Struck by Lightning

Imagine you are looking over into the center of hell as huge crowds of demons gather for their strategic meeting to determine the outcome of the lives of millions of people. They would hush as Satan steps up to address them with the following:

“We can’t keep the Christians from going to church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t even keep them from Christian values. But we can do something else. We can keep them from forming an intimate, abiding experience in Christ. If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to church, let them have their lifestyles, but steal their time, so they can’t gain experience with Christ. Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining a vital connection through their day. Keep them busy with nonessentials and invent numerous schemes to occupy their minds. Overstimulate their minds so they can’t hear the still small voice of their God. Jam their minds with noise and break their union with Christ. Fill their coffee tables with magazines and newspapers, pounding them with the news of the world twenty-four hours a day. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, sweepstakes, mail order catalogues, and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services, and false hopes. Even in the recreation, lead them to be excessive. Have them return from their recreation exhausted, disquieted, and unprepared for the coming week. Don’t let them be still in God’s creation. Even when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with guilt and a troubled conscience. Don’t let them encourage one another. Keep those who are especially gifted encouragers busy and worn out. Above all, keep them from praying together. Let them be involved in ministry, but keep them so busy doing good things that they never have time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family unity for a good cause and missing the true cause of their Savior.”

And Jesus said:

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:1-5 ESV).

According to a recent article in Health magazine titled “I Have Been Struck by Lightning, and I Am Alive,” there is a common belief in non-scientific cultures where thunderstorms are common that lightning has magical qualities. They tend to believe that being struck by lightning and surviving gives the survivor magical spiritual and healing powers. For example, when a Sudanese man’s hut is struck by lightning, he is reportedly “dead” for two days, and then on the third day he awakes and is a shaman. These beliefs are certainly no more than mythical oddities. However, there is a need for us to be “struck by lightning” of a sort. That lightning is found only in the presence of God in Christ. So many Christians are impotent and defeated simply because they have not found their place in Christ. Power comes from an intimate relationship with Christ. Just as a branch cannot survive apart from the vine, so we cannot survive living around the things of God. We must immerse ourselves in God! Then the lightning will strike!