“Any work that exalts the Holy Ghost or the gifts of the Spirit above Jesus will finally end up in fanaticism.”
~ Frank Bartleman
Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that appreciates non-boring book titles like How to Tell if Your Boyfriend Is the Antichrist (and if he is, should you break up with him?).
This is part 1 of a two-part series. See Part 2 – A Word to My Miracle-Doubting Friends.
Before we get into today’s subject, a quick public health announcement: I send these articles out every Thursday, and sometimes they are written hours before they’re emailed to you.
Therefore, I have no time to hire a proof-reader to flag typos and grammos.
So there’s an excellent chance that you may spot a typo or grammo in my articles in their email form.
Example: In last Thursday’s article, I wrote “The arc of God’s universe is long, but it bends towards His eternal purpose.” But there was a typo in the word “arc.”
The good news: the typos are corrected on the blog when a reader points them out to me. So if you’re someone who has to be taken to the hospital every time you see a typo, you can always read the articles on this blog.
Now on to today’s subject, “A word to my miracle-obsessed friends.”
If you’ve read my book Revise Us Again, or my excoriating critique of Johnny Mac’s Strange Fire, or my little volume “Rethinking the Spirit” — which gives the topic the full Frankie V. treatment it deserves — you’re aware that I believe in miracles, signs, and wonders for today.
(The latter two books are part of my Titan, just in case you try to find them.)
But as I put it in Revise Us Again, I’m a post-charismatic. That is, I’m a charismatic who bowls with the bumpers up.
Or to use another metaphor, I’m a charismatic who wears a seat belt.
Leaving that on the table, I want to address a problem I see among many contemporary Christians who have thrown themselves headlong into movements where signs, wonders, and miracles are supposed to be as common as gnats in the spring.
As I’ve talked to such people, I’ve noticed the same common patterns. They are …
1) They talk about “seeking” Jesus, but for them, Jesus is the equivalent of signs and wonders. So to their minds, if a sign or wonder isn’t taking place, Jesus is taking a nap.
This idea is not only a dangerous, but it’s flatly untrue.
It’s dangerous because this is the very assumption that caused the Pentecostal/charismatic movement to be born with a birth defect.
That defect is the tendency to exaggerate the miraculous. Pentecostalism/charismaticism has never recovered from it.
This proclivity has created a certain group of people in the movement who belong in a banana factory and need to be peeled. (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds cool.)
Seriously though, SOME people in this movement are nuttier than a fruitcake.
The idea that seeking Jesus = signs and wonders is untrue because most of the time when the Lord operates in our lives, it’s not in sign or wonder form. Instead, it’s far more subtle. (Check out The Subtlety of God’s Presence.)
In addition, the voice of Jesus is not commonly dramatic or audible. It’s much more unassuming. (If you’ve read Jesus Speaks, you understand why.)
As I’ve pointed out numerous times, the miracles in the book of Acts took place over a span of time. They came in seasons and weren’t happening constantly as they appear when one reads Acts without an understanding of time or chronology.
Yet the Spirit of God WAS operating daily, though not always through signs and wonders.
So to sum up the first problem, some Christians have accepted the idea that unless angel feathers are falling from the sky, gold dust is pouring over people’s clothes, someone is being miraculously healed or walks on water, Jesus isn’t active.
And that’s patently untrue.
2) The second problem I’ve noticed among my miracle-obsessed friends is that while signs and wonders are on the throne of their hearts, they tend to be monumentally uninterested in knowing Jesus in ways that are deeper than dramatic physical manifestations.
For example, try talking to such people about living by the indwelling life of Christ, God’s eternal purpose, or the gospel of the kingdom — which are all centerpieces of New Testament revelation – and you’ll be met with a yawn.
“Yea, yea, cool … now let me tell you about the time when God poured gold dust on my cat and she was healed of hemorrhoids.”
Don’t get me wrong. Signs, wonders, and miracles – when they genuinely take place – ARE exciting. But they are NOT a mark of spiritual depth or maturity.
The church in Corinth is Exhibit A. That fellowship had the miraculous operating in spades. Yet the believers in it were fleshly, carnal, immature, and unpleasing to the Lord (read the whole letter and you can’t miss this point).
Everything in the spiritual life is supernatural. But that doesn’t mean it’s dramatic or miraculous.
Sometimes the Spirit of God comes to us as a rushing mighty wind, and it’s unmistakable.
But more often, the Spirit comes to us as a gentle breeze, which is far more subtle and unassuming.
Read Pay Attention to Your Impressions and When God Remains Anonymous.
3) The third problem with the miracle-obsessed has to do with the eventual fruit it produces, which is discouragement, disappointment, and in some cases, disingenuous reports and exaggerations.
Pumping air in the tires while the air leaks out is pretentious. But the show must go on. So reports of the miraculous turn from genuine to mythological.
We need not oversell. The Christian should always be grounded in reality.
Testimonials of gold dust falling from the ceiling (or the AC ducts — ahem) and covering people’s clothes, angel feathers falling from the sky, bad teeth turning into gold, are commonplace among the miracle-obsessed.
But try duplicating these strange phenomena – which you cannot find in Scripture — to someone who is skeptical.
Don’t misunderstand. If you tell me that God covered your clothes in gold during a gathering, I have no problem with that. Three cheers for gold dust!
But if at the same time, you’re uninterested in learning all you can about the gospel of the kingdom and walking in it – you know precious little about living by the indwelling life of Christ and aren’t interested in mastering that subject in practical ways – and you use your social media feed to promote all sorts of things other than the Lord, His gospel, His eternal purpose, and the Insurgence — then I’m monumentally unimpressed by your miracle report.
4) As I pointed out in one of the episodes of The Insurgence Podcast, while there is certainly a place for signs, wonders, and miracles, they are not central to the gospel of the kingdom. And they sometimes distract from its cutting-edge message.
The Magna Carta of the kingdom message is found in Matthew 5 to 7, often dubbed “The Sermon on the Mount.”
Strikingly, you won’t find one word about signs and wonders in that kingdom charter.
The only exception is at the very end, and it’s a warning to those who perform signs and wonders yet don’t walk with the Lord. The Lord’s chilling words to such people is “Depart from me, I never knew you.”
Reminder: Even though I’m criticizing an unhealthy overemphasis on the miraculous, I’m a STRONG advocate of healing, miracles, and Christ’s resurrection power put on display today
My hands have developed calluses on my palms from bashing them into my face so many times because people routinely miss this fact.
Again, next Thursday I will write an article for my “miracle-doubting” friends. So if you’re feeling pricked by this article, chill.
The main point here is that “outer garment” Christianity, which centers on the miraculous, is not nearly as essential as “inner journey” Christianity – which the Lord is far more interested in.
Unfortunately, the two often compete with each other when they shouldn’t.
So what is the Lord doing today?
I don’t believe it’s the restoration of signs, wonders, and miracles, which the Pentecostals have been trying to “recover” for the last 200 years. (I say that as an erstwhile Pentecostal, a movement I still appreciate.)
God DOES work the miraculous in our time. The gifts of the Spirit are already here. So there’s no need to “restore” them.
And when genuine signs, wonders, and miracles take place, they look like they did in the New Testament.
I believe the primary thing God is doing today is restoring the gospel of the kingdom, i.e., His eternal purpose, which includes learning to live by His indwelling life individually and corporately.
(I wrote about this last week, in fact.)
If you’re going to be obsessed, be obsessed with Christ and God’s purpose in Him.
Regarding doctrines and religious practices, here’s a universal principle: Unless the cutting edge is Jesus Christ, it will eventually turn into bondage.
In short, miracle-obsession is just another RTD — religiously transmitted disease, just like self-righteousness and motive-judging.
See also Rethinking the Five-Fold Ministry.
See you next week when we’ll discuss the opposite problem — miracle-doubting.
A brother,
fv
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