For decades, the Church has been lulled into a sense of self-satisfaction
and pseudo-spiritual stagnation, having embraced
traditions and elevated them to take the place of the Word of
God.
We have seen the Church of the first century—a vibrant,
powerful witness to the love and power of God—changed into
an empty doctrine of dos and do nots, having a form of
godliness but devoid of the power that is inherent in the very
nature of the Word of God and the God of the Word.
All across the world, multitudes are crying out for the
reality of a living God, a God who is true to His word, a God
who is actively interested in the lives of His creation, a God of
power, signs, and wonders. Because the Church has failed to
portray and demonstrate the reality of this vibrant God,
multitudes have turned to occult practices and satanism, trying
to fill the void left by a powerless Church.
What we don’t understand in the Word of God we place
on the shelf of mysticism, the devil, a previous dispensation, or
even relegate those things to a future age when we will be
abiding in Heaven with the Lord. While each of these
categories has merit, the wholesale relegation of anything we
don’t understand to a place of obscurity, simply because we
don’t understand it, is dangerous at worst and gross ignorance
at best.
In the midst of this apparent void and lack, and in spite of
our attempts to reason away anything that doesn’t fit our
“religious comfort zone,” the Lord is moving by His Spirit in
powerful ways throughout the world. Unfortunately, much of
the Church has no knowledge of what the Lord is doing.
Seekers of truth are having encounters with the Truth—Jesus.
Unusual manifestations are being reported across the globe—
visitations of angels, visitations of Jesus, gold dust, feathers,
precious stones, manna from Heaven, unusual healings, many
being raised from the dead, miracles of supply, walking on
water, translations, third heaven encounters, and much more.
The question arises—is this God? Is any of this
scriptural? Or is the devil counterfeiting these manifestations
and experiences to draw away multitudes from the reality of the
true God?
The answer is as simple as it is complex. Yes, God can and
is doing these things today, and yes, the devil is also
counterfeiting some of these miracles to draw people away
from the truth.
As believers, we have access to realms of possibility in
the Lord that we have failed to explore through ignorance, fear,
or unbelief. While we must be circumspect in our approach to
the supernatural, we must not immediately discard anything of
a supernatural nature. We must be students of the Word, and
we must exercise godly discernment.
Discernment is not judgment! It is rightly applying the
Word of God to any given situation and having our “senses
exercised to discern both good and evil” (Heb. 5:14). Much of
what we have called discernment is judgment based on our
belief system regardless of what Scripture teaches.
There are keys found in the Word of God for preparing
ourselves to better interact with that realm called the third
heaven or the spirit realm. John 14:12 says, “Most assuredly, I
say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will
do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go
to My Father.”
Check out my next post for continuation.