Radio Antioch

This teaching is an excerpt from our Radio Antioch Podcast, Episode 3.

When I pray for people, I expect them to be healed, and we see it frequently. I don’t want to make some kind of formula out of it. Sometimes we pray for people and we don’t see immediate results. Recently,  when preaching one Sunday, I asked the congregation how many had ever been healed by God after being prayed for in a church service. At least half of the people raised their hands. My comments to the others: If you are believing for a healing, then be encouraged, because all of these people are testifying that God still heals today.
How many of you believe that signs, wonders and healings are all for the church today? The world will tell you that these things don’t happen any more, or worse yet, that they never did happen. There are even entire denominations that through their interpretation of a few scriptures, argue that these things are no longer part of the church. They say that there are no more prophesies, no more words of knowledge, no more of that type of “Now” interaction between God and man.
Here is where I have a problem with their interpretation- If you hand a bible to a student and ask them what the overwhelming theme of the Bible is, they might say “God wants to talk to and interact with man”. The Bible is NOTHING BUT stories where God interacted with man. Story after story of God interacting with man. Through good times, and bad, righteousness and sin, in victory and in times of defeat, the scriptures point to God’s desire to touch man with the supernatural life of heaven. You don’t have to have a Doctorate in Theology to see that this theme is seen over and over in scripture.
And yet the world would have us believe that nothing glorious happens as a Christian. But the scripture say exactly the opposite. The Bible is full of surprising stories. How many of you have been surprised by God’s goodness and kindness revealed to you in your life? I know many. But do you expect it?  I am slowly beginning to expect God to intervene in my life in surprising ways. Each new church project, each mission trip stretches my faith a little bit- But on the other side of each event, I have a testimony that builds up my faith.

Eph. 2:10
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Think about what this means: Not only have we been created by God to do good things, but some of these things God prepared in advance for us to do! I challenge you to analyze some of the events in your life in light of this scripture. Perhaps God used the same event not only to grow you as a person, but to allow you to bless somebody else as you work through the challenges. God is so awesome that he can take a challenging situation, that the world would say is bad news, and use it to grow you up as an example of his workmanship, while you bless your neighbor at the same time. I find this exhilarating!
Furthermore, God has prepared in advance things for us to do. Not only does God want to interact with us, He has plans to do so, and they are part of the plans for our lives. Interactions with God are not only expected, they are also part of the Master plan! It is time for us to begin to expect the supernatural life of heaven to manifest in our lives.

Photo by Jullian Robinson used with permission.