear the demonic; rather the demonic should fear those believers.

In his book, The Days of His Presence, Francis Fragipane has a thought provoking section on the nature of times and seasons in the Bible.  This particular section discusses the kind of period that the Greeks referred to as a kairos.  According to Frangipane, this kind of season followed long, flat periods of history where very little changed in the world but suddenly the world was overtaken by incredible shifts and transformations in nations, knowledge, and faith which often included sweeping religious reforms and spiritual activity.

For instance, between Malachi and Matthew, there were approximately three hundred years of silence when little or no revelation occurred in Israel. But suddenly the coming of Messiah that had been foretold since the Days of Adam swept in and the power of God rocked the world of those who witnessed it.  Paul tells us that in the “fullness of time (kairos) God sent forth his Son.”  The idea of a “fullness of time” suggests that God had been storing up events to be released on the earth that would alter the course of nations and individuals.

Kairos seasons do not always happen in days or weeks or even months.  Sometimes they happen over a period of years or decades.   But relative to history, these events seem to catch us off guard and explode onto the scene.  Noah preached for 120 years while God was putting everything in place to release a cataclysmic kairos when in the fullness of time he released the flood.  For those who had not heard God, it seemed to come out of nowhere.  Israel was in Egypt for 450 years while God arranged the chessboard so that in the fullness of time Moses would arise, plagues would be released, and a nation of over a million people would walk into the wilderness.  After that, world empires would arise, seem invulnerable for centuries, and then suddenly fall in a matter of hours or days as God had shown his prophets.

These kairos moments are orchestrated by God for centuries while he puts every piece in place until the fullness of time. When that time comes, the changes are so sweeping and so universal that it seems that the whole world has tipped off its axis. God often speaks of “shaking the world” or “shaking a nation.”  That is the feeling when kairos is released.  To those in the center of the storm, everything feels like chaos, but to the director of the storm everything is being realigned for his purposes. Those who are closest to the Lord in such times can fall asleep in the boat even while water is breaking over the bow.

Frangipane makes the case that we have been in a kairos season for a century. Technology and knowledge has exploded across the globe. Two world wars have come and gone. The nuclear age has been ushered in and great nations have risen and fallen – some seemingly overnight like the USSR.  The Holy Spirit has always given revelation to man and manifested in miracles but now the church is moving in evangelism, healing, miracles, and revelation in ways not seen since the book of Acts.

This is consistent with biblical history.  In each kairos, God revealed himself in new ways and manifested his power through his people. The enemy too rose up in unprecedented ways in response. Of course, God always wins but during these kairos events spiritual activity seems to ramp up exponentially as it did in the gospels.

As you view the activity of God around the globe, we see millions of Chinese coming to faith in an avowed atheist nation.  Million have come to faith in Africa in the past few decades. Korean churches are bursting at the seams. Every mission report or campaign outlines miracles from radical conversions to radical healings (including raising people from the dead), along with miracles of protection and provision, dreams and visions, and thousands coming to Jesus in a day.

Of course, the cynical among us can reject the reports and videos and write it all off as demonic deception or emotionalism.  But the same believers will proclaim that we are certainly in the last days.  If we are finally coming to the end of the last days, then this is certainly a kairos and God is moving in the fullness of time. In those seasons God had always moved in power and done epic things through his people.

I believe today is no different.  I have personally seen the healings, deliverance, radical conversions, and miracles of provision and protection.  I have been told on numerous occasions by trustworthy people who have been eyewitnesses to Jesus appearing to Muslims and entire families renouncing Islam and coming to faith.  I have heard from trustworthy people who have seen with their own eyes the dead being raised in the name of Jesus and entire villages coming to faith as a result.  All of this sounds amazing and almost beyond belief but did it not happen in the book of Acts in the fullness of time?  Why must we doubt that God would use the miraculous power of heaven to bring in a great harvest now at the end of this season?

If you have been taught to reject or doubt the gifts of the Spirit and the power of God, I hope you will not sit cynically on the sideline while God is inviting you to play in the greatest game ever played.  If you can’t bring yourself to trust believers who talk about such things, then honestly ask God to show you his power if he is indeed manifesting in such ways today.  But when you see it, don’t return to the bench. Get in the game with all your heart.

Think about it, in these kairos moments, doctrines and orthodoxy never won the day. They were important and faithfulness and truth were keys to God moving on behalf of his people.  But power won the day. Pharaoh did not surrender to doctrine but to manifest power. The Torah never convinced Nebuchadnezzar, but three men emerging from a fiery furnace and another walking out of a lion’s den convinced him that there was one God. Even Jesus said, “If you don’t believe me, believe the works I do.”  This is a time, a kairos, when we must not be suspicious of the move of God but embrace it because the miracles themselves reveal God to us and to those who need him desperately.  Remember, to reject what God is doing, is, in part, to reject him.

When I was being trained for ministry years ago, my instructors would often argue that God no longer intervened in the lives of men through miracles. The contended that we have the complete revelation of God in scripture and a sufficient record of all God’s miracles for man to believe. Therefore, miracles were no longer needed.

Of course, their view of miracles was that they were only granted for a certain season to authenticate the claims of Christ to be the Son of God and to validate the apostles so that we could believe that what they wrote and spoke was inspired by God.  Once those miracles were recorded, their function was fulfilled.

Of course, I accepted their explanation at the time because these were men who were revered as scholars and great articulators of the Word in my denomination. But looking back, I see that they had a very narrow view of miracles. The assumption that God acted in miraculous ways only to validate Jesus and a few apostles misses the point of many miracles and ignores a number of scriptures.  As you follow Jesus through the gospels he does say that the miracles he performed demonstrated that he had come from the Father.

If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me.  But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” (Jn.10:37-39)

And yet, many of the miracles Jesus performed were not motivated by a need or desire to prove who he was but purely out of compassion. In the first chapter of Mark, Jesus encounters a leper who asks for healing. Mark tells us that out of compassion Jesus touched him and healed him and then told him not to tell anyone how he was healed.  To the Gadarene demoniac of Mark 5, Jesus directed him to tell people how God had displayed his compassion by delivering him from his torment. In Luke 7, Jesus raised a widow’s son from the dead because he felt compassion for her.

If you  chase that word “compassion” through a concordance you will see that Jesus (and the Father) were motivated to perform many miracles, including the feeding of the 5000, because they were touched by the suffering of ordinary people.  On numerous occasions Jesus told those he had healed or set free not to tell anyone. If Jesus were simply looking for validation from these miracles he would have instructed them to go tell everyone.

There is a great deal of suffering today that science, medicine, and psychology still cannot touch. I prayed for a good friend and a great Christian leader yesterday who, from a medical perspective, has terminal cancer.  The best oncology can do is buy him some time at the cost of a great deal of suffering through chemo.  We are asking for a miracle of healing because God’s heart is still touched by the suffering of his people.

To believe that God only healed, raised the dead, and cast out demons to validate the Bible is to miss his character completely. If God is good and if he is love then he cares deeply about our pain and our suffering. Miracles are simply an expression of that love and his great grace. Like salvation, miracles are not earned by our goodness or even great faith.  They are given from the compassionate heart of a Father because he cares. Miracles do not flow from our belief in what God can do but in our belief of who God is.

Certainly the side effects of miraculous healing, deliverance, provision, and protection are the praise of men, the glory of God, and the reality of Jesus. But we can believe God for miracles today because he still cares. Yes, God heals in church services and in great revivals, but he also heals in hospital rooms, living rooms, the garden department at Lowe’s, the center aisle at Wal-Mart, and, of course, at Starbucks.

He does so because of his unfailing love and compassion for hurting people.  Is everyone healed? No.  Is God’s heart for everyone to be healed?  Yes. I know that because there is no sickness in heaven where God’s will is perfectly expressed.  I know it because Jesus never turned down one person who came to him for healing. God’s will is not always done on this earth. There are also mysteries related to healing that we have yet to understand.  But many are healed, many are delivered, many are protected and provided for in miraculous ways.  And when more of God’s church begins to expect their God to work through miracles the more we will see and experience personally.  Simply put – expect miracles because it’s who God is.

I believe it was John Wimber who used to say that “faith” is spelled “r-i-s-k.” Life without risk requires no faith.  A life that truly attempts to emulate the life of Christ is full of risk.   I know couples and individuals who live in the most dangerous regions of the world to share the gospel with radical Muslims.  I know couples and individuals who lead underground house churches in China and North Korea who face the real possibility of beatings and imprisonment every day.

These are followers of Jesus who depend entirely on the power and protection of heaven for their ministries and these are also the followers who see God do amazing things on a regular basis – healings, dramatic and improbable conversions, miraculous provision, words of knowledge, miraculous protection, and so on.  If you attend a church that is involved in world missions at any level you have heard similar stories.

As you heard those stories you probably applauded these great men and women of faith but thought that such a life of risk and miracles was beyond you.  You may have thought that you would love to see the power of God manifested in such ways but assume such miracles are reserved for missionaries in third world countries. Or, perhaps, a bit of cynicism deep in your heart questioned whether these “Acts-like” moves of God actually happen anywhere anymore.  After all, you have never seen such things with your own eyes.

Here is the thing. The economy of heaven is abundant but not wasteful.  The power of God is not poured out where it is not needed and it is not needed where there is no risk. I will also tell you that “risk” comes in many forms for believers and not just in third world nations.  Believing God and acting on that belief is risky even in America.  We typically don’t risk death or imprisonment (although that seems to be on our horizon) but we do risk rejection, embarrassment, and disappointment when we pray for miracles.

Christianity that believes our faith is simply about living moral lives, fatalistically accepting the ebb and flow of life on a fallen world, and first experiencing the power of God at the resurrection takes no faith beyond believing that Jesus died for our sins. A greater and more biblical level of faith is required when you begin to ask for miracles and even more when you begin to participate in those miracles.

Even in America, acting in faith involves risk. Sharing your faith with a close friend or family member risks rejection and damaging the relationship.  Sharing your faith with a stranger also risks rejection and ridicule or suddenly feeling the responsibility of helping a new Christian grow and deal with all the baggage.

Praying for actual miracles in the realm of healing, broken marriages, children lost to addictions, and provision risks disappointment. What if the person you prayed for isn’t healed? What if the marriage isn’t saved? What if your child continues living on the street fighting addiction?  How do you handle that?  What do you think about God and his promises regarding prayer?  What do you think about your own faith and your own relationship with God?

When you step out in faith there is risk and some of the risk is found in your own disappointment if you don’t see your prayers answered as you anticipated.  Then like Jacob, you have to wrestle with God, your faith, and your theology.  Do you keep on praying for supernatural healing even after your loved one dies? Do you keep praying for troubled marriages even though one still ended in divorce? Do you keep trying to believe God for your child?  Faith says, “yes,” even in the face of past disappointment.

If you are a believer who only expects the ordinary and only prays for the ordinary you will rarely face disappointment or a crisis of faith. You will rarely wrestle with your understanding of God. But stepping out and asking for the extraordinary like praying for supernatural healing in a hospital room where everyone else is praying for an easy passing is risky.  But that is what faith does and that is when God shows up in supernatural ways – even in America.

I believe the reason we don’t see the miraculous move of God in America as we do in third world nations is that we often have been trained not to ask for miracles so we “have not because we ask not.” Sometimes it is because we trust in science and medicine rather than the God who created the very things science has not yet understood.  We often pray as if God’s ability can only match what science and medicine can do in the natural and so we only ask God to do what science and medicine can do without him.  Sometimes we fail to ask because we don’t want to seem extreme or weird to our religious friends.

God does not pour out power when his people make no demand on that power.  The demand comes when they ask for the impossible in the name of Jesus.  If you want to see God move in amazing ways, you must place yourself in risky positions where nothing happens unless God shows up.  At some point, the joy of being willing to risk will overwhelm the fear that was once attached to that risk.  As go further into deep water with Jesus, we will see greater and greater things.  So…swallow hard and ask big. It is absolutely God’s will for your life.

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (1Jn. 3:8). Whatever Jesus healed, cast out, or overcame were works that the enemy had constructed on the earth.  In the opening salvo of Christ’s war on the devil, he announced that he had come to preach good news to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, and to set captives free (Luke 4).  He then proceeded to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God, heal every kind of sickness and physical condition, cast our demons, raise the dead and break the power of sin over countless lives.

However, sometime in the last 2000 years, a few prominent theologians decided that the very things Jesus opposed on the earth did not come from Satan but from God himself.   Somewhere along the line, theologians decided that since God is sovereign, everything that happens on this planet is his will and has been ordained by heaven.  That kind of theology makes God the author of rape, abortion, famine, war, cancer, birth defects, and crib death. That kind of theology makes God a heartless manipulator of people and circumstances.  However, John definitively says that God is love.

The truth is that there are countless things that happen on this planet that do not reflect the heart or the will of God for his people.  For instance, in his first letter to Timothy, Paul says, “This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim.2: 4) Paul clearly states that God’s desire is for every soul to be saved.  Scripture also clearly says that not all will be saved. In the matter of the world’s salvation, God’s desire will not be completely fulfilled.

Even, when the persistent acts and sins of men demand God’s righteous judgment, that is not what God rejoices to do.  In the book of Ezekiel, God says, “Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” declares the sovereign Lord.  “Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live” (Ezek. 18:23)?  He also says, “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.” (Ezek.22: 30). Sometimes, disaster comes because man leaves God no choice.  Like parents exercising tough love toward a rebellious child, God sometimes brings discipline or judgment.  But it is not his pleasure to do so.

The world is clearly full of tragedy.  In his sovereignty, God gave man free will and in doing so set limitations on himself in terms of how he would intercede in the affairs of men.  When mankind chooses violence over peace, adultery over faithfulness, abortion over parenthood, bitterness over forgiveness, deception over truth and rebellion over obedience, bad things happen and people are wounded in ways that were never in the heart of God for his people. When men act in such ways they open themselves and their families up to the work of Satan who comes to kill, steal, and destroy.

However we understand God and his heart for us, the clearest demonstration of his heart is found in Jesus. Jesus declared in John 14 that whoever has seen him (Jesus) has seen the Father.  Whatever Jesus did on the earth is an accurate reflection of the heart of God.  The heart of God, like the heart of God’s Son, is to heal, bless, set free, and eventually abolish death altogether.

When we blame God for the tragedies, the pain, the sorrows of life we misjudge his character and his heart for us.  That misconception is a great tool of the enemy to alienate people from a God who loves them and to limit our faith when we pray.  If we ever believe that God’s heart for his children is that they be raped, abused, murdered, ravaged by cancer, and stuck in crippling poverty, or die tragically then how will we pray against those things?  How will be believe that God is sitting on the edge of his throne waiting to arise and set his children free from the hate-filled works of the devil?  And yet, that is where he is.

The good news is that disease, disabilities, shattered emotions, broken families and all the rest of Satan’s work is not the heart of God for his people.  Jesus came to begin dismantling those works in individual lives and then in society as a whole.  The church has been commissioned to do what Jesus did and to continue to destroy those works with the love of God and the power of heaven.  God longs for us to call on him in faith to push back the borders of darkness through us.  He longs to display his power to heal, mend, and set free through us, just as he did through Jesus. Whenever we have it in our hearts to do the works that Jesus did then we can rest assured that heaven is ready to join us in the battle.  Be bold today.  Know that God is on your side when you push back in faith against the kingdom of darkness.