My friend in the Middle East visited again this summer to super charge and challenge my thoughts on signs and wonders.  The Bible is filled with supernatural signs and wonders.  The western world teaches that these were only for the time ‘back then’ or explains these events away by claiming that people ‘back then’ were very naive.  These miracles never actually happened, were fancy analogies/examples of key teaching principles, or misunderstood by superstitious people back in the past.

What if these signs and wonders could be seen today?

This is the 1st of 3 sermons given by my friend from the Middle East.  I would love to know what you think….

The church in America would do well to take lessons from the church throughout the world that is exploding with prayer.  A missionary friend of mine has seen an explosion of miracles and healings (more on that to follow).

These quotes challenge and empower me to ‘pray without ceasing’:

Marshill’s newest pastor does a GREAT job of describing how to better find our calling in life….

How do we know God’s will? How do we know our calling?

This sermon ends with a GREAT spiritual meditative prayer exercise that I highly recommend.

Please let us know what you think.

From the time of John the Baptizer until now, the kingdom of heaven
has been forcefully advancing, and forceful people have been seizing
it. (Mat 11:12 GW)

This continues to be a strange and new concept for me. I have always
seen prayer as a passive, afterthought. But prayer, like Christ’s
sacrifice for us, is an aggressive act against the evil and darkness
of this world that wants to steal our hearts.

“Though he was in fact all-holy, on Calvary the Son of God identified with our sin to the point of bearing our guilt. So too, the Father is said to have afflicted his Son (Isa. 53) though in fact he merely allowed wicked powers using wicked people to crucify Jesus. When we read the Old Testament through this lens, we find God frequently identifying himself as the agent of violence, though the context makes it clear that he is merely allowing violent agents to do what they want to do. God is portrayed as doing what he actually merely allows.  There are historical and exegetic reasons for this, but the theological reason, I argue, is that God has always been a God who takes responsibility for all that he allows — even though he detests much of what he allows. This is how God bears our sin and why he takes on the semblance of a nationalistic, law-oriented warrior god.”

The take home message: If it sounds wild and crazy, maybe it is or maybe it is and it is the Holy Spirit working!

“Our guide is the Holy Spirit, whom the early Celtic christians like Patrick called the Wild Goose.  They knew he could not be tamed.  Ours is merely to trust and follow his haunting call, and he will take us on the adventure he has for us…”-Eldridge (The Way of the Wild Heart), pg 125

Please share with us your thoughts after you listen to the teaching.

Questions:

1. Have you ever been ‘healed’ or have you heard of anyone being ‘healed’ by God/The Spirit?

2. Do you believe that the Holy Spirit still is active? In what ways? Are ‘the gifts’ open or closed?

3. How active is the Holy Spirit in your life?  How does the Holy Spirit manifest?

References:

uberlumen posts:

An Encounter With God

Do Miracles Really Happen?

Miracles and Healings AMAZING Stories

Miracles and Healings #1-4
Books:

Acts

Turnings by Guy Chevreau

The Kingdom Triangle by JP Moreland

You Were Born For This by Bruce Wilkinson (how to develop a life of everyday miracles)

Sally Beth Roe, a character in Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti, becomes a Christian, but Peretti provides us with a glimpse of what is occurring in heaven during the very moment that Sally Roe becomes a Christian.  It is a remarkable moment of angels celebrating and the lamb of God embracing her.  We have NO idea.

“Above, as if another sun had just risen, the darkness opened, and pure, white rays broke through the treetops, flooding Sally Beth Roe with a heavenly light, shining through to her heart, her innermost spirit, obscuring her form with a blinding fire of holiness.  Slowly, without sensation, without sound, she settled forward, her face to the ground, her spirit awash with the presence of God…All around her, like spokes of a wondrous wheel, like beams of light emanating from a sun, angelic blades lay flat upon the ground, their tips turned toward her, their handles extending outward, held in the strong fists of hundreds of noble warriors who knelt in perfect, concentric circles of glory, light, and worship, their heads to the ground, their wings stretching skyward like a flourishing, animated garden of flames.  They were silent, their hearts filled with holy dread…As in countless times past, in countless places, with marvelous, inscrutable wonder, the Lamb of God stood among them, the Word of God, and more:  the final Word, the end of all discussion and challenge, the Creator and the Truth that holds all creation together–most wondrous of all, and most inscrutable of all, the Savior, a title the angels would always behold and marvel about, but which only mankind could know and understand.  He had come to be the Savior of this woman.  He knew her by name; and speaking her name, He touched her.  And her sins were gone…”-pg 321, Piercing the Darkness by Peretti

Edwin Abbot in his book Flatland shares with us, through parable, mathematics, and physics, the very real possibility of dimensions and realities so very close to us, but we remain unaware of them.  What if string theory is true?  What if there are dimensions just beyond our reach?  What if God and the heavenly realm is all around us, surrounding us, embracing us?

What would it be like to get a glimpse into heaven uninhibited, over joyed, overwhelmed in celebration?  Here is a brief video of a wedding that brought laughter and joy to my heart as I imagined….dancing and rejoicing in heaven over US!