The Autopilot Christian Life Series

Living The Supernatural Life – Part 1: Introduction

Eagles and Turkeys: A boy was hiking and saw an eagle’s egg roll off of a high cliff and into some bushes. The bushes broke the fall of the egg and it was unharmed. The boy looked at the cliff and knew there was no way for him to climb back up and place the egg in the nest. He came across a wild turkey’s nest and placed the eagle’s egg in the nest. The eagle hatched along with the turkeys. He was raised with the turkeys, which do not fly very far or very fast and only get a bit off the ground. One day two eagles soared over head. The young eagle watched them and asked a turkey, "Why can they fly so high and we barely get off the ground?" The turkey answered "because they are eagles and we are turkeys." And so the eagle, who was raised as a turkey, lived as a turkey and never soared as high as his wings were designed to carry him.

The moral of this story is that as Christians, we are living in a world that is made up of turkeys, figuratively speaking, who live by what they can see, feel and touch. Christians are designed to live a supernatural life, a life with its roots in the possibilities of things we cannot see, feel or touch. Our supernatural life, the life of flying high on wings of eagles, is a life that can only be available to one who has that supernatural life WITHIN him. If you are a turkey by nature, you will never fly very high, because you are limited by your nature. But if you are an eagle by virtue of your new birth in Jesus Christ, then you can do far more than you even dreamed! It is your nature! It is your birthright as a child of God to live a life that is supernatural in its basis.

Too often we settle for the natural life and miss the possibilities of the supernatural life. We get used to living on an explainable plane of existence that consists of what we can see, feel and touch.

In fact, I think that we get so used to living like turkeys that we forget how to act like eagles!

This morning, I am beginning a new sermon series on “Living the Supernatural Life.”

As I mentioned, as Christians, we are destined to live a life rooted in the supernatural life and power of Jesus Christ, and not in our natural strength. But as I look in the mirror, and as I talk with other Christians, I all too often find that we are on the ground, living natural lives instead of living the supernatural lives we were made to live.

I have to ask why.

Why do we live so far below our potential?

Why do we live as if God is an appendage to our lives instead of our life?

How did we get so comfortable with living this way?

I have several answers for this as well have found several solutions for this problem in God’s word.

I think that the most prominent problem for most Christians is that we have switched to “autopilot” in our relationship with God.

I think that most of us have daily patterns of behavior, routines of conduct, and that we miss out on the freshness of life because we are caught in a rut.

I read this week a story about Mark Spitz, who would still be the #1 gold medallist (compared to Michael Phelps), but in his first Olympics in 1964, he slacked off, and didn’t put his all into winning. He only won two medals that year. The next Olympics, he gave it his all and won 7 gold medals. He now does motivational speaking and says that most people give less than 80% effort and thereby never become exceptional.

We settle for un-exceptional because it is easy, comfortable and the costs don’t seem too high. But there is no reward – at all for an unexceptional life. No crown. Just burnt up treasures at the end of our lives.

It is sometimes easier to remain in a rut in the road than it is to climb out of it, because of the effort involved. And it is easier to get into a rut than it is to stay outside of it, because you can’t follow someone else’s rut. You make your own path.

And as a church, we go through the motions of worship each week. It seems that it is easy to fall into a rut if we follow any pattern for very long.

One of the values for our worship services at Here’s Hope Baptist Church is that they would be corporate celebrations of God’s supernatural work in our daily lives.