Thought of the Day !!

      Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask."
      Jesus told her, "Your brother will rise again." 
      "Yes," Martha said, "he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day."
                                                          John 11:21-24 (NLT)

We see here that Martha believed in the resurrection of the dead at some appointed time in the future.  We also see that she believes in Jesus and that God will give him anything he asks for.  But it seems that the hopelessness that comes with death has clouded the belief that this could ever include anything that would help her brother now.  It never occurs to her to ask for Jesus to bring her brother back from the dead.  She'd seen him heal and cast out evil spirits, but never anything like that.

We can often times be like Martha here.  We believe Jesus can do anything…that is…except something miraculous for us.  And though we claim a belief in miracles, we don’t always expect them to happen in our midst.  Maybe it's because we've never witnessed them.  We've heard about miracles like instant healing and God doing something unbelievably awesome in people's presence.  But maybe it was never when we were around, so we assume it just happens to other people.

We believe that the sunrise and sunsets are miracles of God and that the birth of a child is a miracle.  But we’ve gotten use to seeing these.  We've seen doctors say that they don't know how a boy or girl survived the operation or that they didn't expect someone to heal as well as they did and call these miracles.  But could it be that we don’t really believe that God will supernaturally heal someone without the help of a doctor?  Could it be that we believe God could fill our sanctuary next week, but we don't necessarily believe He will?  Could it be that we dumb down our prayers and don’t pray for the spectacular…just in case it won’t happen?

This week ask God to help you believe.  Then pray for miracles...expecting them to happen.  Maybe they won't happen right away or in the way you ask.  But maybe they will.  Expect that God is listening and waiting for us to simply ask with true faith, to seek His will, and to glorify Him with that same faith.

In the love of Christ,
greg