The NORMAL Christian life should look anything like "normal"

The currency of the Christian life has been "devalued" - let's face it, the average person doesn't see much difference between the life their Christian friends are living and the lives of their other friends.

The statistics are horrifying:

Our divorce rate actually exceeds the national average (to be fair, part of the reason for that is because many in the larger culture don't even bother to marry). But as I am currently in the middle of a couple of Christian marriages that are in the process of blowing up, this issue is extremely close to home.

Christians are addicted to porn - the most current statistics I have is that 70% Christian men who are committed church goers are "regularly using" porn. Possibly more shockingly is that when you get to pastors, the number is 50%! No wonder so many churches don't welcome into their churches the ministries working to get people set free and healed from porn addiction!

Looking at just about every other area, there is all-too-often little to no difference between the lives of professing followers of Christ and those who are in the world. Our marriages and families, our integrity, our finances (meaning here that Christians are largely in debt and not managing their finances well), our health and fitness - the problem of obesity in the church is literally "the elephant in the room"! The list can go on and on.

So when I get to what is "normal", I am not even referencing the aforementioned problems/issues. One of the strongest selling points of the earliest Christians is that they lived lives that were so abnormal, they were often accused of being "gods" - think of the pagan Roman world in which Christianity first took root. 

Who could heal diseases? Who could get people free from whatever demonic darkness ensnared them? Who could prophesy the "secrets of peoples' hearts" and even by revelation from God foretell coming events? 

It was the Christians. They stood out by living lives that were radically different from the society around them. 

Today, much of our church in the name of "being relevant" and actually become just like the godless society in which we live. I don't question the motivation in many cases, but the fruit has been a disaster.

I am reminded of a friend of mine whose marriage blew up when his wife returned to perverse immorality and addiction to alcohol. He confessed to me, "we were trying to go into the world and take one of the '7 Mountains' and the mountain took her"! A tragic end to a noble vision.

I won't change the channel - I want us to get back to NORMAL CHRISTIANITY

*the kind that turned the world upside down during the pagan Roman Empire, 

*the kind that revolutionized pagan Ireland turning it into more or less a Christian nation, 

*the kind that took the Gospel all over the world at the height of the British Empire and into the 20th Century which saw churches planted all over the world that remain strong today, the kind 

*the kind that led to millions of Christians today in China

*the kind that is exploding today in Muslim countries like Iran

It will be that kind of Christianity that can/will have an impact again the post-Christian West if we will actually LIVE IT!

This blog and my podcast were started for the very reason of contending for this type of Christian life - the NORMAL Christian life that looks like the life of Jesus and His Apostles. A life characterized by the Power of the Holy Spirit and the moving in His supernatural gifts! 

Will our culture once again wonder if Christians are something other than other humans? Because, BIBLICALLY we are! We have been filled with the Holy Spirit. We have been given gifts from heaven. We have in fact been made "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).

If this is NOT your experience, then get out of the current spiritual environment in which you are living (yes, I mean the Church that is not casting a vision for the normal Christianity I am advocating for) and find a spiritual community that is contending for normal.

For Such A Time as This...