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God's Book
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A few months ago, I had a conversation with a friend who was struggling in a serious financial situation. They needed God's provision in a way they had never seen before, and although they needed it soon, the situation seemed hopeless. There was no physical way, within six months, that things looked like they were going to change.
At the end of our conversation, I offered to pray. And as I prayed, honestly, I didn't have much faith that it would happen. It felt like a measly prayer. As the words came out of my mouth, my eyes widened in surprise—I felt like I needed to add a little insurance clause in case it didn't happen.
"Jesus, thank you that you are going to provide in full by the end of the week."
Even as I said it, I was thinking: it's Thursday—something better happen pretty soon. But while I was worrying about getting better at praying, Jesus was working and being faithful, as he always is. On Friday at 4:03 in the afternoon, I got a text: "Prayers answered. Thank you, Jesus." He is so amazing.
That moment challenged me. I realised how much of my life—and my prayer life in particular—I had been living as though God was up there watching life unfold like his own omniscient Netflix show. I was living like what Andrew Ollerton, in his book, calls a practical atheist: someone who believes in God but doesn't really trust him to step into our world—even though that is exactly what the Bible tells us he did.
This concept of practical atheism is so often a product of disappointment—whether in God, or in other people who use God's name to do things that aren't right.
The first extreme is practical atheism—because of disappointment, we throw the baby out with the bathwater and decide miracles don't happen anymore. That was for "back then," and now the rational Western world has other explanations. It's a viewpoint that, frankly, is quite offensive to much of the rest of the world.
The other extreme is an unhealthy obsession with miracles, the supernatural, the demonic, the occult—ending up worshipping those things rather than God himself.
Jesus warned about both extremes in Luke 10:
"However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven... I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do."
Don't get so focused on healing, miracles, and setting people free that you lose focus on simply loving God and being loved by him. But also don't get so "wise" that you dismiss these things altogether.
C.S. Lewis makes a similar point in The Screwtape Letters: the first mistake is denying the supernatural exists; the second is obsessing over it with morbid fascination. The devil likely rejoices in both extremes, because both distract us from Jesus—the one these things are meant to glorify.
So ask yourself: which way do you lean on that sliding scale?
Before we go further, we need to tackle one of the most important questions: are the Gospels—the historical accounts of Jesus' life—reliable?
Our culture makes it easy to avoid big questions until they come at us unavoidably, and then we're often unequipped to think critically or answer them. The reliability of the Bible has come under real scrutiny in recent years, and Jesus' life is one of the most attacked parts of it.
We don't have time to cover every argument, but most accredited scholars and historians agree: the Gospel accounts of Jesus' life are far more reliable than other ancient documents we treat as solid historical evidence.
Andrew Ollerton's book God's Book lays out several compelling reasons for their reliability:
The Gospels don't read like myth or fiction. They contain incredible real-world detail—coins, dietary customs, religious practices, geography, place names, political rulers—and modern scholarship has found these details remarkably accurate for the period.
The Gospels were published 30–60 years after Jesus' death—within the lifetime of people who could have validated or challenged the accounts as eyewitnesses.
The whole of the Bible hinges on Jesus rising from the dead. Consider:
Once you look critically at the evidence, it's harder to find another explanation than this: Jesus of Nazareth was God, killed and raised to life on the third day, defeating death, sin and the grave so we could have relationship with God.
As the scholar James Dunn puts it:
"One of the most compelling features of the whole sweep of ancient opinion regarding Jesus is his reputation as an exorcist and as a healer."
Stories of miracles can sometimes discourage people from taking Christianity seriously—especially in a culture that prizes rationality and logic above all else. But maybe it's better to think of miracles not as violating the laws of nature, but as transcending them—as thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and Augustine argued. Not a freaky impossibility, but an amazing display of God's power, love and grace.//
The miracles of Jesus and his disciples were never about sorcery, control, or money. Scripture consistently ties Jesus' miracles to deep emotion: he had compassion on the crowds, he wept, and when healing a man with leprosy, the Bible says he was indignant—the Greek word suggesting Jesus felt pain and anger in his gut. Jesus sees our suffering as gut-wrenching, and his motivation for miracles is love.
We may never know why some are healed and others are not. But it cannot be that God is indifferent to what we're going through. In fact, the Bible tells the story of a God who cared enough to perform the greatest miracle of all—making a way for sinful people, once his enemies, to become his family.
When Jesus raised the dead, it was a foreshadowing of the promise that we will all rise with him for eternity. When he healed the sick, it pointed to a day when no one will be sick. When he had compassion on those who grieved, it pointed to the promise that he will wipe away every tear.
Theologians describe this as the now and not yet of the Kingdom of God. We're living in the in-between time: we have access to heaven and relationship with God right now, but we still live in a world marred by sin, death, and pain. One day Jesus will return in glory, and sickness, pain and evil will be no more.
Right now, miracles do happen—God is still setting people free, still healing, still working on our behalf. But we also still live in a world where people get sick and die. One day there will be no more need for healing at all. Until then, God invites us to pray in faith for heaven to come here on earth as it is in heaven, and to share with others the promise of what is still to come.
At Ivy Church, we want to be a supernatural community that's all about Jesus. We believe the Gospels are accurate accounts of his life, that Jesus is who he said he is, that he did what they say he did—and that because of that, we are who he says we are, and we can do what he says we can do.
When we take this book as truth and let it land in our hearts—when we stop doubting, stop trying to rationalise everything away—we begin to see that the supernatural plays a part in our lives every day. There is an enemy who tries to kill, steal and destroy, but our God is far more powerful. He sets us free from our own sin and shame, gives us authority over evil spirits, and when we call on the name of Jesus, demons shudder and flee.//
At its core, Christianity is miraculous—completely unlike anything else the world offers, unlike any other religion. When we try to sanitise it down into mere moral improvement, it loses its power. This gospel is not about behaviour management, but a supernatural exchange—the God who created the universe traded places with us and died so that we could have life. It's not another philosophy to help us improve our lives; it's a promise that God will give us his life.
Because of that, we believe God still does miracles today. He is still healing. He is still freeing. He is still speaking. And so we can pray, call on his name, and he will come and intervene.
Lord God, I'm sorry for the times I have lived like a practical atheist. Lord, I know that you long to move in our lives. Jesus, I pray that you would come and show us how you want to work. God, I thank you that you did step in—into our lives, in your Son Jesus—dying on the cross, taking on our sin and our shame, taking our place of death so that we can rise and live with you. Lord Jesus, I thank you for the most amazing miracle, which is the resurrection. I thank you that you defeated death and the grave, so that we know we will live with you in eternity. Lord Jesus, I thank you that you say this is eternal life—that we know you. I thank you that at its core, this gospel is supernatural, it is miraculous. So Lord Jesus, help us to stop living as practical atheists, but rather to have faith. I declare now, Lord: I believe—but help my unbelief. Come and move in power in our lives. Come and break chains and set people free, like you have been doing throughout history. In Jesus' name. Amen.
