Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  2024  204

July 22;     Matthew 1:20;     1/260;      ‘The Supernatural is Normal’  

Matthew 1:20 But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.

The spiritual realm is real.  We are spirit beings and our spirit is immortal. We have a mind and our spirit lives in our body.  It is possible and indeed desirable to live your life more and more tuned into the spirit realm.  The Bible tells us that God is Spirit.  The Bible also teaches that when we become Born Again, the Holy Spirit comes to live in our spirit.  When we become baptized in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit empowers us for ministry.  As Christians, our success in life should come from our spirit, hooked into the Word of God and relying on the Holy Spirit to lead us and help us in everything that we do.  Notice in this verse, that Joseph, only looking at Mary’s pregnancy from the natural, was going to quietly divorce her.  In the Jewish culture, even though they were not married, only engaged, a certificate of divorce was needed if the engagement was to be terminated.  In this verse we see that the Lord intervened supernaturally.  An angel spoke to Joseph in a dream.  Dreams are one way the Lord will lead us in line with His will.  The Bible teaches that we are to be led by the Spirit or God and that the Holy Spirit will bear witness with our spirit (not our mind or body).  Joseph is lead by dreams five times in the first two chapters of Matthew’s gospel.  Jeremiah 1:5 says that we were known before we were in our mother’s womb and that God has a plan for each of our lives.  The direction we receive to be in the Lord’s will is supernatural and in our spirit.