Highlights - Do Miracles Still Happen?
(Episode 59) Finding God in the Psalms - Psalm 90

What Is the purpose of miracles?
Miracles provide us a glimpse of what it will be like when God’s kingdom comes to earth. They are the signal that the invasion of earth by heaven has begun! A new world order is on the way! As Jesus proclaimed, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” God’s miracles are part of the message. So miracles aren’t random. They have a larger purpose. They are preliminaries/ warm-ups to the grandest miracle of all.

Weren’t miracles just for Biblical times?
Argument agains Cessationism: First, their viewpoint cannot be successfully supported by a fair reading of the New Testament. Second, it ignores the well documented continuation of miracles throughout church history. And, third, it’s blind to what is clearly happening globally today. Miracles are common-place in most parts of the world where the gospel is advancing.

Can we really believe all these stories?
If God is the Creator then he’s not necessarily bound by the physics of the universe as defined by us and just because there are some counterfeits doesn't mean we should reject the real thing.

Why do miracles seem to happen in some places more than others?
1. Our level of faith is a factor.

2. Miracles most commonly accompany the proclamation of the gospel to unbelievers.

3. In the affluent west, we don’t pray often enough or desperately enough for miracles.

Why doesn’t God answer every prayer for a miracle?
1. Level of faith

2. Unconfessed sin

3. Timing

4. Wrong diagnosis

If someone needs a miracle, what should we do?
1. Embrace the role Jesus has given to each of us.

2. Wait upon God for the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. Step out in faith

4. Persevere - Don’t give up!

We may not individually receive every miracle that we would like, but anyone else’s miracle is also a gift to the rest of us. Any miracle is an encouragement to all of us to trust the future that God has promised, when God will…renew the heavens and the earth…The miracles God does in this world are a foretaste, evidence that gives courage in present suffering and kindles expectation for the consummation of God’s promises. (Miracles Today, Craig Keener)

Page of 2 2 The Lord still lives today. His power has never abated. HIs Word has never changed. The things he did in Bible days, he still lives to do today…Here, bring your sins, he’ll wash them away. Here, bring your sicknesses, he’ll heal you today. We serve not a dead but a living God. Not the the great “I WAS,” but “The Great I AM.” (Aimee Semple McPherson)

The House on McCully Street, Gladys Wilson
Miracles Today, Craig Keener
Healing, Francis McNutt

Highlights: A Happiness Prayer Episode 58 (Ps. 90)

Is there any hope for happiness that lasts?

Level One: Happiness in the Present Tense

What are realistic expectations for the present life? A counter-intuitive answer: Happiness is not something we find by looking for it. It’s a by-product of other pursuits. Ultimately, happiness is a by-product of our walk with God.

Level Two: Happiness in the Future Tense

The answer to this prayer (Ps. 90) cannot be in the world today as we know it. Gandalf replies: “End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path…one that we all must take. The gray rain-curtain of this world rolls back and all changes to silver glass… and then you see it.” “What, Gandalf, see what?” asks Pippin. “White shores…and beyond. The far green country under a swift sunrise.” (Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien)

The widespread belief and practice of the early Christians is only explicable if we assume that they all believed that Jesus was bodily raised, in an Easter event. The reason they believed…is because the tomb was empty and, over a short period thereafter, they encountered Jesus himself, giving every appearance of being bodily alive once more…I regard this conclusion as coming in the category of historical probability so high as to be virtually certain. (The Resurrection of the Son of God, N.T. Wright)

During World War 2, pioneer pain researcher Henry Beecher found that soldiers wounded during the bloody battle at Anzio needed far less morphine than did civilians with similar wounds. The reason, now known as the “Anzio effect,” was that for civilians the wounds were a source of anxiety: for soldiers they meant going home.

I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage…that in the world’s finale… something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened. (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

Highlights

Episode 57 | If You Were to Die Tonight...?

Relent, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. (Psalm 90:13)

Thankfully, we are meant to stand before God not on the basis of our merit but on the basis of his mercy?

If you were to die tonight, and God were to ask you, “Why should I let you into my eternal kingdom?” What would your answer be? Our eternal destiny depends on getting this right.

The impulse to be better than others runs so deep in us that we are seldom even aware of it. ...the societal pressure to be superior, not to mention our innate longing for it, is powerful...We live in a particularly competitive culture...But this striving for superiority never leads to rest. There are always people who are below us - that feeds our pride. And then there are always people above us, and that feeds our dis-ease with who we ourselves are....We have to keep in mind that the Apostle Paul...pushes against this and develops his whole theology of grace. (Miroslav Volf - The Trinity Forum Conversations Podcast)

If I’m better than most other people, isn’t that good enough?

In our more honest moments, I think we all realize we’re like the moon. We have a dark side. We all have things for which we feel deeply ashamed...regrets...things we’ve done...things we’ve left undone.

The line between good and evil does not pass between states, nor between classes, nor between parties either - but right through every human heart. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)

Is it fair for God to hold us to such high standards?

If the plan is to create an everlasting paradise that exceeds our wildest dreams - a finale to our sordid history that is so spectacular, so surpassingly wonderful that our words and imagination fall miserably short in any attempt to describe it. If this is the plan, then...all sin/imperfection needs to be abolished...then all that leads to sorrow and death needs to be banished...He will need to “get all the hell out of earth” and “get all the hell out of us. We are destined for more than what we’ve become. And God won’t settle for anything less. Neither should we!

Can’t my good works compensate for my bad ones?

Love is intrinsic to his nature, but so is righteousness and justice.

How can God forgive us and be just at the same time?

The essence of sin is we human beings substitute ourselves for God, while the essence of salvation is God substitutes himself for us. We...put ourselves where only God deserves to be; God...puts himself where we deserve to be. (John Stott, quoted by Tim Keller, The Reason for God) We are freed to live out our glorious and eternal destiny, not by our doing, but by his dying. Not by our merit but by his mercy.