Unbelieving Believers

For many years I was afraid of “seeking an experience” from God. I wanted to be rooted in obedience, free from sin, and fully sanctified. I believed in the supernatural but thought it must be more for those that don’t know God to compel them to believe in Him. Besides that, bizarre renditions of faith healers and prosperity gospel preachers danced in the back of my mind convincing me to focus on being more biblically literate and intellectually grounded.

God had called me into the graves of those who were emotionally dead and almost daily I heard details of evil and suffering and walked with individuals groping for hope after years of trauma. These friends experienced evil up close for years of time; they had felt suffering with all of their senses. When a woman is raped daily for years she knows the devil up close. She has felt him, seen him, heard him.

The years of textbook learning, models of aftercare, and program development I had done sifted through my fingers and lay at my feet relatively useless some days. When evil has impacted the human soul supernaturally something that overcomes supernaturally with good must be experienced. I was committed to keep walking into the graves of suffering but as the years passed I started seeing myself at Lazarus’s grave sitting beside a dead body trying to reason and understand the pain without seeing a resurrection. I had all the willingness to run into the “tombs of the emotionally dead” as Dr. Langberg puts it, but lacked the power to see the reality of suffering overcome with good.

I was Martha crying to Jesus about the smell of the pain and the length of the suffering, blinded to the reality that He was about to do the miraculous regardless of how hopeless it appeared.

Jesus told Martha, “If you believe, you will see glory.”

I struggled to understand the Holy Spirit. I didn’t want to pray in tongues, speak God’s word with confidence, and lay hands on the sick. You could have called me a practicing cessationist. I wanted to be committed and faithful and led daily by the Holy Spirit without exercising the gifts He wanted to give me. But a time came through the influence of my husband seeking more from the Holy Spirit that we sat in the basement of the Greek Bible College after class as a professor from Canada prayed for us to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That night my husband was singing praise (in the shower!) and starting singing in a new tongue. I remember him coming to our room a night or so later and laying hands on me and praying. The next morning I knelt where I usually did to pray by the double doors looking out onto Victoria Square in Athens, and started praying in a new tongue.

Something happened in Eric and I over that time. We started learning how to be believing believers. I started going into the brothels and praying straight and direct prayers and expecting God to answer. I remember a few vividly. I prayed, “Lord, give her a picture of your face,” and just then she turned her face heavenward and said “I see Jesus!”

Do you think the Creator of these beautiful women looks down at their despair and wants to reveal Himself to them? Absolutely. Do you think He looks down in the places of your heart where you feel alone and stuck and wants to reveal Himself there? Absolutely. If the Holy Spirit is that beautiful there is no darkness that cannot be overcome with His light.

Nothing can make us afraid.

God wants to show you who He really is.

I have often heard that we shouldn’t trust experiences, but trust God’s word. What about the experiences in God’s word? Can we trust those and pursue the same? We’ve somehow created a false dichotomy between experiencing God and obedience to His word. We need to know that we can be healed supernaturally AND go and sin no more. We can receive the supernatural and walk in humble obedience to the word of God.

Michael Wells writes, “Let me explain that an unbelieving believer is someone who is a Christian, is born again, and will arrive in heaven; the problem is that this person has never believed in the Lord Jesus with his whole being. That is, with his mind he receives and believes all that is told him about the grace, care, concern, and love of the Lord Jesus; he is a believer. Yet at the same time, he feels that he is in charge of every aspect of his Christian life, that he must change the lives of those around him, bring transformations into his own life, and work to make himself pleasing to God. That is, in his emotions he is unbelieving.”

Many of us have been drawn by the Holy Spirit to repentance. We have exercised the fruit of the Holy Spirit and love, joy, and peace radiates from us, but we’re afraid of Pentecostal power. We want to leave that to the “missionaries” that need it. We die spiritually when we know God with our intellect but don’t receive the power He wants to give us. Saying and doing the right things is not enough in a world gone to chaos under the supernatural control of the devil. Those who have felt evil with all of their being must be able to feel God with all of their being. We cannot reason people into healing. A lot of pain happens in the church because people have discernment to know what is wrong about hurting individuals without the power and maturity to enter into their problems and lead them to transformation. This leads to criticism and judgement of struggling individuals instead of hopeful interaction with the deep wrestlings of their hearts.

“These people draw near to Me with their mouths and honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship of Me is but rules taught by men. Therefore I will again confound these people with wonder upon wonder. The wisdom of the wise will vanish, and the intelligence of the intelligent will be hidden.” Isaiah 29

God wants to speak to your heart today. He wants to confound (cause surprise or confusion especially by acting against expectations) us with wonder upon wonder. He wants to speak into the deepest pain, rejection, and suffering you have faced. And He will do that so you believe His goodness so deeply that it overcomes evil everywhere you go. Not only in a brothel, but in your heart. Not only on the street corner in another nation, but on your church pews. Not only for the “missionary” but for every disciple.

Don’t be afraid of a supernatural experience with the Holy Spirit. Ask for it. Receive it. The Holy Spirit is safe, peaceful, and comforting. Don’t let the counterfeit you have seen keep you from the reality of His presence in the world. If we keep walking in a form of godliness without the power we will keep producing robotic disciples in our churches who know it all with their minds while their hearts know nothing of His power.

The woman with the issue of blood pressed through the crowd convinced that she needed an experience of healing. Maybe you feel her desperation today. Press through the crowd until you can touch His robe. Look up into His face. He wants to reveal Himself to you and be known fully by you. God sent Jesus into the world so we could see, feel, and touch who He is. He sent the promised Holy Spirit “for you and your children” not only to guide us into doctrinal truth, but to comfort and heal us. If you have felt supernatural darkness and feel lost in it, God wants to reveal Himself in supernatural, overcoming goodness.