Normal Christianity is Supernatural (Part 1) - Chris Kent

I remember the moment well when it began to dawn on me that there was more to Christianity than attending a church. I had been radically saved by Jesus at 15, shortly before this I was messing around with drugs, arrested for burglary and expelled from school.

Initially my response to follow Jesus was an emotional reaction to His overwhelming, unconditional love. Then I had a hunger to understand what I had become part of, so I started to read the Bible. I began in Acts and I was quickly swept along by the amazing historical account of what God did, in and through, the early church. Then one day after reading about the man being healed outside the temple gate, it hit me. Christianity was so much more than a church service or being a good moral Christian boy. It was more than just an intellectual assent, it was deeper, mystical and beyond my very limited understanding.

I was being invited into a relationship with THE living God. I was being invited to know God by both His revealed truth (scripture) but also in an experiential way. He was knowable, tangible, He longed to crash into my normal, mundane existence, and to partner with me so I could see His kingdom come.

As soon as I realised this I became a complete nuisance to my youth worker.
“Oi Dave, when do we get to do the stuff?”
“What ‘stuff’ are you talking about Chris?”
“You know the good stuff. Like seeing blind eyes open and raising the dead and all that stuff!”
My poor youth worker.
The picture Acts painted had captured me and a programme or service was never going to be enough.

Since that day, I have longed to see God’s Kingdom come. For healing, deliverance and Salvation to become my normal. At times, it’s felt unobtainable, allusive and impossible.

Just before Christmas, I was in Costa coffee. I was meeting with a young person but as I walked in I noticed that one of the baristas had a bandage around her hand. I immediately thought to myself I am going to pray for her. I am not sure if it was God speaking or my own desire to see His Kingdom come. I asked her as I ordered coffee what had happened. She told me she had burnt it badly and it was very painful.

I sat down and had the chat with the young person and when it had finished I went back over to the coffee bar. I said, “I’m a pastor of a local church and I wondered if I could pray for your hand to be healed. I know God would love to heal you!”

She said she would love for me to pray. So I prayed for healing. As I prayed, I felt God say, “Bless her money situation. She’s struggling at the moment.” So I told her what I felt God say. She burst into tears and so I prayed for God to come and bless her and help her find a place to live also.

A week later, I was back in Costa and she came running up to me. With excitement, she told me what happened just 2 days after I had prayed. She told me her hand was better and that even the doctor had wondered how on earth it had healed so quickly. She had been given a new role at Costa. She was now the manager of the branch and she had found a place to live.

Isn’t Jesus just so wonderful? God had met her needs and shown her without doubt that He is alive and loves her.

These events have become more and more common in my life and I am so humbled by them every time. I am so aware that it’s not me; I have no special power or revelation. I am simply His child and deeply loved by Him. I am just part of God’s wonderful body and I am in partnership with Him.

I am also aware that I am still very much a learner. Sometimes I get it wrong and sometimes I get too scared to do what I feel God saying. However, God is patient with me and He lovingly coaxes me along as only a perfect Father can.

I would love to pass on some things that I have learnt in the last 20 years of seeking God’s Kingdom and some of the pitfalls to avoid.

My first lesson would be to allow scripture to define and shape your identity and relationship with God. Do not allow your experience or even lack of experience or disappointment to define it. What I mean is this….just because you haven’t seen God heal someone does not mean He doesn’t heal. Just because you are not sure how to hear God’s voice does not mean He is not speaking and just because you haven’t seen God move in a supernatural way does not mean He isn’t moving.

God has defined for us who He is. The Bible says that Jesus is the exact representation of God the Father.

Christ is the exact likeness of the unseen God.’ - Colossians 1:15a
So don’t allow your lack of experience to shape God for you, but allow Jesus to define in glorious technicolour who God is and what God can do in and through you.

Jesus shows us that the Father is passionately involved in our lives and that He longs for His will to be done upon this earth. He is the healer, Saviour, redeemer, deliverer, provider and the list could go on.

The moment we refuse to limit God by our past disappointments or our lack of experience we will begin to move in the supernatural.

Our new identity is bound up in Jesus’ finished work through His life, death, resurrection and ascension. The Bible makes it clear that something profound, mystical and spiritual happens to us the moment we put our faith in Jesus. 2 Corinthians 5:17.

You are now a saint. Filled with the very Spirit of God. Called holy and set apart by God to bear good fruit. We are called to be apostles – ‘sent ones’, sent with the very authority and resources of heaven. Do you know this? Is this the truth you live with? It’s not mind over matter, but His truth supersedes and replaces the old. The old is truly gone and the new has come.

We believe as a leadership team that God is calling us to see more of His Kingdom come. He longs to break out in the midst of us, at the bus stop and in the park, in your office building and doctor’s surgery.

Jesus we say YES. Your Kingdom come and Your will be done! Amen.

1 Comment


Mupila Benoit Mudingamene - April 21st, 2021 at 1:25am

Very powerful message that has impacted my life and ministry.