Now I thought the term showboat was a strange one for God to use, but I realized I knew what He meant. He meant that to live in the supernatural does not require an emotional demonstration of the spectacular. To live in the supernatural only requires that the Word of God works for you when you do it.
Living in the supernatural means that you can take the "super" of God and apply it to your natural circumstances and situations - and get results. To live a life of getting results from God's Word and winning is living in the supernatural. To expect anything other than that is to expect the wrong thing.
It's ludicrous to expect that when God pours out His glory and a great anointing upon the earth, all of a sudden we are all going to start flying around and doing unusual or unnatural things. A person who is living in the supernatural is one who can say, "I live in this natural world, but I'm winning because of the 'super' of God."
Getting Results
How can you tell if you're truly living in the supernatural and not just in some counterfeit "showboat" experience where there may be lots of shouting and singing and dancing and lots of spectacular events which seem to be manifestations of God's power? The answer is that you're living in the supernatural if you are consistently getting results from God's Word.
Child of God, you are living a supernatural life if you're praying prayers and your prayers are being answered, if you're confessing the Word and you can see what you say, if you're laying hands on the sick and the sick are being healed, if you're standing in faith for your finances and finances are being added to you.
Don't let the spectacular manifestations mislead you into thinking that if an experience is not a "showboat" experience, it is not supernatural. A supernatural experience is not necessarily spectacular. An experience is supernatural when the "super" of God is manifested in your life so that the result is manifested in your life.
Supernatural living is getting results from the Word of God and winning through all the tests and trials and adverse circumstances of your natural life.
To put it the other way, if you're not getting results from God's Word, you're not living supernaturally. If you go to church every time the doors are open, shout, scream, dance, sing, prophesy and speak in tongues, but when you go home you're still sick, you're still broke, you're still in bondage, your marriage is still on the rocks, then you're not living in the supernatural.
No matter how many exciting and spectacular things happen during the church service, if you can't apply what you hear about the Word of God to your life when you get home, you're not living supernaturally. You're living in defeat.
But if, on the other hand, you don't experience anything emotionally exciting or spectacular while you're at church, but when you get home, you can apply the teaching you've heard from the Word of God to your own circumstances, then you are living in the supernatural. You are living the supernatural life God intended for His children to live because you are getting results and living in victory through the Word of God.
The Spectacular Will Come
Don't worry that living in the supernatural rather than merely in the spectacular is going to doom you to a boring life. What could be boring about getting results from the Word of God?
And when we all begin living supernaturally the way God wants us to live, the emotions and the spectacular manifestations will come when we assemble ourselves together to praise and worship God and to share our testimonies.
The emotions will rise when I'm at home getting results, and you're at home getting results and someone else is at home getting results. When everyone in the congregation is getting results from the Word of God, we're all going to shout and sing and dance when we get to church.
We're going to shout when we get together because somebody got healed this week. Somebody got a bill paid this week. Somebody got delivered this week. Somebody was saved from an automobile accident this week. Somebody didn't die this week, even though the doctors said he would.
We're going to shout because marriages are working on account of the Word. We're going to dance and sing because finances are working on account of the Word of God.
We're going to praise God because the "super" of God has brought people who were in bondage out into the supernatural life of freedom. We're going to get excited and emotional and shout about the goodness of the Lord because people who were formerly living in defeat are now living in victory.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers