Miracles

 

And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: 1 Corinthians 2:4

Thomas Jefferson is one of the least impressive American Presidents in my view. He had personal failings, such as his hypocrisy on the subject of slavery. But one thing that disappoints me with him is how he removed the power and miracles of Jesus from his 84 page booklet of “The Gospel Without Miracles” selection of scripture he put together. Like many foolish people before and after him, Jefferson wanted to merely make Jesus appear as a great moral teacher and nothing more. Devoid of His power and the miracles that proved who He was–Jesus is just another good guy and nothing else. How blind and short-sighted and false is that view of our Lord.

A while back I was talking to a guy who proclaimed that he had never seen a miracle. I went on to tell him many instances when I had seen God’s miracles in my own life and the lives of others.

If you have had Jesus in your life as long as myself and have never seen a miracle, you have either not been paying attention or need to ask the Lord why.

I have seen explicit miracles, indirect miracles, and have seen the Lord use me to work a miracle for others.

When I was a young man I wanted to do something special for the Lord. He showed me what I could do. I had a dream that at the Berea onramp in Kentucky I could pick up a black man who was waiting there hitchhiking. I was taking my sister to college in the mid 1980s and would be getting back onto the Interstate at that exit. I remember saying to the Lord that if the man was there I would indeed pick up the hitchhiker and give him a ride.

I could only laugh when I was getting onto the onramp in Berea Kentucky and not one, but two young black men were hitchhiking at the onramp. I picked them up and took them quite a way up the Interstate before letting them off at their exit. That day I was their miracle by the grace of God.

I could go on to explain how God healed me of a terrible skin ulcer. An area without surface skin on my stomach that was as big as a half dollar and so strange to doctors that they shuffled in 8-10 medical students to see it. Talk about feeling like an animal in a zoo. It took awhile, but God helped me find the right doctor to bring healing of that awful wound. Then there was the birth of our daughter. The doctors were wringing their hands not sure what to do as our daughter was too far down for a C-Section and not coming out. My wife was in agony. I stepped into the restroom for a quick, desperate prayer to God, and a few minutes later our daughter was coming out so fast they had to rush my wife into the delivery room. Then there was the arthritis God healed me of very quickly. I had been to the family physician, and he was setting me up to go to a specialist. I hurt so bad in my joints I could hardly get off of the couch. My fingers had swollen knots on them. I prayed to the Lord and reminded Him that He said He would not let more come upon us than we could bear, and this was the one thing too much for me on top of my other health issues. The arthritis disappeared before my visit to the specialist.

I know God does not always work miracles in every situation. Sometimes He takes people home to be with Him–which is better than any miracle. At other times we struggle through life with challenges and illnesses. But there are times when Jesus works miracles and we should not only be open to them and ask for them, but allow Him to use us to be someone else’s miracle when we can do so.

How about you, have you ever seen or experienced a miracle?

Prayer: Dear Lord, Thank You for giving us the grace to endure so many things in life. But Thank You as well for Your miracle working power that is still evident on this earth. Amen.

The Most Important Question

 

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:14 (NIV)

There is one thing that you can bet your life on. That one thing is your death. Unless the Lord returns first, there is a 100% chance of your death. We are all mortal and just as we were born on this earth, we will one day leave it.

So what is the most important question? It is what will happen to you when you die. 

For the unbeliever, the best hope they have is that they will cease to exist. Any other outcome is unthinkable to them. Some might hope in reincarnation, or that maybe they will “go on to a better place”, but the general atheist consensus is that when you die there is nothing left of you.

What a sad lack of hope and depressing theory to live by. All of the pain, suffering, and endless tragedy that occurs on this earth leaves unbelievers nothing but a nihilistic attitude. And you can find that attitude infecting many areas of life today coming from those with no hope in God. Why be good, or kind, or generous, or ever have any hope or belief in anything if you think there is no future after your short life is over?

Thankfully, for those who have put their trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord of our lives we are not hopeless, but have every reason to hope. All the pain, misery, and suffering in the here and now will have meaning over there. There will be recompense for those who have trusted in Jesus and endured so much pain and suffering on this earth. 

Even if your life has not been filled with pain and misery, having hope in Christ adds meaning and purpose to a life that could otherwise be filled with self-centeredness and dangerous behaviors that rob the human soul of its worth.

At the end of his life Edgar Allan Poe was in a wretched state. A physician at his bedside reported that his final words were: “Lord help my poor soul”. While no one knows Mr. Poe’s exact religious beliefs at the time of his death, he had a background of being taught religion in his youth and had some religious sentiments in his writing. Yet it is sad to think of a life ending in misery and only then calling upon the Lord for help, yet better late than never.

If you are willing to put your hope in Jesus as your Savior, you need never go through this life alone and without hope. Through good times and bad, when you put your soul into the hands of Jesus He will walk at your side, blessing you and aiding you whatever your circumstances. We are people filled with hope. That hope is firmly placed in the sacrifice and Person Jesus Christ.

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Corinthians 5:1 (NIV)

Put your eternity into the hands of Jesus. Set that hope firmly before you and live it out day by day. You have an answer for what will happen to you when you die, about where you will go.

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:8 (KJV)

Prayer: Dear Lord, at the end of life we will be shocked at how quickly it all passed by, the shortness of life is a reality we will all one day feel. Thank You that we have a confident hope that when our days are through we will have a home in heaven with You Lord. Amen.