Miracles - don’t miss the point
Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal. - Isaiah 26:4
A few days ago I was driving down a highway. It was all good and I was moving in the right direction, but then I was a bit distracted and I took the wrong exit and now obviously I was not where I was supposed to be.
Sometimes as we try to feed our souls with the truth of Scripture we take a wrong turn and end up missing the main point. And when we miss the main point we don't end up where we're supposed to be.
It's easy to do this when we think about the never-ending stream of miracles in the Bible. It's easy to focus on the miracles instead of the main point.
The point is that God brings about what he promises so you can trust him. God's trustworthiness is a central theme throughout scripture. Time and time again we see God making promises and fulfilling them, and sometimes in spectacular and miraculous ways.
This consistent pattern of promise and fulfillment is meant to build our faith and reinforce our trust in him. The biblical examples of God's promises and miraculous fulfillments are way too many to cover here but I'll give you just a few:
About 450 years before God directed Moses to go to Egypt and lead the Hebrews out of slavery, God told Abram what was going to happen. In Genesis 12 God told Abram that he would be the father of a great nation. And then in Genesis 15 God told Abram that this nation would be enslaved for 400 years and then he would free them and that they would leave Egypt with the wealth of their oppressor. And this is exactly what happened.
This is what the book of Exodus is about. God doing what he said he would do, free the slaves. While these types of examples are many, they're all connected to the main example of God doing what he promised, delivering you and I from sin and death itself.
Over and over again in the Old Testament we look forward to the coming ultimate salvation that Jesus will bring. In Isaiah 7 about 700 years before Jesus, God promises the virgin birth of Jesus and then we see it in the Gospels.
In Isaiah 35 God promises that the blind will see and the lame will walk and the deaf will hear and the mute will speak and then we see Jesus doing all these things.
These miracles not only demonstrate Jesus's divine power but also God's trustworthiness.
In Ezekiel chapter 37 God promises the resurrection from the dead and then we see Jesus resurrecting three people.
In Job chapter 9 God describes himself as walking on water and then we see Jesus doing just that.
In Psalm 107 God is described as the one who calms the storm and of course we see Jesus doing that.
And in Isaiah 53 we read of God's promise to bring One who will be despised and rejected and bearing the sins of others, and this all happened as Jesus gave himself so we could be forgiven. This ultimate act of love and sacrifice is the pinnacle of God's trustworthiness fulfilling his promise of redemption in a way that far exceeds human understanding.
This track record of trustworthiness is meant to build our faith and encourage us to trust God in all aspects of life. Even when we can't see exactly how God is working we can rest assured that he will do what he says. You can trust your soul to the one who promises to bring his children home.
Trustworthy Father you are the one who will never fail us. I'm sorry for doubting your goodness and power. Thank you for always doing what's best. Thank you that you will undoubtedly save your children. Please cause me to trust you the way I should.
I'll leave you with this: In Deuteronomy chapter 31 Moses was leaving Israel with strong words of God's faithfulness so they would walk in faith. This is Deuteronomy 31:6,