Normal Christianity

An author and prayer warrior wrote that many Christians live ordinary lives to the point that when someone starts living as the Bible says, they call that person a super-saint. That is, the sub-normal look at what is normal and think it is above normal!

Tozer puts it this way: “A church can go on holding the creed and the truth for generations and grow old. New people can follow and receive that same code and also grow old. Then some revivalist comes in and fires his guns and gets everybody stirred, and prayer moves God down on the scene and revival comes to that church.”

He adds that revival is when people who thought they were saved get saved and those who had believed only in a code become believers in Christ. This is normal, what Christianity is supposed to be.

Sometimes I’ve read the book of Acts and seen it as a superior form of Christian life, yet there are Christians now who live in the same way as then . . .

“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. (Acts 4:29–31)

A retired missionary turned writer tells of his work in South America. He was involved with a people group that received him eagerly, wanted to learn to read, helped him in translation work to produce Bibles in their language, and quickly accepted Christ and formed a growing church.

That seemed normal, but when others in that area told of the resistance they encountered with other tribes, he wondered what caused the easy success in his ministry. Then he got a letter from a man who told of meeting this tribe many years ago. He had learned their tribal name but had no communication because they had no common language. The tribe seemed a hostile group, so there was no follow-up either, except this man began to pray for them. He started ten years before my retired friend was born, then and prayed for decades without knowing anything that was happening with this people group. He was praying in the dark. And God answered.

The faithfulness of God to hear and answer prayer is sometimes astonishing. Should it be a surprise? Or should this be a normal thing? As I read Acts, my heart says the reason we don’t see or experience such amazing things is “we have not because we ask not.” Or we have not because we obey not.

Does today’s average Christian pray for boldness to speak God’s Word? Do I? Do we give the Holy Spirit His main tool for opening hearts and giving people a reason for the faith we have? Do I?

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Jesus, I love the praying missionary’s story because it encourages me to keep praying, even ‘in the dark’ without knowing or seeing any answers. But I also love and am challenged by the retired missionary’s story because he was willing to go to needy people and share the Word of God with them, not knowing that God had been at work for years, preparing them to hear it and respond with joy! As Tozer says, “Where the Word of God is, there is fuel, and the fire falls and burns up the sacrifice.”