New Normal

“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”

Matthew 10:8  


What looks like supernatural is actually just the "new normal" when you examine the life of Jesus and those that followed in His footsteps. As you study Jesus life in Chronological order you have Mary and Joseph learning Mary has been chosen by God to be the mother of the Christ child by miraculous conception and then the angels announcing His birth to both the wise and the simple. At Jesus birth you discover the world was not ready for the arrival of her king, born in a manger. Then you have the flight into Egypt in complete alignment with God’s prophetic word concerning His Only Begotten Son.

Wise men seek and find Jesus and John the Baptist paves the way for Jesus public ministry through his calling the people to repentance and the declaration to behold "the lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world."  John Baptizes Jesus and the Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus anointing Him for service and immediately He is led of the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After conquering temptation by entrusting Himself to God and the empowerment of the Spirit, Jesus begins His public ministry by astonishing the people, teaching them as one who actually has authority, quoting Himself as He instructs the masses with commands and exhortations, “And I say to you.”

And if Jesus teaching wasn’t enough He supported everything He said by what He did in deed. Every day in the life of Jesus was lived to the fullest, never a dull moment as He went about preaching and teaching and demonstrating the power of the Holy Spirit as He feed and healed all those who came to Him. After all, it was Jesus who said, “I did not come to be served but to serve and to give My life as a ransom for many.” It was Jesus who declared, ”The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1).

Jesus spent 3 1/2 years providing irrefutable proof that He is the promised Messiah, the One the scriptures said would come to save His people. The Cross and resurrection are the ultimate evidence that Jesus is the One! He died for the forgiveness of our sins and He rose again from the grave as only a sinless man could do so we could know we are forgiven and now able to enjoy a relationship with God. Death couldn’t hold Him down then nor can it now because He forever lives! That truth changed the world and caused cowardly men to stand tall in the face of death. Its true, "Easter changes everything", loved one!

Before Jesus went to the Cross He commissioned His disciples to follow Him wherever the Spirit would lead them. Jesus commanded His disciples to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations. As my friend Wes recently said, Matthew 28:18-20 wasn’t a suggestion to men and women who believed they were gifted but rather it is a command of God to live life in the strength and power that the Spirit Himself provides every day!

Think about this. If you are a follower of Christ there is nothing average about today, no boring schedule to adhere to. Today is the day that the Lord has made, with plans and purposes to be fulfilled as we pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Just as Jesus sent out the disciples to “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give”, Jesus is sending you and me out today with the same great commission.

We don’t have to represent Jesus today as if it was a chore to do. The book of Acts makes perfectly clear that we are not Jehovah Witnesses, who go out in an attempt to witness for Jesus. No, loved one, you and I are witnesses to Jesus Christ all day today and every day! Everything you and I think today is a witness to Jesus as well as everything we do. God hears our thoughts and sees our motives even before we perform any deed. After all He is God. Thats what Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount. The heart of the matter is the matter of our heart each day. Jesus lived with His heart wide open and He calls His disciples to approach life in the same way.

Like the commercial for American Express would say about their credit card, the Lord reminds us of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, “don’t leave home without it.” We can’t accomplish the Lord's will and all He has for us in our own strength, we need His. What seems like supernatural is just natural in the life of Jesus and in those of His followers because Jesus words are just as true today as they were the moment He first spoke them…


“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”

John 15:5


I LOVE YOU!