The Heart of Supernatural Living

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip … The Spirit told Philip … the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away … Philip appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the Gospel until he reached Caesarea … [then, about twenty years later, when Paul and company are traveling] we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the evangelist [and] his four unmarried daughters who prophesied (Acts 8:26, 29. 39-40; 21:8).

What you just read above involved a fair amount of hopping around in this week’s passage (Acts 8:26-40) – and even had a bit of a “cheat” by ending in Acts 21!  Welcome to a new week and the next passage in our Living Supernaturally series.  Take a few moments now to read the whole passage.

Our tendency is to identify “living supernaturally” with certain features in this passage.  An angel speaks to Philip, telling him exactly where to go but not why he should go or what to expect when he gets there, wherever “there” turns out to be.  Philip obeys, and comes upon a man, sitting in his chariot, and the Spirit tells Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”  Philip obeys and as he does so, he hears the man reading aloud – and, of all things, from the Book of Isaiah.  The man asks for help to understand what he’s reading, and after Philip shares the good news of Jesus and the man wonderfully responds, “the Spirit suddenly took Philip away” and then “he appeared at Azotus,” around twenty miles away.

Whew!  Supernatural guidance, a supernaturally-arranged “divine appointment,” and then a supernatural mode of transportation!

But then, around twenty years after our Acts 8 passage, we again meet Philip, settled in Caesarea.  It seems that, once he got there, he stayed put.

“Staying put” can’t be “supernatural living,” can it?  (That beeping sound you’re hearing is a Rhetorical Question Alert!)

We added that one verse from Acts 21 to remind us that supernatural living does not require or depend upon receiving angelic visitations or supernatural teleportation.  We of course need to be open to God doing whatever God wants to do, however God wants to do it, but the heart of supernatural living isn’t about these extraordinary experiences.

The heart and center of living supernaturally lies in aligning our attitudes and behavior, our lives and resources with King Jesus, and finding the roles he has for us to play in his glorious drama of reconciling the whole Creation to God his Father.

It usually takes as much of a miracle for us to faithfully represent Christ and his Kingdom as we stay put as it does to get us from one place to another “instantaneously.”  As much of a miracle if not more to get us talking to the folks we’re with every day than to arrange for an extraordinary divine appointment with someone we’ll never see again.

If an angel tells you to head down the road, head down the road.  If there’s no angelic communication, just head down the regular road into your everyday life, carrying the Good News and a readiness to share it.

What is one small but specific way you could ‘live supernaturally’ today, this week?

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