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"Where there is great love, there are always miracles."
FAITH HEALING
I’ve know people who questioned God’s love for them because God didn’t heal them. I’ve known others who questioned their own faith...they felt like if they’d just had more faith God would have healed them. In fact, I’ve known people who were TOLD by a faith-healer that the reason they were sick was because they didn’t have "enough faith."
A few weeks ago, I saw a special on TV about faith healers. In that show, Lisa Ling went to the meeting of a renowned faith healer where she interviewed a man named Steve. When he was 18, Steve was in a car crash that left him with brain injury and a speech impediment. Years after that, he fell off a roof and was paralyzed from the waist down.
Doctors said Steve would never walk again--but Steve said God had told him this was his time to be healed. He was completely convinced that he would leave that meeting walking and pushing his wheelchair. His faith was absolute; he didn’t express a single doubt that God was about to heal him.
On the last day of the meeting, Steve’s turn came. He went forward and sat in a row of people where the faith-healer touched his forehead and said "Bam!" Then a group of people prayed over him, reached under his arms, and lifted him up--but then after a couple of minutes, they set him back in his wheelchair. His condition was unchanged.
After this, Lisa Ling became very concerned for Steve. She knew he was completely convinced that he would be healed and she wondered what would happen to his faith. When she found Steve after the meeting, though, she was amazed. He was disappointed--but his faith was unshaken.
In his halting voice, Steve told her, "It wasn’t my time to be healed--but one day I will walk and run--when I get to Heaven, God will give me a new body." Then Steve laid his hand on Lisa and prayed for her.
When I saw that, I realized I was witnessing a miracle. The miracle wasn’t in the man’s legs; it was a miracle of his soul--the light of Jesus was shining out of his heart. After all, a physical healing is always temporary. But spiritual healing, a healing of the faith, lasts for eternity.
(From a sermon by K. Edward Skidmore, Bart and Zach, 3/30/2011)
MIRACLES: THE TWO BOXES
Ron Nash spoke to a group of Russian scientists who had been taught all their lives that there is no such thing as miracles. He put two cardboard boxes in front of them. The first box was closed. Ron said, "This is the way you see the world. The box represents the material world, and you believe that is closed to any intervention from God." The second box was open. He said, "This represents the Christian view. We also believe in the material world. But we believe that this world is not closed. God can intervene."
(Source: I Don’t Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek)
Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in let...
KENYA MIRACLE
There is a precious family in a certain church in Kenya. Years ago, when the mother and the two young daughters were saved, they were returning home after baptismal service. They were rejoicing as they approached the door. All were singing. The father was a fearful demon-possessed man. He waited for them to get home. He was determined to kill them and he was ready to take his life also. God convicted him by their song. He fell on his knees and repented right there.
GOD KNOWS
The receiving line at the memorial was very long as Jim and Steph had many family members that came from Texas and Georgia. Halfway through the line, I was introduced to Jim's sister, brother and nephew. They said "Are you the Brad Henry that wrote the devotional about my brother?" I told them I was but I didn't remember anyone for the family being on the list.
The service was very emotional and at the gravesite a P 51 (WW II Fighter) made a low pass overhead to honor Jim and Steph. After the service I walked back inside and sat down at the reception where they were serving food with Jim's brother and sister. I asked them "How did you get the devotional"?
They told me a man that I have never met (about 90% of the people on the devotional I have never met) said that their office in Georgia gets our Daily Devotional from a man in Tennessee who is a client. The man in Tennessee who faithfully forwards out the Daily Devotional had no idea that this office he was forwarding it to had the members of Jim's family working there. BUT God knew.
NO WAY did this happen by chance. God in His comfort and mercy knew this family needed to hear words of comfort and hope. THEN the sister in law told me "God has you doing exactly what He wants you to do." God NEVER fails. While we may not understand the path God takes us we can be confident in the journey that He will be beside us every step of the way.
Some thrilling Davis cup matches!!!
First things first. Why are so many miracles recorded in the Scriptures? For us to be awed by the all-powerful ways of Almighty God and spontaneously praise Him in the spirit of adoration! The very purpose of our Creation is to worship Him (the very first declaration in Westminster Catechism, which encapsulates Christian faith best, testifies to this fact). Oh yes, reading about miracles also reinforces our faith in Him, to deliver us from our difficulties. Now permit me to sidetrack just a bit and visit the World of tennis or more precisely that of Davis cup!
Davis cup? Oh that poor country cousin of the Grand Slams, which the top stars usually shun? Whatever way one may view this team competition, I am a great fan of it for the simple reason, computer rankings go haywire once the DC tie begins, with patriotism ruling the roost. So you see “many upsets” in this competition, where a lower ranked player (high on patriotic adrenaline) often gets the better of a higher ranked one. Yet another fascinating aspect of Davis cup competition is that it packages and presents contests within contests. Confused? Let me explain. While Davis cup competition primarily pits a country against a country, essentially within this broad contest, what keeps the spectators engaged is a contest within a contest of two players representing their national flags. Let’s take the recent Davis cup final between Spain and Argentina for example. Even as an engaging contest was on between TWO COUNTRIES, there was that EXCITING CONTEST WITHIN A CONTEST between two baseline sluggers-Nadal and Del Porto. These two Grand slam champions going toe-to-toe provided for some lip-smacking stuff for many a tennis buff. Old timers would also nostalgically recall some classic DC contests…notably the 6-hour marathon featuring Becker and McEnroe in a 1987 tie between Germany and USA or the Wilander, McEnroe epic (also of 6 hrs) in a 1982 contest between Sweden and USA. All these bring me to the like sounding spiritual theme …“MIRACLES WITHIN MIRACLES” (high time some readers might say).
A bit dazed once again? Permit me to clarify at the outset before expounding this subject, further. We always praise God for many an awe-inspiring miracle in the Bible but have we praised Him for some “silent” miracles within “thundering” miracles. Not so much for felling a Goliath, as for silently “directing” the stone slung by the shepherd boy to its target!
When God wants to do something wonderful, He begins with a difficulty,
When God wants to do something spectacul...
Donald Grey Barnhouse: "Abraham came to the ultimate conclusion that he was going to see a miracle because God cannot lie. He had said that this son would be the one through whom He would fulfill all of His promises. Therefore the son must live or God would be found false. And yet God commands that this son be put to death. Since there is no contradiction in God, He must be planning on raising Isaac from the dead. All a picture of what Jesus would actually do--die and then be raised back to life."
True miracles are created by men when they use the courage and intelligence God gave them.
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