Regaining Spirituality

”If people want to go to a spiritual person, they generally won’t think to first go to a Christian…”

Anyone who was in the LTTB class on Tuesday will know that I have made a bad paraphrase of the above sentence. But there is a point: Christians are not seen as spiritual nor possessing spiritual power.
Here’s an example that was given: a Missionary goes to some far away remote destination to preach the Gospel, say, Africa. He enters a village, shares the Gospel of Jesus Christ, wows the village, and saves the lot. Not a bad effort you would agree. Hold onto that thought for a minute while I digress. Almost everyone (compared to 30 years ago) believes in some form of spirituality, whether it is Tarot, Astrology, New Age and so forth. The problem is that more often than not organised religion (especially Christianity) takes a lot of flak rather than “membership”. These “New Age” followings that I’ve just mentioned are seen as “real” acts of spirituality, or at least people getting a dose of spirituality per se.
Let’s return to the Missionary example. Recap: you came, you preached, you saved everyone in that village. Now for the punch line: an African village will most likely have a Witch-Doctor living nearby. And if a village member discovers that his house is haunted or cursed, he will go visit the Witch-Doctor. Why? For the exact same reason as my opening line suggests: If people want to see someone with spiritual power, they will not first go to a Christian. At best, Christians are seen as “nice” people. Nice in the sense of the virtues that Christ has called us to live out. And these virtues as we know them are good! But as agents not only of God’s Love, but of God Himself, we are told that we too can work signs and wonders just as Jesus did. And one of the most powerful weapons a Christian wields is Prayer! If you think that example is a weak one, then flash back to how many times you have asked someone to pray with or for you. We wouldn’t ask people to pray for us if we didn’t believe that prayer had incredible power. But here’s the thing: we do believe in the power of prayer. Prayer can heal, restore, strengthen, bind, release…you name it.
Here’s another punchline: as Christians we do possess spiritual power. That is, the power that God has given us through His Son.

“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”  – Mark 11:23-24 NIV