Apprentice 2 Jesus

The Case for Miracles

I have finished my Master’s thesis and am now preparing for graduation. It’s an achievement in my life that I am so thankful for… and will now find out if I really meant it when I said, “This is for me, not for some job.” The reason is because now I find myself in a totally different career and may never find myself “using” the M.A. in a teaching career. Oh, well!

My thesis examined the lives of three 4th Century Egyptian monks and their Pentecostal theology and practice. I was drawn to these examples because they give Pentecostals deeper roots in the history of the Church than just examining Azusa Street. Our Pentecostal roots are found in the earliest parts of church history.

The biggest lesson I learned from these examples was the interaction with spiritual warfare. In our day we tend to “go looking” for spiritual warfare. Or, we intentionally DON’T go looking for spiritual warfare. In either case, we act like it’s something to go hunt down and engage, or know it’s possibly out there and we work like crazy to avoid it.

For example, we may want to engage in spiritual warfare so we find a spiritual problem, then pray about the name of the demon that is heading up that problem. Then, we engage that demon in spiritual warfare.

This used to be done over cities. Conferences were held where people would seek the Lord to see what demons had become “heads” of those cities. Then, there would be days of fasting and prayer as saints prayed against those demons and strongholds.

For the desert fathers, they encountered demons quite often. More than most Pentecostals and Charismatics encounter those things today, I would venture to say. But the desert fathers did not encounter the demonic by going and looking for those encounters. They instead found spiritual warfare when they chose to seek God more fervently.

For Antony, his fiercest encounters came when he first gave himself to an ascetic life. Satan attacked him several times, trying to distract Antony from entering the ascetic life. It was Antony’s determination to love God that led to warfare! The enemy did not want Antony following through with his commitment, so he attacked him.

Antony also realized miracles in his life, but again it was “along the way” that miracles happened. For us, we get into celebrity worship and drive hundreds of miles to go to a crusade and hope the healing evangelist prays for us. For Antony, he just lived his life seeking God and the miraculous would flow when needed. People would come to Antony seeking a miracle. He would turn their focus to Jesus, then simply command a miracle to flow.

The need of our day is to return to the two greatest commandments: Love God and love our neighbor. As we turn ourselves more fully to that pursuit, we will engage warfare. We will also see the opportunities for miracles like never before.