We are Pentecost-accosted, or ‘Pentecosted’ people. This is God’s Plan ‘A.’ The radical Kingdom makeover which was lovingly visited upon the disciples is also our new now. We are called/chosen/invited/anointed/commissioned (choose your preferred verb here) to live out our calling/choosing/invitation/anointing/commissioning, in the full understanding that ‘without him we can do nothing.’ Incredibly, the inverse is also true: that with him all things are possible. Wow! (kinda makes your head spin, doesn’t it?)
I found this excerpt from a recent Lectio365 devotional, hosted by Tyler Staton, to be riveting: ‘One of the distinguishing markers of the Church is that we are fundamentally supernatural people, people among whom and through whom miracles happen. German theologian, Jürgen Moltmann wrote: “Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly ‘natural’ thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded.” What we call supernatural is simply living by the natural order of another, truer world.’
‘Another, truer world.’ Is this what has happened, that the breakthrough of the Kingdom (that other, truer world) has imposed itself on a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded? And are we, as now citizens of that Kingdom (that other, truer world) empowered to live, not by the dictates of the physical world around us, but by all the values and characteristics of our new home? Dare we believe such a thrilling possibility? Dare we live it? Dare we not? Let’s do all dare together. PD, Pentecosted
Don graduated from Regent University in 1988 and moved to France for seven years, coming back to the US briefly to marry Sue in 1990. The work in France included working in a Christian School and helping plant a church before returning in 1995. He’s been pastor of Peninsula Vineyard since 1999. He enjoys counseling, especially married couples, traveling back to France (with Sue), reading, doing Sudoku puzzles and sleuthing out good, dark chocolate. Don serves as the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church Peninsula, in Newport News, Virginia.