Keys to Moving in the Supernatural of God

We are the Body of Christ

Our God is a living God, and He longs to get involved in people’s lives. For some reason, God has chosen to use us, His people, to be the agents through whom He will reach out and touch the world. Everything was provided for us all to come back to God, overcome satanic oppression and enjoy God’s favor – be it in forgiveness, healing, provision or relationships. But in the delivery of this blessing God is wanting us to have a role. In fact, we are the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27) through whom God wants to reveal Himself. After all, that is what a body is for – to reveal and express a person. The reason God’s blessings have not been brought within everyone’s reach is because of ignorance and disobedience in the Body of Christ. These things ought not to be, and God desires to do a healing, as each part learns to submit to the Head, Jesus Christ. After all, how far would you get if your legs did not do what your brain told them to do?

The Need

The world is crying out for something more. People seek satisfaction for their souls through many things, but ultimately its only God the Creator who can give it. People need the Lord. But people need to see that the Lord is real. We are called by God to be living testimonies of God’s reality. Jesus said, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe” (John 4:48). We ought to be able to see from this just how important the manifestation of signs and wonders before unbelievers is. There are some people who will never believe in Jesus until they see and/or experience God’s signs and wonders for themselves. But God will do these signs through people of faith.

Paul said his message and preaching were not with the persuasive words of human wisdom, but with the demonstration of the Spirit and power, that our faith may not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God (1 Corinthians 2:1-4). The modern evangelical church has adopted the opposite strategy for the most part in the last several hundred years, encouraging people to rest their faith in the wisdom of learned scholars, who may or may not believe in the integrity of the Scripture, and in any case, rarely if ever manifest the power of God promised by the Scriptures. This strategy has led in many cases to a very intellectual and cerebral approach to faith, often quite irrelevant to the felt needs of the world. I do believe that the facts are on our side as Christians, but our major strategy is to simply demonstrate the power and authority of the Lord as Peter, Paul and the early apostles did, rather than to attempt to provide a philosophical proof to satisfy skeptics whose root problem is spiritual and not intellectual, in any case.

To truly represent the Lord as He is we must move in the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus expected it when he said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father.” (John 14:12). The physical departure of Jesus was not supposed to signal the end of God’s miracles on earth, but rather, the multiplication of them.

In the last hundred years especially, the church has begun to realise this and some have even dared to proclaim it openly. We could be disappointed if we survey what Christendom has revealed by and large until the present time. But it is a new day in God, and even a new century of opportunity stands before us. Until now there have been signs of God’s power to a limited extent. What we will witness in the 21st century is far beyong all that has been known until now, especially in the magnitude of its extent. Truly, “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”. This will happen, I believe, in our generation, in an unprecedented way.

Preparing for the Outpouring of God’s Glory

There are certain keys to moving in the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. I myself have had occasion to put these into practice and I can assure you that they do work.

1. Pursue intimacy with God.

The apostle John was a man who loved to be close to Jesus and experience the anointing of God. John was referred to as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and was one of the inner ring within Jesus’ 12 main disciples. John was involved at the Gate Beautiful when he and Peter ministered to the crippled man, and that man began to “walk and leap and praise God” (see Acts 3).

If we are going to move in the supernatural of God, we must pursue intimacy with God. This means being close to God, letting God touch our hearts, and learning to touch the heart of God. It means listening to the promptings of the Spirit of God and obeying them. The Bible is full of exhortations to us towards this intimacy of hearing and knowing the voice of God, hearkening unto Him, praying without ceasing, abiding in Jesus and being full of the Holy Spirit, with the Word of God and the praises of God continually upon our lips. This might seem restrictive to believers who still love the world, but there are endless treasures and pleasures in God which far surpass the value of this world’s distractions.

There is much wonder, joy, and pleasure available to the one who will pursue God, and become intimate with God. This intimacy is the true meaning of the phrase “knowing” God. It is direct contact with God we must pursue – its not enough to read a report of what He has done or know about Him. God wants us to know Him in this way.

How do you become intimate with God? One of the major keys to intimacy is self-disclosure. In an intimate marriage, a man and a women disclose everything about themselves to the partner. Likewise, in intimacy with God, we must expose everything about us to God. It means telling the Lord our hopes, dreams, fears – and our sins. God will wash away our sins if we confess them to Him in the light of His presence. The more we open our heart to God in prayer, the more He will begin to open His heart to us. “The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant.” (Psalm 25:14). God has secrets to share with us, but we will only hear them if we walk with God, respect Him, and seek to please Him on a day by day basis. Holding onto wrong things after God has spoken will limit our inimacy with God. Rebellion against God is a reflection of pride. But “the Lord knows the proud from afar” and that is where he keeps them.

The opposite of pride is humility. Humility recognises who we are and who God is. A humble person will therefore yield to God, obey God. A humble person, in recognising who God is, will praise God, and will adore God. Worship is the vital key to truly knowing the voice of the Lord. Our true worship to God is the place where not only do we say we love God, but we are laying down our lives and putting our bodies themselves at God’s disposal. Romans 12:1 says that when we offer our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, this is our reasonable service of worship. Often, its when we put down the natural desires of the body, for example in times of prayer and fasting, that we gain great revelations of God’s heart and God’s voice. When we are occupied with fulfilling our own desires, we usually miss the intimacy with God that could have been possible.

Meditation on the Word of God can produce in us a true knowledge of God. This happens when we allow God’s Word to enter deeply into us through repetition, and giving it the focus of our attention for an extended period of time. Superficial readings and consideration of God’s Word do not casue us to know God. It helps us only to know about Him. We need to take advantage of the fact that we have access to God’s book, the Bible.

All this is foundational to learning to move in the supernatural. If we ever move away from this base of doing things out of relationship to the Lord, we have strayed from the path of life and must turn back to our first love. No amount of works done or even miracles performed in His name will satisfy the heart of God concerning us, when our hearts are not truly given over to Him. Its similar to the scenario of a wife dutifuly perfoming household duties for her husband and family while secretly wishing she was out of the marriage, because she really loves someone or something else. God help us to keep a vision and a revelation of the love of God for us.

Why is this key important for moving in the supernatural?

To move in the supernatural of God most effectively, we should seek to be as Jesus, who “only did what He saw the Father doing” (John 5:19). Intimacy with God empowers us to see what the Father is doing and do likewise.

Praying publicly for people whose hearts are not prepared to receive from God will often do more harm than good, because it may confirm them in their unbelief. By knowing God and being sensitive to the leading of His Holy Spirit, we can perceive on whom the Spirit of God is moving and then minister to them. But we cannot expect God’s leading in times of public ministry if we don’t devote much private time to cultivating a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

This is but the first of several keys to moving in the supernatural power of God, but it is foundational to all of them. God willing, I will write soon on the others, which include:

Abandoning the place of comfort and embracing risk (stepping out of the boat)

United prayer and fasting with others

Speaking the Word of God

Applying FAITH

Boldness

Using the Name of Jesus

Michael