Ordinary People

Personally, I have a tendency to view the people in the Bible as super heroes. But that's not true. Every person of faith I look up to is a normal person except for one thing: God. God is the game-changer. A couple weeks ago we were talking about powerful prayer at prayer team. I mostly listened at the time. First, how would your life read if it were in the Bible? think about the apostles. There is this tendency to think that they felt the power of God on them, then decided to go do miracles, but that's not how it worked. They saw a need, asked God to fix it, and crazy things started happening. 

Matthew 17:20-21

²⁰ So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. ²¹ However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

I don't know about you, but I don't claim that verse. It is so easy to separate ourselves from the Bible, say, Yeah, but that was back then, things like that don't happen now. Well, guess what. God doesn't change. The God who did miracles in the Bible is the same today as He was then. We are told that we can do all things through Christ. (Philippians 4:13) Do you actually claim that? An example was brought up in prayer team. What is you were standing in a crowed room with a match? Would you have the faith to say, "My God can light this match."? That would be absolutely life-changing. Our God is life changing. What is a match to Him? He consumed Elijah's sacrifice.(1 Kings 18:20-40) A match is nothing. I'm not saying I'm there, not by a long shot. But I want to be. In church today we talked about Esther and Nehemiah. Both were normal people, who were put in the position they were in for a reason. Esther was queen. Nehemiah was the king's cupbearer. When it came time to act, the first thing they did was pray and fast before God. And they didn't just pray, Lord, please let this work out... They prayed powerfully and they expected an answer! I know I don't always expect an answer to my prayers. Learning about that. I don't know which is more frightening, the idea that God won't come through, or that He will. Because crazy things happen when God is involved. The Bible is full of stories of normal, flawed people and miracles. God works through normal, crazy, flawed people because it brings him glory. Gideon and an army of 300 defeated the Midianite army with pitchers and torches.(Judges 7)  There is no way they did that on their own. It's so crazy it has to be God. God must love the word BUT. That's crazy, but... What would happen if we actually prayed that way, lived that way? Think on that a moment. Now, what if God is waiting for us to pray that way? Look at how many times God was going to destroy the Israelites and Moses interceded for them. Moses asked God not to destroy them, and He didn't. This isn't God changing His mind. If Moses hadn't asked, His plan was to destroy them. If Moses did ask, He would spare them. Both were His plan. It just depended on the asking. Whoa. I want that kind of faith. I want to say, For me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21) I want to trust my God enough to jump, not knowing what comes next. To get to the point where it doesn't matter how scary or impossible the road before me is, I know my God goes before me, so I can make it, I can tread it without fear. I want my life to read like a Bible story, where all the glory goes to God, because there is no way that can be me.