Over the years I (Mike) have had many airport disasters. I once arrived at Stansted Airport to go to Berlin only to discover that I’d forgotten my passport. I tried checking in with my driver’s license but they wouldn’t accept it. I phoned the Soul Survivor office and my friend Ali rushed to my house, got the passport and drove to the airport.
Unfortunately, Ali arrived just as the plane was leaving. I was so angry with myself, and as we were walking dejectedly to the car, I noticed a man standing on his own with his suitcase beside him. A little thought flashed through my mind, ‘That man needs encouragement, go and pray for him.’ I generally dismiss those thoughts but this time I made a big mistake; I mentioned it to Ali. To my annoyance she got excited. ‘This has never happened to me before,’ she said. ‘It’s like one of those Christian books. Let’s go and pray for him!’ I tried to assure her that it was just my little thought and said, ‘I’m fed up; all I want to do is go home.’ She was too excited to listen, ‘But what if it’s from God?’ she asked.
In the end I realised I was going to disappoint her if I didn’t make an effort. I said, ‘OK, let’s walk past and see if God says anything else.’ We walked past. Nothing. We walked past a second time. Still nothing. We walked past that man seven times. In the end, more out of desperation than anything else, I went up to him. ‘Excuse me, sir, we’re not weird,’ (he didn’t look convinced), ‘but we think Jesus told us that you need encouragement and we wondered if we could pray for you.’
He looked at us in astonishment and said: ‘I’ve just arrived in this country to pastor a church in Essex. I’ve been waiting for two of the elders of the church to collect me but they’re late. I’ve been standing here thinking, “What on earth have I done? Why am I here?” And I just prayed a little while ago, “God I would love it if you would give me some encouragement before they arrive to collect me.”’
I was more amazed than the pastor was! ‘Are you serious?’ I asked. So we prayed for him and went on our way rejoicing. As we drove home talking excitedly about what God had done, I couldn’t help but think of all the times I’ve had little thoughts like that and dismissed them. How many times I hadn’t taken the risk. How many times I’d thought ‘it’s just me’.
The Normal Christian Life
It’s possible for all followers of Jesus to see God’s supernatural power at work. Not once or twice in a lifetime, but every day. Just as Mike nearly missed it at the airport, so we all often miss the supernatural because we don’t understand that it comes in an everyday, ordinary package. We (Mike and Andy) are utterly convinced that the Bible teaches that it should be normal for Christians to hear God speak, to exercise spiritual gifts and to witness in the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s something we should expect to happen at airports and bus stops, in our schools and in our workplaces, with our family and with our friends. We have written a book called Everyday Supernatural as part of a journey towards this becoming an everyday occurrence: a new normal.
We don’t need to become super-spiritual Christians to see God at work. And we don’t need to become weird. We simply need to discover that God wants to break into our ‘ordinary’ with his extra-ordinary power; and we need to learn to say yes!
We can prophesy till the cows come home, we can perform healings that put pharmacies out of business, but unless we make love our aim we haven’t a hope of revealing the glory of God to others
We wrote the book because we want to see people become more equipped and prepared for God to use them. In it we talk practically about what it means to be filled with the Spirit, we look at how to pray in the Spirit, hear God speak and pray for healing as well as the importance of obedience, the reality of seeing God’s power operating through our weakness and the role of faith in everything. That which sustains us on any journey is our motivation and our destination. Happily, in this instance both our motivation and our destination are the same; we are driven by, and drawn towards a revelation of God’s glory. As we discover the biblical teaching and practical guidance on how to live everyday supernatural lives, the thing to keep in the front of our minds is that the motivation and the destination is the revelation of the glory of God.
The Glory of God
Have you ever wondered what God’s glory might look like? We usually imagine it to be spectacular. ‘Holiness’, ‘power’ and ‘majesty’ are three words often associated with glory. While this is true, we’d suggest there are three other words that are even more foundational. This is something Moses discovered. Towards the end of his life Moses was talking with God and made an incredible request, ‘Then Moses said, “Now show me your glory”’ (Exodus 33:18). We could be forgiven for asking, ‘Moses, aren’t you a little greedy?’ If there was anyone who had seen the glory of God surely it was Mo! God had spoken to him out of a burning bush. He’d seen God cover Egypt with plagues of frogs and locusts, the Nile turned to blood and even the sun blotted out. Moses had seen a sea part, manna fall from heaven and water spring from a rock. Every morning he’d been led by a pillar of cloud and every evening by a pillar of burning fire. He’d received the Ten Commandants and spoken with God face to face.
What more could Moses have asked for? Perhaps for the Lord to part the Pacific Ocean? Maybe a ten-year supply of San Pellegrino on tap? Did he want strawberry cheesecake to fall out of the sky every day? Surely, there was nothing left to see! However, God’s response tells us everything: ‘And the Lord said, “I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion”’ (Exodus 33:19).
The three key words here are goodness, mercy and compassion. God’s glory is spectacular but not always in the flashing-lights-fire-in-the-sky way we might expect. When he reveals his glory to Moses he is revealing power but not for its own sake. Rather, God’s power reveals his spectacular love. In the end God’s glory is his character. A true revelation of God’s glory, a genuine miracle, a real act of supernatural power will cause us to wonder afresh at his character – his goodness, mercy and compassion. A life full of the everyday supernatural is a life full of acts of divine power that reveal more of God’s love. As we grow in these things, we will marvel not just at the little everyday miracles we begin to witness, but much more at the mercy of our God who cares enough for people when they least expect it and most need it.
The Powerful Love of Jesus
If there’s anyone who revealed the truth of this, it is Jesus: the glory of God made flesh. Thousands of years after Moses asked to see the glory, John wrote, ‘We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth’ (John 1:14). When Jesus walked the Earth, incredible power flowed through him. It was a power which saw lepers cleansed, storms calmed, demons driven away, blind eyes opened and the dead raised. But it is possible to read about these things and miss the people whose lives were transformed.
The result of Jesus’ miracles wasn’t simply that people were awed. They were loved. Think about it. Blind people would have seen their families and the world for the first time. Those who had been outcasts, despised and rejected, were made whole and welcomed in. Those who were burying their relatives discovered they needed to postpone the funeral. Even badly-planned wedding receptions were rescued!
Time and again we are told that Jesus was motivated by compassion. Lame beggars, sinful women, people who were hungry and poor, people who were frightened and alone, and people who were trapped and desperate all met the glory of God. Their lives were transformed because they found him to be full of goodness, mercy and compassion. They encountered a power that revealed the love of God; and they were changed forever.
Our Hope
Believe it or not, this is what is meant to happen when people meet us! As Jesus’ disciples we are to follow him – doing the things he did. Of course this means feeding the hungry, loving the lonely, and sharing the gospel. It also means doing the miraculous works of Jesus. He encourages us to expect the supernatural in and through our everyday lives: ‘Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it’ (John 14:12-14).
These ‘works’ of Jesus are called ‘signs and wonders.’ They signposted people to God’s love. And they caused them to wonder, ‘There is a God and this is what he’s like.’
As we begin to seek a life full of the everyday supernatural, as we aim to grow into the normal Christian life, let us write 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 on our heart: ‘If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.’
We can prophesy till the cows come home, we can perform healings that put pharmacies out of business, we can see miracles that would make Elijah envious, but unless we make love our aim, we haven’t a hope of revealing the glory of God to others.
As you begin to practice everyday supernatural principles you can expect God to begin speaking to you. You can expect him to heal people through you. You can expect to pray in tongues and you can expect to grow in faith. In fact, you should expect to see a new level of God’s power in all your interactions – at church, at home and on the streets. But we want you to know what you should really expect as you begin to move in these things. You will see the glory of God, and by that we mean the goodness, mercy and compassion of God: a power that reveals amazing love. As Mike and Ali drove home from the airport that day they were rejoicing, not only because they caught a small glimpse of God’s power, but much more because they encountered his overwhelming kindness.
Let’s journey together into the normal Christian life, the everyday supernatural. Now God, show us your glory…
Mike Pilavachi and Andy Croft co-lead Soul Survivor and its associated church Soul Survivor Watford. If you’d like to find out more about living an everyday supernatural life and how your church can increasingly move in God’s power, come along to the Naturally Supernatural Leaders Conference from 15th – 18th February in Watford. Find out more at soulsurvivor.com. This article is adapted from Mike and Andy’s new book Everyday Supernatural.
