They all gave heed to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is that power of God which is called Great.” And they gave heed to him, because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. Acts 8:10
If we are fuzzy about the role of the legitimately supernatural in our culture, we must urgently rediscover this: the church is inherently supernatural as the superlative expression of divine intervention in human affairs. As a mystical body, our premier call is to continual supernatural endowment by the same Spirit who spun earth into orbit and sprang Christ from the tomb. Why settle for ho-hum grace when in song we extol Amazing Grace? As long as the church parades the superficial at the expense of the “super” natural, we embolden the counterfeit and the occult to have their field day.
Jesus urged prayer to the Lord of the harvest for laborers in the field of ripe opportunity. Perhaps we should forget the fancy recruiting and soul-winning techniques offered in seminars and literature promoted by gung-ho organizers. If we fail to measure up, we might go on a guilt trip rather than our sortie into dynamic evangelism. In essence Christ won all souls when He defeated Satan by His death and resurrection. Our job is to deliver to Him as many as possible. For that we need to recruit the Person of the Holy Spirit. He will deliver us from our impotent performance of The Incarnation. He gets the show on the road! Will we pray boldly, expectantly? (Part 2 of 2)
Comment: Simon, the former sorcerer, followed Philip everywhere, “astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.” After Peter and John’s arrival, the Evangelist didn’t wait around to see if he repented or opted for hell. And angel of the Lord told him to go south on the desert road leading from Jerusalem to Gaza. That’s where the Ethiopian eunuch was traveling to report back to Queen Candace, being in charge of her treasury. “The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’” We know the thrilling story of the eunuch’s conversion and baptism. “When they came out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away,” but the eunuch went on his way rejoicing. The Evangelist traveled about, preached the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea. There he married, raised four godly girls, and offered lodging to the Apostle Paul. If you are like me, as fascinating as this all sounds, it isn’t necessarily relatable to the contemporary Christianity we participate in. Yet we do live in the perilous “last days” of 2 Timothy 3:1-5 and so do yearn for the great promises of Pentecost to be intentionally activated. If we read “the Signs of the End of the Age” as spelled out by Jesus in Matthew 24:6-8, a resolve may well arise in us to go whole hog for the realization that we are equipped to live out His “reckless love” with unprecedented courage. Today’s news media daily report on wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines, that would alarm us if it weren’t for Christ’s counsel to consider these merely “the beginning of birth pangs.” Still, in Mark 13:22 He notches up the level of peril we must expect, “False Christs and…prophets will appear and perform signs and miracles to deceive even the elect – if that were possible.” This clearly calls for the Seven in today’s church to sign on as deacons in the manner of a Philip! Acts 10
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