Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go…” So he arose and went. … Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot. So Philip ran to him (the Ethiopian), and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading? … Then Philip opened his mouth and, beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him (Acts 8:26a, 27a, 29-30, 35).

I appreciate the way Scripture accounts give us the straight story without all the details. That leaves room for us to imagine what happened to get the people to the place where they could do what they did. Or, as per our series, what got them—and what could get us—from strictly natural living to natural living integrated with supernatural? 

We see in Scripture that Philip had his times of being strictly natural. One of those times was his incredulous reply to Jesus’ question about how they would feed the five thousand (John 6:1-7).  Another of his responses prompted Jesus to rebuke him for not recognizing that when he saw Him, he had seen the Father (John 14.8). 

Philip obviously had some ways from which he needed to be freed. 

Well, then, what had happened to him that led to him acting naturally supernatural as he did in this Acts 8 encounter? How was he able to hear and heed the Holy Spirit? How did he know what to ask and how to follow up the way he did?

As I began to ponder this, lyrics from a Dennis Jernigan song came to me: 

“For all that You’ve done I will thank You; For all that You’re going to do; 

For all that You’ve promised, and all that You are, is all that will carry me through. 

And, Jesus, I thank You. And I thank You, thank You, Lord. And I thank You, thank You, Lord.

Thank You for loving and setting me free…”

And that brought it home to me. Philip could do what he did because the Holy Spirit had loved him and set Him free. 

There appear to be at least two parts involved in doing a Spirit-led action. The first is being set free from limiting natural responses. The second is leaning into Holy Spirit love for ourselves and others and going along with His supernatural business. 

This is a good time to consider what our knee-jerk natural responses are. Do you identify with “Are you kidding me?! I could never do that.”? Or “Stand aside, I can do this.”? Or “What’s in it for me?”? Or “I won’t do something I don’t understand.”? Or _______________ (Fill in the blank)?

The Holy Spirit will gladly help us recognize how we are stuck in the natural. Then He will patiently, circumstance by circumstance, help us integrate natural with supernatural and eventually we will find ourselves singing “Thank You for loving and setting me free…”  https://youtu.be/WRSJINjqOvE