How Continuationism Affects Our Lives

5.
Fiercer Passion

At the age of 12, God put in me a strong passion for Him. I realized that He was the only One that truly mattered in life, and I wanted Him desperately. I wanted to experience Him to the fullest. I wanted to live for Him in radical ways. I wanted to take every advantage of being His son.
I read, studied, and meditated on His Word constantly, and I prayed to Him regularly. "Read your Bible and pray every day, and you'll grow, grow, grow." Right? I even read a basic theology book and listened to many sermons. But with all those spiritual activities, I felt like I was missing something in my life. It seemed like my passion for God was being detained.
I wanted to unleash my passion in some way. Everything seemed so superficial. I had so much fire burning inside of me, but there was nothing to consume. I wanted to go deeper. I wanted to go higher. I wanted to go farther. There must be more to Christianity than just reading the Bible and praying every day.
Throughout this journey, there was one thing I discovered, which was being exposed more and more: In order to unleash my passion for God, I must live in and by the One I have such passion for. I must be so engulfed in Him that "it is no longer I who live, but Christ [that] lives in me" (Galatians 2:20, NLT).
If I am to let Christ live through me, I cannot be living merely in the natural. The supernatural must be involved. The supernatural must flow through me if Christ is going to flow through me, because
Christ is a supernatural, divine person—He is God.
That's what was missing! I was hungering and thirsting after God, I was earnestly seeking to live a Spirit-filled life, but that can only be fulfilled if the supernatural is abounding in my life. You cannot
experience a supernatural God by purely natural means, and you cannot abide in and live through a supernatural God by purely natural means.
I was involving myself in everything "spiritual" but God Himself. I put the word "spiritual" in quotation marks because if we are not living in the supernatural, we are not living in the spiritual either, because the spiritual is supernatural. If you are living apart from the supernatural, you are just living a physical Christian life, not a spiritual one. That realization of the supernatural life brought tremendous relief, freedom, and joy in my mind, heart, and soul. It made so much sense as I read the Scriptures again. All the people who feared God and had immense passion for Him were recipients and agents of the miraculous.
Our level of passion for God is significantly related to the supernatural in our lives. The more you witness it your own life, the more your passion for the One from whom it flows will grow. Maybe
that's why Charismatic preachers are so passionate and so radical! The power of God overwhelms them. It' one thing to believe the power of God; it's another thing to know the power of God. God's
power transforms lives. It is seen countless times in the Scriptures.
That is why, when the supernatural isn't present, hearts grow apathetic, ritualistic, naturalistic, and pessimistic. It's hard to maintain a zeal for something or someone that isn't real in your life.
What makes your God different from the other gods worshipped by the pagans if your God isn't experienced, encountered, and directly involved in your life?