Don’t Forget the Supernatural

One of the wonderful things about the Lord is that if you are pursuing Him, He will continue to show you new things about Himself and His kingdom. That’s exactly what has been happening to me over the past few months and I want to share it with you.

I have friends that are going through some amazing struggles in their family life. I won’t be sharing any specific things from their lives because of their privacy. Instead, I’ll be sharing some general concepts that you will hopefully be able to make more specific for your life. So, first things first.

Life as God Intends it to Be

This is a huge saying that I use over and over in Experiencing His Victory. It is a core theme of all I teach. I fully believe that God has a level of life that He has made available to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Himself said that He came to bring life and life more abundantly (John 10:10). There is a quality of life that Jesus wants you to experience that comes from His grace in your life. 

The Word of God talks about the fruit of the Spirit in our lives of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. James speaks of “every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting. (see James 1:17)

There’s an internal and external quality of life we can walk in as we grow in our relationship with God and others. There are many promises lining the pages of the Bible. Maybe you can think of a few of the good things that God has in store for those who love Him. If so, leave a couple in the comments.

Persecuted for Christ

When I’m talking about life as God intends it to be, I’m not talking about a pie-in-the-sky viewpoint where nothing ever goes wrong and everything is perfect. Jesus didn’t have that kind of life, but He did have an abundant life.

We are promised persecution and tribulation in this life. People both loved and hated Jesus. There were those who constantly persecuted Him and sought to catch Him in His words so they could accuse Him.

Jesus expected this kind of persecution and even told us it would happen. He said:

18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. (John 15:18-20)

Peter said:

12 Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. 14 If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; 16 but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. (1 Pet 4:12-16)

But there is another type of suffering that my friends were experiencing in their families that’s not from the Lord and is not to be tolerated. It’s the work of the enemy bringing chaos and destruction into their lives.

Attacked by the Enemy

Jesus promised to give us life abundantly, but there is also one at work in our lives seeking to do the very opposite of what the Lord has planned for your life. Jesus said that the “thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10)

He wants to rob you of peace in you heart and home. He wants to steal your joy. He wants to kill your hopes and dreams in God. He wants to make you sick, depressed, and leave you in despair. He wants to destroy everything good in your life and bring total destruction to everything he can touch.

Jesus never expects you to give into this kind of treatment by the devil. This is not persecution but spiritual warfare directed against you by Satan and his demons. The battle is spiritual and nothing but God-empowered weapons will allow you to fight back and force the enemy to stop attacking you and your family.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 6:10-12)

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

Only Seeing the Natural

What I was seeing in the lives of some of my friends is that they were mainly trying to deal with things on a natural level. Paul says through we walk in the flesh (he is not talking about the sinful flesh used in other portions of the Scripture but simply the natural man who is flesh and blood) we do not war according to the flesh.

Let me pause to say that I am not discounting the things that they were doing. They should be doing everything they can possibly do to help in the situation. But as Paul says, just doing the natural things in the flesh is not enough. We must bring in the supernatural power of God to deal with the supernatural power of the enemy at work in our lives.

I am not one who sees a demon behind every bush (I see two, just kidding!). I’m also not the one who tries to make an artificial separation between two things making one better than the other. I want everything that God has for me.

We must take care of things on a natural level as well as on a supernatural level. Both things are needed to bring about the purposes of God.

The examples below are what a parent or grandparent can do to minister to their kids or grandkids on a natural and supernatural level.

Some Examples

I am going to list a number of things in general that happen to people all the time and suggest ways we can handle them both naturally and supernaturally. 

• Rejection - person not wanted at birth, being rejected by mom or dad, divorce, death of a loved one.
  • In the natural - we can seek to meet their needs by accepting them and loving them.
  • In the spirit - we can attack and stand against a spirit of rejection and break its influence off of his/her life.
• Trauma - person experiences major trauma through car accident, someone murdered, someone commits suicide, or any violent act.
  • In the natural - we can be there and support them and seek to bring them comfort and stability.
  • In the Spirit - we can war on their behalf and break off the spirit of trauma.
• Rebellion - person experiences rejection and many times can respond with a spirit of rebellion.
  • In the natural - we can discipline the child to help them realize the consequences of their rebellion.
  • In the Spirit - we can stand against and break the power of rebellion.

The three points above are very general and broad, but I think it gets the point across that we must deal with both the natural and the supernatural aspects of a person’s actions. It is not an either/or situation, but a both/and situation.

Over the coming weeks, we’re going to be looking into the spiritual battle that we face, the power and authority we have in Christ to combat the enemy, ways of discerning the work of the enemy in our lives, and God’s solution to the problem.

I’m looking forward to digging deeper into this area of truth. The more we understand and act upon it, the freer our families will become.

Are there any examples you have of God opening your eyes to see the supernatural aspect of a situation you were facing in your family. How did that revelation help you to deal with the situation? Share in the comments below.