I’ll have to admit up front that I don’t watch much television. Give me an episode or two of Wheel of Fortune and perhaps a couple of cop shows and I’ll have my quota of television for the week. Oh … if there is a good World War II or Korean War movie (it has to be black and white – NO COLOR – to be considered good) on the Fox Movie Channel or Turner Classic Movie network, I’ll gladly push everything aside for a couple of hours.
For some time, there was a television program that was apparently a hit comedy entitled The New Normal. I never watched an episode or will ever watch the reruns. Why? Here’s what the NBC network said on the internet about this program … “Two gay dads and a baby and mother create a totally new kind of family comedy.” I wouldn’t waste the energy or the blog space to begin to tell what is wrong with this new normal. Sadly, so many people (even people in the church) are buying into this new normal.
Let’s take a minute and look at what is considered normal in the life of New Testament church. Better yet, let me quote from one of my favorite preachers and authors, Leonard Ravenhill.
“In the early church, signs and wonders and miracles followed. They cast out demons, blindness and paralysis. That’s normal Christianity!’
Evidently, we’ve bought into a new normal in the church, one that is void of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. And, our people are buying this new normal because we haven’t demonstrated the New Testament, Holy Spirit-filled normal. The fingerprints of the Holy Spirit can’t be found on much that we do. Let me continue the quote from Ravenhill.
“We’re so sub-normal, if we ever became normal, they (the world) will think we’re abnormal.”
I’m here today to cry out “Give me that old time religion.” It doesn’t have to be packaged the same as in days gone bye. The tools and the techniques might be different. But even with all of these changes, the New Testament normal is the only acceptable normal. What the Holy Spirit did in the Book of Acts is what He wants to do today. The same Holy Spirit that filled the upper room in Acts 2 and walked out of the room with the 120 enabling them to be the Church wants to fill your service and talk and demonstrate His presence.
Come on ministry leader. Let’s preach the Book of Acts as our normal. Better yet, let’s demonstrate the Book of Acts as our normal. Let’s turn the church (a building containing lifeless, powerless, motionless people) into the Church (a living, breathing, power-packed representative of the most high God).
