Jesus Heals the Sick...

AND Sticks Pennies on Walls!

By Becky Fischer

I love the supernatural power of God. I’m intrigued when He manifests Himself in unusual signs and wonders like when gold dust appears all over the hands the kids at our conferences. When they wipe it off, it just appears again a few seconds later. It sometimes continues for days on some of them long after the conference is over. Why does God do things like this? Isn’t having His holy presence is filling a room supernatural enough? I like what Joshua Mills says, “God gives us signs to make us wonder.”

But sometimes in our openness for the unusual, Spirit-filled Christians can also be rather gullible and attribute any unusual manifestation as the “power of God” or an “answer to prayer” as long as they tack “In the name of Jesus” onto the back of their prayers. In an age where the supernatural is all around us due to the emphasis on the paranormal in our society along with the invasion of other religions into western culture all of which have various levels of the supernatural in them, it’s becoming harder and harder to discern between the holy and the profane.

It’s the lack of spiritual discernment particularly among our young people that concerns me, although mature adults can be just as naive.

Barna Research Group just came out recently with the disturbing news that the Christian Church is becoming less theologically literate. They reported: “What used to be basic, universally-known truths about Christianity are now unknown mysteries to a large and growing share of Americans--especially young adults. For instance, Barna Group studies in 2010 showed that while most people regard Easter as a religious holiday, only a minority of adults associate Easter with the resurrection of Jesus Christ... Further, a growing majority believe the Holy Spirit is a symbol of God's presence or power, but not aliving entity. As the two younger generations (Busters and Mosaics) ascend to numerical and positional supremacy in churches across the nation, the data suggest that biblical literacy is likely to decline significantly. The theological free-for-all that is encroaching in Protestant churches nationwide suggests the coming decade will be a time of unparalleled theological diversity and inconsistency.” (© Barna Group 2010, www.barna.org)

What does this have to do with the supernatural? Everything! If you don’t know your Bible how can you discern between what is from God accurately and what is a potentially a product of strange fire on the altar? Our kids, teens, and young people are exposed to the supernatural around them all the time in their movies, TV shows, books, and the games they play. Even our choicest offspring can confuse what is of God and what is not. How can we teach them and ourselves to accurately discern what is of God?

For close to two years now there has been a “craze” filling YouTube and the blogs about how our Christian kids and young people are “sticking pennies to walls” supposedly through the power of prayer. As one group of kids at one of my conferences described it, “The longer your penny stays on the wall the more faith you have.” And of course they are all preceding this phenomenon with prayer in Jesus’ name so that definitely makes it “God,” right?

I recently found out whole “pennies on the wall” thing actually originated in one of our most respected “schools of supernatural” among the students. It seems, according to one blog, a student was out hanging up posters for an event but ran out of thumb tacks but had some spare change. So she asked Jesus to hang the poster with the pennies and He obliged. This apparently spawned the “phenomenon” and our Christian youth are now off the charts excited about “what God is doing!” The internet is just loaded with photos and videos of pennies sticking to walls. Some people are even creating “designs” with these pennies even adding spoons and forks to the array.

Am I the only one that has a problem with this? Where is our discernment as Christians? Where in the Bible did God ever use His power to “show off” or entertain us with trivial “signs and wonders” such as this? I can find where He floated an ax head that fell into water. But why? Just for the fun of it to prove His power? No, it was because a man was going to be thrown into slavery for the rest of his life if he didn’t return the borrowed ax head to the owner. God used His power to bless and rescue a human being.

What about all those crazy “magical” things that happened with Moses in Pharoah’s court with Moses’ rod? God was not showing off there either. He was proving that the power of the gods the Egyptians served were nothing compared to the power of the Most High God. There is not one miracle or supernatural encounter in the Word that does not have a real purpose. There is no place in scripture where God displayed His supernatural powers for trivial reasons or just because someone prayed in the name of Jesus. God does not need pennies, spoons and forks to prove His power or that He answers prayers.

In fact the Bible says, “Don’t put God to foolish tests” (Deuteronomy 6:16, Matthew 4:5-7). It also tells us to “Test the spirits to see if they are of God” (1 John 4:1). So I decided to dig around a little more on this whole penny thing. Here’s what I found: Click here and here to go to websites if you are pregnant. You’ll learn you can stick pennies to a wall to discover the gender of your baby. If the penny sticks you’re having a girl and if it falls off you’re having a boy.

Click here to go to another site where you’re taught you can stick pennies to the wall using your own “energy and intention.” Sounds a little New-Age-y” to me but apparently it works. Finally, the next time you visit Disneyland be sure to visit Space Mountain (click here). It seems there’s a blue wall there you can stick pennies to though no one seems to know why. So it would seem that the whole “Jesus heals the sick and sticks pennies to the wall” kind of loses its potency with these other discoveries.

There can only be four possible reasons the pennies, spoons and forks can stick to the wall: it’s either the power of God, the power of the devil (since there are only two sources of the supernatural), mind over matter, or there’s a scientific reason for it. Some of those YouTube videos can be pretty compelling when you listen to those kids pray. Who knows? I could be completely wrong! God may just be having the time of His life sticking stuff to walls. Maybe He got bored raising the dead. (Check out this video about thick paint on walls (click here) Maybe the mystery has been revealed! )

You have to forgive me for seeming to go after something as “innocent” as this. Who cares anyway? What possible harm can this do? As a children’s minister who is called to raise up a generation of kids to walk in the supernatural power of God I care they have critical discernment between what is truly the power of God and not. As a parent of this very supernatural generation you should care that they get it right and can discern accurately between what is holy and what is a farce. If we are going to teach our kids to operate in the supernatural let’s teach them what that power is truly for—it’s not a game. It’s not “show and tell.” It’s to impact humanity for Jesus!

Suggested Resource: Shaping Future Generations

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Becky Fischer is the founder and director of Kids In Ministry International. It is most cutting edge apostolic, prophetic ministry for children and those who minister to them. Our mission is to redefine children's ministry in the 21st century by raising up this generation as active members in the body of Christ.

www.kidsinministry.org