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Post 46 – You are a Wonder!
We’ve been talking about Miracles, Signs, and Wonders. We started this series a couple of weeks ago by saying that miracles, signs, and wonders can be public or private. Sometimes we are looking so intently for a public display of miracles, signs, and wonders that we miss the quiet but supernatural private moves of God in an individual’s life.
The private miracle is that you have been born-again. The Holy Spirit of God lives in you to “help” you live the Christian life. The private sign is that you have been changed and will continue to change by exhibiting the “Fruit of the Holy Spirit. The Fruit of the Holy Spirit is Love, demonstrated by joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These attributes are a sign to the world that you are living for Christ.
Now let’s take a look at “wonders”. The dictionary defines wonder as, “a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable”.
That’s a powerful and true statement. How many of us have settled for what the world has to offer only to find it wanting or disappointing? However, wonder in the greatness of God and you’ll see the world in a different light.
John Piper, Pastor and Author said, “If you don’t see the greatness of God, then all the things that money can buy become very exciting.
If you can’t see the sun you will be impressed with a street light.
If you’ve never felt thunder and lightning, you’ll be impressed with fireworks.
And if you turn your back on the greatness and majesty of God you’ll fall in love with a world of shadows and short-lived pleasures”.On a personal level, you are a wonder because you decided to believe in a God whom you cannot see. You have made a decision to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). That is what faith is, believing in that which you cannot see with your physical eyes. However, once you put your faith in God, through Jesus Christ, you receive spiritual eyes, ears and mind to comprehend spiritual things (1 Cor 2:9-12). Hebrews 11:1 defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen”. Faith operates on hope, which is not the same as wishing. This hope is based on what God has said in His Word, the Bible. That is why it is so important to embrace the Bible as God’s revealed will. The second part of Hebrews 11:1 is “The evidence of things not seen”, and this of course means the spiritual realm. It’s real but you can’t see it in the natural.
So, faith is believing what your spiritual eyes, ears, and mind reveal to you and then doing it. This is essentially what it means to hear from God! God is spirit (John 4:23-24) and He is looking for people to worship and fellowship with Him in spirit and truth.
In other words, faith means to accept as true what the Bible teaches and to live by those truths. It is living by those truths that are the hallmark of a true Christian. You see many people know what the truth is but refuse to live by those truths. They lack faith. Head knowledge is not the same as heart or spiritual knowledge. It is the Spirit of God that makes a person a Christian and it is the Spirit of God that guides a believer and keeps him safe.
Hebrews 11:6, says that it is impossible to please God without faith and that God rewards faith. The kind of faith person that God rewards is the person who believes God is God and will seek Him for direction.
You see, Faith needs some basis of belief. You just can’t have faith for the sake of faith or faith in faith! Someone once said, “that it is impossible to have faith unless the will of God is known”. Once you know God’s will for a situation or circumstance then you know how to act or respond. Your confidence is in God because you know God cannot lie, and what He says… He will do (Hebrews 6:18, Isaiah 55:11).
The basis of all faith in God comes from the scriptures, the Bible. You see the Bible is the compass by which we learn what God is like and what He will bless, and what He will not bless. Now, I know there are many who refuse to read, study, and meditate on the Bible for all kinds of reasons. These are the ones who say they never hear from God. Denying the grace and power of the Bible to reveal God’s purpose for your life is to settle for being a very weak Christian. Like Mark Twain said, “Denial ain’t a river in Egypt”!
What makes you a “wonder” to those all around you is your faith, that you believe God is, and He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. You know that it is not logic or intellectual prowess that God is looking for. He is looking for child-like faith. a child may ask a “parent, why is the sky blue”? When the parent answers, “because God made it that way”, very often the child responds, “Oh, ok”. You see the child trusts the parent, in the same way, you must learn to trust Your Father in Heaven (Matthew 19:14). Your trust or faith in God is what makes you a wonder of God!
Let me close with Romans 1:16-17, “For in it (the Gospel) the righteousness (right decisions before God) of God, from faith to faith; as it, ‘The just (Justified by Christ or found innocent) shall live by faith’”. Those that live by faith are wondrous to God and a wonder to those around them.
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Post 45 – Your Life is a Sign!
We all want God to reveal Himself with a sign. So that we can be sure that God is real and what He has promised He will fulfill. That is the human side of us, but what does the Bible have to say about signs?
The dictionary defines the noun form of the word Sign as: An object, quality, or event whose presence or occurrence indicates the probable presence or occurrence of something else. For instance, “flowers are often given as a sign of affection”. A Stop sign indicates possible danger at a road crossing. In either of these two cases, the sign is an indicator of something not seen.
A song popular in the ’70s was, “They shall know we are Christians by our love” it was also known as “We are one in the Spirit”. By Peter Scholtes. This song makes the point that the sign of Christ in us is Love.
- Chorus: And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love,
yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.
This song is based upon Jesus’ words in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples if you have love for one another”.
- They shall know you are Christians by your love…. Is the name of a song.
- They shall know you are my disciples by your love… Is what the scripture actually says.
A very important distinction in lines 1 and 2 are the words Christian and Disciple. In today’s world, there are many, what I call, Generic Christians. These are Christians who wear the label, Christian. A generational Christian is an example of this. A generational Christian is one who was raised in a “Christian” family but doesn’t understand what it means to be a Christian. If they had to fill out a form with the choices, are you a Jew, Buddhist, Muslim, or Christian, they would mark Christian. Only because they know they are not the others.
Jesus said, “… you are my Disciples if you love one another”. A disciple is not one who simply identifies with Christianity. A disciple is a follower, committed to the teachings of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The term Savior describes what Jesus has done. He has saved us from Hell and given us Heaven. The term Lord describes the relationship. Jesus is King and that means we are obedient to His commandments. His commandments are not burdensome but are for our good.
Throughout the new testament, the Jews asked and even demanded that Jesus show a sign. The sign they were looking for was something that showed He was from God the Father. The Apostle Paul said in John 1:22-24, “For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”.
Clearly there are three groups of people mentioned hereds.
- The Jews believed that God would move by Signs because that was how God moved throughout the Old Testament. However, the Old Covenant was replaced by the “Better” New Covenant. (Hebrews 8-10). The New Covenant is a covenant of faith not of signs.
- On the other hand, the Greeks worshipped the mind, the intellect of man. They were the great philosophers of the age. They were so focused on natural logic that they missed the supernatural.
- To the Christian, it is the simple message of the Cross, Jesus died in our place and granted us love, forgiveness, and acceptance into the family of God. Paul admits that it seems foolish to those who want God to prove Himself with a sign or an intellectual argument that can’t be refuted. Again, for the Believer, we walk by faith and not by sight. A Believer doesn’t need to be convinced by outward signs or arguments because he or she has experienced and been touched by God!
In the Gospel of John there are seven signs that Jesus performed that prove that He is God. I can only touch briefly on them, but I encourage you to take a deeper look on your own.
- Cana Wedding; water into wine… John 2:11 “This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him”.
- Jesus heals the nobleman’s son… John 4:48 Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe.”
- Jesus heals the paralytic… The paralytic had been trusting in man! John 5:7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
- Jesus feeds the 5000… As a sign testing Phillip’s faith. John 6:14, “Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.”
- Jesus walks on water… 6:15 Jesus conquers the natural laws of physics!
- Jesus heals the blind man… John 9:36 He answered and said, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” 37 And Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him and it is He who is talking with you.” 38 Then he said, “Lord, I believe!” And he worshiped Him.
- Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead… John 11:15, “And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, that you may believe. Nevertheless, let us go to him”.
On a personal level the Signs of God’s work in you are that you experience love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. What I have just listed, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, are visible to those around you (Galatians 5:22-23). The gifts of the Holy Spirit are also available to you which are described in 1 Corinthians 12 beginning in verse 4. These gifts also work through you to point people to Jesus. These are the nine gifts: word of wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, gifts of healings, working of miracles, prophecy, discerning of spirits, different kinds of tongues, and interpretation of tongues.
It is the Spirit of the Father or the Holy Spirit that “helps” a Christian become the person God has called him to be. You are called to be a “sign” that Jesus is real and lives in you. Let your unconditional love be evident in your family, friends, and the world.
- Chorus: And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love,
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Post 44 – You are a Miracle!
In the last post, I made the statement that Signs, Wonders, and Miracles are part of the normal Christian experience. Today we are looking at Miracles. As a believer, we often think of miracles as supernatural events that God performs and of course, they are! Some miracles are public, and some are private. Here is something to consider, you are a miracle of God!
On a personal level, the first and most important miracle is that you received the New-Birth, or you were Born-Again. The Spirit of the Father drew you to Christ. In John 6:44 Jesus says, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day”. You may have thought you found God, but He was not lost… you were! God in fact was trying to get your attention. Now that He has you, the following miraculous events are true.
- You have gone from darkness to light. This means that you will see the reality of the spiritual realm in which God dwells and you are now a part of. The Apostle Paul was instructed by Jesus to preach the following in Acts 26:18. Paul’s mission was, “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me”.
- This means that before Jesus came into your life you couldn’t help but sin. Now Satan’s power is broken over your life. You are now able to make the decision to not sin. You are forgiven and have available to you all the promises of the Bible because you are a child of God. As you follow Jesus by faith He is sanctifying or making you holy. The word holy in this sense means that you have been set aside for His purpose.
- You have passed from death to life. Jesus said in John 5:24, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life”.
- I have made this statement before: “If you are born once, you will die twice. If you are born twice you will die once!” Let me explain, a non-believer is born a natural birth, that person will die twice. Once a natural death and the second a spiritual death or eternal separation from God and Heaven. A Christian is born twice, natural birth and spiritual birth (Born-again). A Christian will die once, a natural death. Then to be with God forever in Heaven. 2 Corinthians 5:8 says, “We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord”. When that day comes for us we will in an instant be with Him, Jesus.
- You have experienced spiritual change or transformation becoming more like Jesus. The apostle Paul states in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord”.
- The transformation began with your decision to receive Jesus into your life. That process will continue as you grow in maturity reading the Bible and learning how to let the Holy Spirit guide you in your decisions.
- Your heart of stone has been made flesh. A heart of stone is symbolic of a heart that is stubborn and unyielding to the things of God. God speaking through the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh”.
- God has given you a new heart. A heart that understands spiritual things. A heart capable of receiving and giving unconditional love.
- You have access to God, through His Holy Spirit. You are now a child of God. Jesus says in John 1:12-13, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”.
- As a child of God, you can freely speak to your Father in heaven, that is what prayer should be about. Prayer is not repeating memorized phrases or patterns. Prayer is making your needs and concerns known to Him. In other words, just talk to Him. God also speaks to us through His Holy Spirit. Learn to hear His voice. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me”. John 10:27
- You have avoided Hell and gained Heaven. In speaking with Nicodemus Jesus said in John 3:3 “… Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”.
- Many people live their lives avoiding the issue of their own death and what follows death. You can’t simply wish or hope for a good ending in life. In other words, living in denial won’t change things. You must take the position that God does not lie and what He says is true- heaven is yours through Jesus Christ. (John 14:6)
- God has given us everything we need to be victorious in this life. If we keep our focus on Jesus, we will be victorious in this life. 2 Peter 1:3 says, “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue”.
- The Christ-centered life is a life of overcoming the difficult issues of life that come to all of us.
You are the reason God became flesh and came to earth in the form of a man, Jesus. Jesus died on the Cross, so that you could be free.
You are God’s miracle and He “ain’t” done with you yet!
- You have gone from darkness to light. This means that you will see the reality of the spiritual realm in which God dwells and you are now a part of. The Apostle Paul was instructed by Jesus to preach the following in Acts 26:18. Paul’s mission was, “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me”.
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Post 43 – Signs, Wonders and Miracles
If we could have been present during the times of Jesus Christ, as described by the Gospels and the book of Acts, we would have witnessed signs, wonders, and miracles as everyday occurrences. It was the signs, wonders, and miracles that testified to the world that Jesus was who He said He was, He was God in the flesh!
A sign is just that, it is a pointer or indicator of God’s presence in our lives. For example, the Star that pointed to the birth of Jesus would be such a sign. The star was a signpost pointing to God becoming flesh and living among us. A wonder, on the other hand, is an event that makes one “wonder”. Jesus was good at making people wonder in that He was able to present the truth in ways no one had ever done before. When Jesus said, “you must be born-again to enter the Kingdom of God”. To the skeptic, it didn’t make sense, but to those who were seeking God, it resonated with the truth! Even if they didn’t quite understand what He meant. Miracles, of course, were those events that defied knowledge and natural experience; cleansing the leper, healing the crippled, giving sight to the blind, and raising the dead to life.
The Book of Acts is a record of the birth of the Christian Church. When Jesus finished His work on the Cross, He initiated a New Covenant which replaced the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was the covenant that God had made with Israel. This covenant was introduced by Moses and the giving of the Law, the Ten Commandments, to the people of Israel. The entire Old Testament which is a testament of the Law demonstrated to all that the Law was unable to save one from sin, or in other words disobeying God. The Law was given to show that mankind needed a Savior. A Deliverer from the sinful nature that dwells in all of us.
As Jesus ascended to Heaven the Holy Spirit descended from Heaven to live in the Believer on the Day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came to unlock the power and authority of the New Covenant which was “Christ in us the hope of glory! Just as an aside, remember we don’t believe in three Gods; God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit of God. In fact, there is only one true God just 3 different expressions of the one God. God the Father is the one eternal God, God the Father became human flesh, Jesus, to dwell among mankind so that mankind could see the character and nature of the Father evidenced by His love. When Jesus in the flesh died upon the Cross of Calvary for our sins He had to leave and return to Heaven, but He sent the Holy Spirit, actually Himself, to live in us in a spiritual dimension. I know it may be somewhat confusing but be assured we serve one God who reveals Himself to us in three different ways. Here is an example I have often used myself, I am a father to my children, a husband to my wife, and a son to my parents. In a natural sense, I am only one person, but I function in three different ways with three different purposes. While the concept of the Trinity of God may be difficult to understand, we accept this truth by faith. I don’t know how my brain works but I know that it does, and I use my brain without understandings how it works.
I have tried to clarify the Trinity with this purpose, what makes a Christian a Christian is the fact that the Holy Spirit lives in us! That is how the Christian church distinguishes itself from all other religions. A true Christian is a “Holy Spirit-filled” Christian. I know that the term Spirit-Filled has a lot of baggage attached to it and is controversial in some circles of Christianity, but never the less without the Holy Spirit in you, you are just acting like a Christian. Christianity is not about acting or behaving like a Christian, it is about being a Christian.
Here is the conclusion, it is the Spirit of God who produces signs, wonders, and miracles and because the Holy Spirit lives in you these signs, wonders and miracles can work through you! I am not saying that you control the Holy Spirit, but I am saying that if you let Him the Holy Spirit can do incredible things through you.
As a Spirit-filled Christian, your life is a sign that Jesus lives in you, you make people wonder at your faith and demonstrate God’s power and authority when He performs a miracle through you.
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Post 42 What does God’s kind of love look like?
I know I will be bursting many “bubbles” by saying this, but God’s heart doesn’t go “pitter-patter” when He thinks of you! Since we often associate love with a romantic type of love we may think He loves us in that way, but when we talk about God’s love, we need to recognize that God’s love for us is not a romanticized type of love, it is much, much deeper than that.
I drive a 14-year-old car, but it rides like no other car I’ve ever had. Recently, while taking a ride into town I said to my wife “I love this car”! She quickly corrected me and said, “no, you like your car and you love me”! She reminded me that I can be very casual about the word love.
We often throw around the word love without thinking about what we are really saying. If I say “I love you” the phrase means different things to different people. If I say it to my wife Dee, she knows I am speaking in a romantic sense. If I say it to my children, they know I mean it as a parent. If I speak it to my closest friend, Frank, he would understand that I mean it as a brother.
This poses an important question for us. The Bible is filled with God’s expressions of love for us. The question is, “what does God mean when He says that He loves us, and how are we then to exhibit this kind of love?
Four words for love
As we have said in the last post, in the New King James Version of the Bible the word love is used 230 times. In the original Greek language, there are at least 4 words for love and each is translated as the word love in English.
- Eros – romantically based
- Storge – family based
- Phileo – friendship based
- Agape – Unconditional, it is based upon a decision to love;
- “Living your life for someone else’s good”!
Note that the first three are connected to emotions or feelings. Eros- romantic or passionate feelings of love between a man and a woman. Storge love is that feeling that “blood is thicker than water”, or family love. Phileo love is that feeling towards your BFF.
Agape, on the other hand, is not based upon feelings or emotions, it is the love of decision or commitment. Agape love is a decision to love!
We often hear of people who “fall in love” and then “fall out of love”. So many marriages and relationships are based solely on “Eros” or romantic love. A relationship based on Eros only can not last. What must follow Eros is Agape. Agape is the decision to love, to live sacrificially for someone else. A conscious decision to live your life for that person’s good.
So, what are the characteristics or traits of agape love? We can find the answer in the Love chapter of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…”
As you can see these traits don’t come naturally. In the natural, we bestow our love on those we feel deserve it. It’s easy to love the lovable, and so hard to feel love towards those we decide don’t deserve our love!
Let’s take the time to examine the terms of love and check to see how we stack-up to agape love. We will break the verses up into 6 points.
- Love suffers long (or patient).
- and is kind;
- Are you patient for long or do you have a short fuse? are you caring, compassionate and gentle while being patient?
- love does not envy;
- love does not parade itself,
- Do you resent others who have what you don’t have?
- Do you pretend to love to impress others?
- is not puffed up or proud and haughty;
- does not behave rudely,
- does not seek its own,
- is not provoked,
- in other words, we don’t see ourselves as better or more deserving than others.
- thinks no evil;
- does not rejoice in iniquity,
- Examples of iniquity are sin, evil, injustice or immorality
- but rejoices in the truth;
- bears all things,
- believes all things, hopes all things,
- endures all things.
- Love always sees the “cup as half full and not half empty”. Agape love always wishes the positive and not the negative.
- Love never fails… because it is not based on what I can get from someone else. Whether they exhibit love to me or not, I still choose to love. That’s living your life for someone else’s good! That’s agape love! The kind of love God extended to you by sending Jesus for you when you were still a sinner and rejecting Him (Romans 5:8). He looked at your potential rather than who you were at the moment.
In deciding to love others you put in motion an important principle in God, “What you sow, you will eventually reap” (Galatians 6:7), but that principle only works when you take the first step in faith.
As the Holy Spirit leads you “make a conscious decision to “put on true love”. Remember, as a Believer the Holy Spirit lives in you and the fruit of the Holy Spirit is Love!! (Galatians 5:22,23) Agape Love is in you… let it out!
