A Childlike Faith in the Supernatural

Galatians 3:1-3 (NKJV) ¹  O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? ²  This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? ³  Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?

Yesterday I shared my views on why man seems so fascinated with the supernatural.  The view of many in the intellectual world would be that people have always needed mythology to find meaning beyond what is true.  They would say that physical life is all there is and what cannot be proved by empirical scientific evidence is not real.  Religion is man’s way of dealing with death and loss.  It is a way for him to find meaning where no meaning exists.  I beg to differ.

I think man is captivated by the supernatural because he is a supernatural being.  He was created by a God who is not part of this world, and he did not originate with this world.  Man is a spirit just as God is a spirit.  He lives in a physical body, but the physical is not the source of his life.  The bible supports this point of view.  We quoted many scriptures yesterday that point to the bible’s clear revelation that there is another world, another reality, that exists above this one and that we are part of that reality as much as we are part of this one.  Let me quote Jesus’ words in his last prayer for his disciples once more.

John 17:14-16 (NKJV) ¹⁴  I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵  I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

We are not of this world just as Jesus was not of this world.  What do you think he meant?  I think he meant we are of another world.  It seems rather clear to me.  What is the other world of which we are a part?  It is the world of the spirit where God the Father lives.  It is the world of the eternal.  It is the world that created this world.  It is a source of supernatural power that we can access by faith to bring the life of God into this world.

About 35 years ago God brought me into relationship with some wonderful people that were part of a different ministry circle than the one I was in fellowship with.  These people were very important to me and to my ministry life.  I came from a stream of ministry that tended toward a type of spirituality that could be a little extreme at times.  They believed in being supernatural people, but their interpretation of a supernatural life often tended towards an otherworldly life. 

Some of the people in that circle tended to be “spooky spiritual.”  They always seemed to “know what was going on in the spirit.”  Nothing was ever just a feeling.  People were never just having a bad day, there was always something “wrong in the spirit.”  The result was people who saw demons behind every situation and had spiritual “insights” that were usually just wrong. 

A typical characteristic of this kind of other worldly spirituality was that God seemed to say something new every day.  As a pastor of a local church, I used to hate to hear someone say, “God told me I’m supposed to be part of this church!”  I knew that God was probably going to tell them to be part of another church in a week or so.  This kind of thing produced tremendous instability and confusion.

When I was exposed to the group I mentioned earlier, they were more balanced.  They were from a more Pentecostal background than Charismatic.  As such, they had been involved in the spirit-filled life longer than we were.  They had worked through some of the extremes.  I remember making jokes about those “spooky spiritual” people who were so ignorant and caused us such problems.

As is often the case, I believe we let the pendulum swing too far the other way.  Although I maintain that the “spectacular” and the supernatural are not always the same, I believe many of us began to discount the supernatural altogether.  Where we used to expect supernatural insight and wisdom, we began to lean to natural insight and wisdom.  We still believed in and even taught about the nine gifts of the spirit in 1 Corinthians 12-14, but we did not see them in operation, nor did we expect to see them.  In our efforts to avoid the stigma of being “spooky,” we stopped being spiritual at all.

The farther we drifted from a dependence on the supernatural aspect of Christianity, the more we had to rely on natural things to build our churches and ministries.  Providing the right services to meet people’s natural needs became very important in church growth.  We used the term “meeting felt needs” to describe what we were supposed to provide for people.  We improved our marketing, our music and our facilities.  We looked at demographics to tell us what would work in our areas.  We studied the generations we were trying to reach so we would understand how best to reach them. 

None of this is wrong except for one thing.  We often left behind the thing we have that no one else has.  We left behind the supernatural.  We left behind the ability to hear and see things that others could not.  We left behind the gifts of the spirit in favor of education in psychology and sociology.  We left giving by faith in favor of good business sense.  We slid to a “form of Godliness” that denied the supernatural power behind Godliness.  (1 Tim. 3:1-5)

I do not mean any of this as criticism of anyone.  I am talking about my own experience.  However, I think that the question Paul asks the disciples in today’s verse is relevant for all of us.  Do we really think that we can begin in the power and reality of the supernatural spirit of God and finish the race relying on the flesh?  I have been in the ministry for more than 44 years.  I remember the early days and how we were so childlike about things.  Now we are mature adults and we have left some of our childlike faith in the supernatural behind.  I think we need to get it back!

We should not be childish.  That is something else entirely.  To be childish is to be selfish, immature and ignorant of important things.  It is to life view with self in the center and a lack of understanding of what is truly important.  To be childlike is to trust in something greater than our own knowledge or maturity.  It knows that what I am is not the end of potential but the channel for a potential beyond my natural ability.  Look at what Jesus said.

Luke 18:17 (NKJV) ¹⁷  Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.”

I would encourage you to examine your life and ministry.  Was there a time you “foolishly” believed that there was a supernatural God who was working in your circumstances.  Was there a day when you prayed about everything as well as studying everything?  Was there a time when you depended on God to speak to you about what you should do in every situation?  Was there a time when you depended on God to make the difference and not whatever natural resources or knowledge may be available?

I have grown older and much more experienced.  With age and experience come disappointments and changes in expectation.  Unfortunately, this often leads to a degree of cynicism.  We stop being childish, but we also lose the ability to be childlike.  I am working on getting back to a childlike dependence on the Lord without letting childish selfishness into the equation.

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The Reality of the Supernatural

Ephesians 6:12 (NKJV) ¹²  For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places..

As we go forward into 2022, our goal is to fulfill the prayer of Jesus in John 17.  In this prayer, he reminds us and the Father that those who believe on Jesus for salvation are not of this world just as he was not of this world.  He goes on to ask the Father to protect his people from the evil one, but not to take them out of the world.  I believe every member of the body of Christ has been invested with tremendous potential in God.  We have the potential to be a supernatural people living in the natural world.  As such, we become the bridge between the supernatural God and the people who so desperately need Him.

What does it take to be supernatural?  What does Jesus mean when he says we are not of this world?  That sounds a little like something that might be part of a science fiction story.  However, we are not talking about “ancient aliens” or visitors from outer space.  We need to realize that there are two worlds functioning around us and that we are a part of both.  Much of western civilization is devoted to convincing people that this is not true.  Yet with all the attempts to educate this thought out of us, it remains a main theme of fiction and of the speculation about the nature and existence of humanity and faith. 

Why do we persist in talking about parallel universes and supernatural phenomenon?  What is considered more  rational thinking tries to convince us that what we see is all there is.  Yet it seems we still long to believe there is  more.  It is interesting how many “reality TV” shows focus on supernatural and unexplained things.  We have people hunting ghosts, seeking scientific proofs for life after death and more.  Again, I would ask the question, “With so much education to the contrary, why do we still seem so desperate to find another reality?”

One point of view is that man simply cannot accept that physical life is all there is.  Technology, philosophy, art and all the other accomplishments of humanity are just a result of the right gathering of simple proteins in the primordial ooze millions of years ago.  Since man cannot accept that death is simply the end of a biological coincidence, we must give life greater significance by inventing another reality.  This eternal reality gives meaning to what is essentially a meaningless existence.

I would like to submit another point of view for our consideration.  Man cannot get away from the idea that there is another world or reality because there is one.  The God of that other world created man.  Man is not an accident of nature but a desired child of a supernatural world.  We were placed here to be the children of God.  We have a connection to the unseen world from which we came.  This may sound a little bit out there, but the bible supports the idea.

We have already quoted John 17 but there are many other scriptures that also support the truth of the realm of the spirit.  Look at today’s verse.  Paul tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood and then lists a number of things with which we do wrestle.  Where are these things?  What are these things?  Paul lists them without hesitation or explanation.  There is nothing surrounding this verse to suggest that Paul is speaking metaphorically.  Paul believes that these “enemies behind our enemies” really exist.  The implication is that if we do not understand that these enemies are not of this world, we cannot combat them successfully.

What about prayer?  There are those who think of prayer as a meditative exercise that helps us quiet our minds and bring a natural kind of peace into our lives.  Jesus does not seem to agree.

Matthew 18:19-20 (NKJV) ¹⁹  Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. ²⁰  For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”

Jesus tells us that if we agree on things that we ask for, those things will be done for us.  Who are we to ask?  He says we ask his Father in heaven.  Then he makes an even more extreme statement.  He says that if two or three are gathered together in his name, he is actually there with them!  He was not just talking about when he was physically on the earth.  He was talking about today. 

For the most part, we do not see Jesus in our church gatherings.  Did Jesus lie?  Was he a simple-minded person who could not grasp the complexities of life and philosophy and used this “myth” to explain things he could not understand?  Worse yet, was he a fraud who used mythological stories of an invisible “Father” to mislead people?  If you are a Christian, you cannot possibly accept anything like that. 

Jesus knew exactly what he was saying.  Just as Paul meant that there was an evil spiritual presence in the earth, Jesus knew that the Father was also here and that he would be here.  His world and the world we can see exist simultaneously.  His is the parent world.  The world we can see came from the world we cannot see.  The world we can see is subject to the world we cannot see.  Listen to Paul on the subject.

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NKJV) ¹⁸  while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Paul spoke of the things we cannot see in the same way he spoke of what we can see.  He believed one was just as real as the other.  We live in two worlds.  One is a world we can see and one is a world we cannot see with our natural eyes.  The one we can see is perishing.  Everything in it dies.  The one that we cannot see is eternal.  The one that we cannot see is the world of the spirit.  The one that we can see is the natural world of the flesh.  This is the truth.  That is why we keep looking for something more.  We look because we innately know it is true.

Why do I feel it is so important to pound away at this idea?  I believe as Paul believed.  We do not fight the natural things we can see.  We are involved in a war against things we cannot see.  This could be frightening to us unless we understand another truth.  We are part of the unseen world.  We are not just flesh and blood.  We have an eternal component, and it is by accessing that eternal, spiritual component that we will win ultimate victory in life. 

If you are a Christian, you are not just a natural person trying to understand eternal truths.  You are, by nature, supernatural.  Your source of life is not this world.  That is what Jesus was trying to tell us in John 17.  Because we are connected to the invisible world, we have access to invisible things.  We have access to the power of God.  Every time we gather together there is a supernatural, invisible presence that is there with us.  That connection is to the power that created the world we can see.  Accessing that connection changes everything in life.

To accept any interpretation of Christianity that does not acknowledge that we are not of this world is something less than what Jesus prayed for at the hour of his sacrifice.  Take a few moments today and ask the Lord to make the invisible supernatural world real to you.  I believe we can learn to feel it and walk in its power.  However, even when we do not feel it, it is still there.  Believe in that today and begin to access  the power of the invisible world.  It is the only way to win the war in which we are currently engaged.  It is the way we find the life that Jesus intended us to have.

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God is a Rewarder by Nature

Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV)  ⁶  But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

We have been taking time in our last few posts with this powerful verse from the book of Hebrews.  I believe this is one of those verses that every Christian needs to know and meditate on continually.  There are three basic elements to this verse, and we have looked at two of them.  The first is so simple that we usually just take it for granted.  However, accepting this statement in its full measure changes everything in life.  We accept it as theology and philosophy.  For the last few years, the Lord has been bringing it to my attention in a more personal and practical way.  That statement is, “God is.” 

The second element, which actually appears first in the chronology of the verse makes another clear and simple statement.  Without faith, it is impossible to please God.  He does not say it is hard or impractical to please God without faith.  He does not say faith is one way we please God.  He says it is impossible to please God without faith. 

Hebrews 11:1 defines the faith he is talking about.  It is a faith that takes the possibility of hope and gives hope substance by finding a promise from God’s Word.  It is then the ability to believe something that we cannot see with natural eyes or perceive with natural senses until those things appear in the natural world.  Without the ability, or willingness, to do those two things we cannot please God.

Today I want to look at the third element of Hebrews 11:6.  God is a rewarder.  Why should I have faith that God will do what he says even though I do not yet see the manifestation of it?  Why should I believe that God would cause things to work for my good when I see no natural evidence that he is doing so?  Why should I believe that supernatural things are possible when I live in a natural world?  I should believe all these things because God is a rewarder.

Religion usually portrays God as a punisher not a rewarder.  For many, their religious life is about guilt.  There is a standard joke that I have heard applied to both Jewish and Catholic mothers.  Both are said to be masters at bringing guilt on their children.  Although I am sure there are many Catholics, Protestants and Jews who practice their religion out of a pure heart, guilt is still a major element for most.  They go to church because they feel guilty not going.  They do religious things because God will get angry if they do not.  They seek forgiveness of sins because they do not want to be punished by God.

I do not mean to imply that any of those groups function solely on the guilt and punishment principle.  I do believe that religion lends itself to the thinking that God is a punisher.  I believe this is true of any religion.  That may not be a doctrinal or philosophical statement, but I believe it is a reality of perception for most people, religious and non-religious alike.

I do not believe that Christianity is a religion in the sense that we usually think of the word.  Christianity is a relationship.  E. W. Kenyon wrote a powerful book many years ago entitled The Father and His Family.  This is the proper view of what Christianity was meant to be.  God the Eternal Father sent his only begotten son so that everyone could become part of his family.  All they needed to do is believe in the sacrifice of Jesus.

A God who is all mighty, perfectly holy and all-knowing could be a frightening prospect.  I do not know about you, but I know that there are things in my life that I do not want everyone to know about.  There are things I have had to repent of and things I still do that are not up to the standards of a holy God.  In that context, I am going to want to do things that will keep me from being punished by this perfect God.  I am going to do whatever it takes to make sure that he is not angry with me. 

If I believe that this God is not just some impersonal deity but my loving and perfect Father, that changes everything.  He is not a punisher.  He is my Father.  I do need to live according to his standards.  When I sin against him, I open the door to death and bad things in my life.  However, it is not God’s nature to punish.  The bad things are a cause brought about by my actions.  They are not ‘done to me” because I displeased God. 

This verse tells us that God is by nature a rewarder not a punisher.  We need to understand that he does exist, and he is intimately involved in our lives.  We also need to know that it is his nature and his desire to reward us not punish us.  God isa rewarder. 

What is a reward?  A reward is something good.  It is something to be desired.  It comes to you because you did something right.  God is a rewarder.  That means he is not looking for reasons to punish you.  He is looking for anything that will enable him to reward you.  There are things we can and must do to get the reward, but they are not impossible things.  God desires to give us the reward.

What must we do to obtain the reward from God?  The first thing is what we discussed yesterday.  We must have faith.  Without faith, it is impossible to please God, which is what releases his reward.  There is another condition presented in this verse.  We must diligently seek him. 

The Greek word here is one word that means “diligently seek.”  If it were two words, diligently and seek, we might conclude that we could seek him less than diligently and get some reward.  This is not so.  There is no way to seek God but diligently.  Look at the definition from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.

The word means to search out, i.e. (figurative) investigate, crave, demand, (by Hebrew) worship : (re-) quire, seek after (carefully, diligently).

There is a lot in that definition.  Remember it does not say we should diligently seek the reward.  It says we must diligently seek him.  Therefore, if we want the reward he promises we must search himout.  We must investigate him.  That means study him and find out who he is.  We must crave to know him.  We must demand of ourselves that we come to know him.  We must worship him, enquire of him, require of him and of ourselves and seek after him carefully and diligently.

The English word means showing persistent and hard-working effort in doing something.  This is a requirement for the reward God wants to give.  It is not always easy to do, but it is always possible.  Anybody can be diligent.  It requires no special gift or education.  It takes time and effort on our part but imagine what we get.  We get the reward of almighty God’s involvement in every area of our lives.  What price can we put on that?

God is.  It takes faith, a willingness to hope when there is no natural reason to hope and believe in the truth of the Word of God even when we cannot see any way what we hope for can happen in the natural world.  God is a rewarder not a punisher.  God is not looking for reasons to condemn.  He has paid the price for all condemnation by sending Jesus so you and I can be part of his family.  Let us seek him today.  I do not know about you, but I need the reward.

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It is Impossible to Please God Without Faith

Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV) ⁶  But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

In my last post I spent some time on two small words in this verse that carry a great deal of weight and meaning.  In this verse the words are actually “he is” but the “he” spoken of is God.  Therefore, the idea we want to grasp is the simple truth that God is.  However, the point is not just that God exists.  Certainly, we believe that he exists.  The power of what this verse is saying lies in the fact that He is active and involved in my life.  He did not create humanity and then wave goodbye hoping we would make it in the world he created.

I believe this is a very important verse for any Christian to understand.  We must begin with accepting the reality of God and his involvement in our lives but there is more than that in Hebrews 11:6.  The first line of this verse says, “without faith, it is impossible to please him (God).”  It does not say it is really hard to please God without faith.  It does not say that faith is one way to please God.  This verse makes a very definite statement.  There is no need to “study it out” in order to get the real meaning.  It means what it says.  If I am not operating by faith, I am not able to please God.

Exactly what is the nature of the faith I must have to please God?  I want to please him.  I think I have faith, but I want to be sure.  Faith can mean many things.  The best way to keep the context of what the writer is speaking about here is to let him define what kind of faith he is talking about.

Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) ¹  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Again, we see a very straightforward statement.  Faith is defined as two things.  It is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of what we cannot see.  The Amplified Bible says faith perceives as real fact what cannot be perceived with the senses.  This is the faith that we must have to please God. 

I have taught on faith for most of my life.  Yet I still have to renew my mind in this area periodically.  The devil believes verse 6.  He knows that a Christian who cannot please God is miserable and ineffective.  If he can rob or compromise your faith, he will keep you from fulfilling your place in the Kingdom of God.  So how can we know if we are walking by God pleasing faith?

First, faith is the substance of things hoped for.  Where there is no hope, there can be no faith.  What is hope?  There are many good definitions of the word hope but let me submit my favorite.  If I have hope, I believe something is possible.  I may not know how it can be done but I believe it can be done.  I have hope.

A person with a diagnosis of cancer in their body is attacked with hopelessness.  The word itself very often is a death sentence.  If the Doctor comes and says, “You have cancer.”  The first thought you have is death.  If he continues and says, “This type of cancer is treatable” hope rises.  You may have no idea what the treatment is or how it is done.  What you do know is that the doctor has given you a possibility of success.

“God is” gives us hope about anything.  If God is in my life, there is a possibility for victory.  There is a possible solution to the problem.  It does not matter what the problem is, I have hope if I have God.  Faith, which is what pleases God, comes when I put substance to hope.

Hope is possibility.  Hope becomes faith when I find a promise in the Word of God.  That promise becomes the substance of my hope.  The doctor who gives the patient the hope that their cancer is beatable will then begin to tell them what the treatment options are.  The doctor is giving some substance to the hope.  The same is true in the spirit.

If we know that God is with us and active in our lives, we have another layer of hope that supersedes the hope given by the doctor.  We know that God created the human body and is therefore capable of healing it.  We know that God can remove cancer from our bodies even if the doctor has no hope to give.  In Romans 4, Paul described this hope in Abraham’s life as hoping against hope.  He had hope in God when there was no possibility in the natural. 

We give substance to that hope by finding what God said about our problem.  We will look at one scripture that can give substance to our hope of healing from God.

1 Peter 2:24 (NKJV) ²⁴  who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness–by whose stripes you were healed.

If I believe that God is, I know that God can heal.  He would not be God if he could not fix the bodies he created.  I have a supernatural hope that goes farther than the hope I may or may not have in the natural.  However, hope is not faith.  Hope is possibility.  Faith is assurance that the possible thing will happen.  When I read 1 Peter 2:24, there is substance mixed with my hope.  Not only can God heal, but I have his own words that say he will heal me. 

The faith that pleases God is the faith that starts with the possibility of “God is” and applies the written promise of God until “God is” becomes “God will” in our hearts.  There is another element of this that makes it a little more difficult.  Faith is the evidence of what I cannot see or perceive with my senses.

Faith takes hope, applies the promise of God until I can see the answer in my heart.  For it to be faith, I must not be able to see it in the natural.  Once I see cancer healed, it is no longer faith.  It is simply a physical reality.  My body no longer has cancer in it.  To please God, I must be willing to believe what I do not yet see.  That is the tricky part.

Healing is one area we may apply faith, but it is not the only area.  In truth we should do everything by faith.  The bible says we live by faith and that we walk by faith.  (Rom. 1:17 & 2 Cor. 5:7)  Everything in our lives should be a product of believing things we cannot see with our natural eyes.  There are specific promises that apply to all areas of life.  Faith is taking the hope that God is and applying any one of God’s promises to any situation and believing that God is doing what we need done. 

There are also general promises.  2 Cor. 5:17-21 tells us that we were made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.  This is a promise that we are right with God because of what Jesus did.  I may not feel right.  I may need to repent of some sin to maintain my sense of being right with God, but I am right with him by faith.  I have a hope of being right with him.  I put substance to that hope with the promise.  Now I must believe that promise even if I do not feel it or see it yet with my physical eyes.

It is that kind of faith that we must have if we are going to please God.  Start with hope.  God is!  Find a promise.  Find many promises.  Apply the promise to the hope and give it substance.  Meditate on that promise until you feel the substance of faith rising in your heart.  When your mind is attacked by the physical circumstances, look to the evidence of faith.  Do not be distracted by the fact that you do not see the manifestation yet.  That is what makes it faith.  When we continue to apply the substance even when we cannot see the result, we please God.

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God Is!

Hebrews 11:6 (NKJV) ⁶  But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

This is such a short statement that we often overlook it.  For a number of years, it has been stuck in my thinking.  I go over it again and again and the more I do, the bigger it gets.  For most Christians, this is something we take for granted.  Of course, God exists.  If you are a born-again Christian, you have met him.  He lives in your heart.  You communicate with him, and he is an important part of your life. 

I know exactly what you mean.  I have been saved since I was fourteen years old and filled with the Holy Ghost since I was seventeen.  I know beyond any doubt that God exists.  Nevertheless, I find myself often going back to these two words.  God is!

I believe God is calling his church back to something.  There is a difference between knowing something is true and walking in the experience of that truth.  Our focus for this year is on the tremendous potential God has placed in each one of his children.  We are “a supernatural people living in the natural world.”  That is what Jesus intended the church to be.  That is what we are!  The question is whether we are acting like we are supernatural and whether we are taking advantage of what God has provided for us.

I just turned 68 years old.  I have been saved most of my life.  I began in ministry, all be it in a limited capacity, at 16.  I left my secular job at 24 and entered fulltime ministry.  I have never held another secular job.  My whole life consists of my relationship with God and serving him.  I know that God exists, but I also know that there is an edge of expectancy I used to have which I lack now.  I know God is and I have known it all my life.  The question is not do I know it but how much weight I put on this truth.

Let me try to explain.  I know that the Word of God is true.  Some may disagree with certain conclusions about what the Bible really says, but I try to take it at face value.  So let me quote a scripture that has been very important to me in my life.

Philippians 4:19 (NKJV) ¹⁹  And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

I have never been rich as the world defines rich.  When my wife and I entered fulltime ministry, we had 3 children.  My wife is a registered nurse.  I worked in a factory.  The Lord spoke to both of us individually that it was time to step out into the ministry.  The Lord spoke to her that she should stay home and raise her children.  The Lord said to me that I should take the first available door of ministry that opened.  She left her job in January of 1978 and I left mine in April of the same year. 

We had a promise of support equal to my pay, but the money was not exactly guaranteed.  We found out very quickly that if we were going to survive, we had to learn to believe God for what we needed.  We had three small children.  We had no “home office” to ask for a raise.  We were on our own in an area of the country that was far from the Bible belt.  There were no large ministries.  At the time, there were very few spirit-filled churches.  Philippians 4:19 became our main source of assurance that we would make it.

At the time, leaving our jobs made absolute sense.  Both my parents and my wife’s parents were not sure what we were thinking.  My father had worked hard all his life.  When I was seventeen, I knew that God had called me to ministry.  When my father heard that, he threw me out of the house.  (Only for a few hours.)  He told me, “No son of mine is going to live off other people’s charity.”  By the time we actually went into the ministry, he was more understanding, but he still did not see how I could leave a good job.

My father-in-law was a Baptist pastor.  You might think he would understand what we were doing.  However, he was from a denominational structure.  We were heading into an independent situation.  The American Baptist Convention sent him to the places he pastored.  There was an organization behind him.  We had nothing like that.  We were young and excited.  We were following God.  We had nothing but our faith in God to depend on and we thought that made absolute sense.

That brings me to this little statement.  God is!  When we were struggling to get by, those words did not express a theological point of view.  They did not mean that we acknowledged the existence of a deity as opposed to those who do not believe in one.  They meant that God was there with us.  He was leading us daily.  He was right there with us as we walked out our new adventure.

If God was not real, what we did was complete foolishness.  Social services should have been called to take our children away from us.  We did not get any kind of public assistance.  I do not mean to imply that anyone who does is wrong.  We did not because it never occurred to us that we would need it.  God is.  He is the one that led us to this situation, and he will take care of us.  “God is”, so everything is going to be all right.

We had some struggles.  Our faith was challenged but we did not quit.  I had some low moments but when I did, I turned to God’s Word in Philippians 4:19 and reminded myself that God had promised to meet our needs.  If God were not there, what good would that do?  However, we knew the truth of “God is” so it made perfect sense.  It has been 44 years since we began in fulltime ministry.  We have never gone without.  We have had all we needed and more.  We have traveled all over the world.  We have established 3 churches.  I think the evidence would say that the thought “God is” has worked for us.

Today, we are much more mature than in those early days.  We still have times when our finances are challenged.  We still stand on Philippians 4:19.  There is a difference.  We have a church that has been around for 41 years.  We have an expectation that God will use certain channels to help meet our needs.  It is not that we have some extensive safety net.  We still depend on God for everything, but we are more mature, more experienced and we know that there are ways that things happen.  “God is” is still true in our hearts but I am not sure it is the primary thing we stand on.

All of us who have served God for a long time have learned that God moves through our jobs, people or circumstances.  When we are pressed, we tend to look at those things first.  We are mature.  We are responsible.  We need to have insurance and retirement plans and backup plans and whatever else we view as security.  There is nothing wrong with any of that.  That said, what happens if they fail? 

If we really believe that God is, it changes everything in life.  If God is, then healing is possible.  I know there are times when we believe God for healing, and it does not seem to work out.  However, if He is and he is God, it is possible.  If God is than he can provide for us through any financial crisis.  If God is, there is nothing that he cannot change, deal with or provide for.  If God is than we have access to supernatural power.  If he is not everything falls apart. 

Take a moment today and look at your life.  If you really believe that God is, how does that affect the circumstances you face?  There is certainly much more to accessing the power of God than just this thought.  Nevertheless, open your mind to it in a new way.  God is!  What is it he cannot do?  What in my life is too big for him?  I cannot tell you that everything will work out the way you want it too.  I can tell you that if you will make that simple thought, that simple phrase a central part of your view of life, you will see potential that you never saw before Supernatural people understand that God is, so anything really is possible.

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