Do you have a favourite hero or superhero?
Most kids love superheroes - many adults do too!
In the comics and in the movies,
Superheroes often have special abilities,
they can do things that are impossible for normal
people to do,
some can fly,
some have incredible strength,
some can turn invisible,
others have heat vision or x-ray vision.
They can do some pretty amazing and impossible
things.
I’ve always liked Batman, perhaps because he seems
to be a little more human than some of the other
heroes.
Sometimes, when we read the Bible, we can read it
like we are reading a comic book.
We read about some of the amazing things that were
done by people in the Bible and assume that perhaps
in some way they were superheroes or superhuman,
we read how they lived their lives,
we read about their passion for God,
and we assume that to live that way is impossible for
real ordinary people like me and you.
We about these amazing people in the Bible - and
the amazing things they experienced and forget they
were just ordinary people like you and me.
Sometimes it’s hard for us to understand that these
people were real ordinary people,
not super humans, not fictional super heroes -
they were real living people.
They were people who had real struggles and real
problems in their real everyday lives.
They didn’t have superpowers,
they were not superheroes,
they were ordinary people like you and me,
who trusted in an extraordinary God,
they were people who lived by faith everyday.
In themselves, they didn’t have any special powers or
abilities to live their lives or do fantastic things.
It was God that worked miracles around them,
in them and through them.
These people are examples in how we should seek to
live our daily lives.
Seeking God’s purposes, trusting God’s provision,
experiencing God’s power.
Maybe our favourite heroes should not be the fictional
superheroes of comic books and movies -
maybe our heroes should be the ordinary men and
women of the Bible that placed their trust in God.
Maybe our heroes should be the ‘warriors of the faith’
the prayer warriors, the people whose lives were
changed and blessed by trusting God more than
themselves or their own abilities.
Perhaps instead of wishing for Superman’s ability to
fly or Batman’s incredible crime solving abilities or
Spiderman’s dress sense.
Perhaps we should seek after the closeness with God
that so many people in the Bible had.
People like Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Paul and
so many others - they knew what it was to be close to
God.
They did not have special powers they had a special
relationship with the living God,
they had constant communication with Him,
and God accomplished great things through them.
God took weak and imperfect individuals and
did amazing things through them, and lives and
communities were impacted and changed.
These were people who lived by faith.
These were people who lived by prayer.
So many different people, with different personalities,
different circumstances, different situations,
different purposes,
but one thing is true of them all,
they had faith that God could do what they could not
do themselves.
They are people who trusted God even when as
Captain Kirk would say, “the odds were against them
and the situation was grim”.
They prayed and trusted God when stuff didn’t make
sense.
They prayed and trusted God when it wasn’t popular.
They prayed and trusted God when things were not
going their way.
They are people that we are still inspired by and
talking about thousands of years later because of the
faith and trust they had in God.
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Here’s another question for you:
Do you ever read about someone in the Bible
and think, “That’s the type of person that I want
to be” or “that is the type of faith that I would
like to have.”?
Friends, let me be clear - you can have that type of
faith.
Jesus promised that we would be able to have a faith
that could move mountains.
You can have that type of relationship with God.
Maybe, you are at a comfortable place in your walk
with the Lord,
maybe you think you pray enough,
maybe you think you read the Bible enough,
maybe you think you spend enough time doing church
maybe your content with what you have allowed
yourself to become.
None of us should ever be satisfied with mediocrity in
our faith.
We should never be satisfied with casual Christianity.
We should never be satisfied with a lack of
commitment, excitement, or zeal for our Lord.
We should never choose to be lukewarm in our faith.
I am not content where I am in my faith,
I want to pray more,
I want to read the Bible more,
I want to trust God more,
I want to see God working miracles in lives today,
I want to see His church grow,
I want to see the results of powerful prayers.
I want us to be like some of the incredible people
we read about in the Bible who daily, by faith,
experienced God doing amazing miracles.
I want to be more like Jesus, and I hope that is the
desire of your heart too.
