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We read about the miraculous healings of Jesus and perhaps wonder where our miracle is. We know about that single touch or that one word from Jesus that radically changes someone’s life. 38 years of being paralyzed, and Jesus heals him in an instant to pick up his mat and walk. 12 years of suffering and Jesus heals her when she reaches for the hem of his robe. 4 days dead and buried and Jesus brings his friend back to life.
Through our study of 18 of his miracles, we see the impossible happen for thousands, but maybe you’re feeling like the impossible has never happened for you. You’re still limping, still struggling, still suffering. Where’s Jesus’ touch for you?
Ahhhhhh, girl – the greatest move of Jesus was personally for you! The biggest miracle of all was aimed directly at YOU. But here’s the problem, if you’re living your life like you Jesus has never personally done anything for you, you’re missing the most important thing.
Example – this morning, I made my coffee. My coffee is filled with all kinds of extras – I have the collagen peptides, the chocolate flavored plant based protein and the unsweetened coconut milk. But for some reason this morning my cup of coffee looked so light brown and lifeless. Guess why? I forgot to put the shot of coffee in it. The most important ingredient in coffee is COFFEE. Without the coffee, it could never be a cup of coffee.
As I poured my not-coffee back into the blending cup to be mixed with real coffee, it really hit me … that’s our Jesus!
His healing for our sickness is great. His touch for our suffering is marvelous. We all love that! Yes, please, LORD, heal me. Make me new, make me whole, restore what has gotten broken with me, give me life.
But we often miss the most important ingredient in the offering of Jesus is the very thing that TRULY makes you new, TRULY makes you whole, TRULY restores what has gotten broken within you. Jesus gives you life, and it’s ETERNAL LIFE. There’s one miraculous thing that makes that possible … he forgives your sins.
That’s the coffee right there. Without the forgiveness of your sins, you just have a cup full of temporary extras.
Taking away the cancer is phenomenal, but you still die like the rest of us. Giving you sight is amazing, but those eyes still fail one day like the rest of us. Restoring your ability to walk is so cool, but the day comes for all of us when we take our final step. More time here is a gift, but that gift expires because life here cannot go on forever.
The whole point of Jesus is making us FOREVER GOOD ENOUGH. And my friends, THAT IS A MIRACLE.
Me, with my special way of screwing things up, my unique way of making everything about me, my tangled little web of messes I tend to make … I’ve been miraculously made forever good enough by Jesus. I’ve been promised Heaven as my reward. I have an eternity of perfect bliss in the presence of God awaiting me on the other side of this life. That is the miracle!
And you – you too get that miracle. For the exchange of your faith, you get the power of Jesus all over you! You get to trade in all your guilt, every ounce of shame, every last regret, and you get to walk away with a mark of approval by Jesus that allows your entry through the gates of Heaven. You are promised FOREVER in perfect health, perfect joy, perfect beauty, perfect peace.
WOWZERS! Now, that is a miracle – and your name is written all over it. It’s for you!
In scripture, we read about this Book of Life. In that book are the names of the forgiven. Jesus says in Revelation 3:5, “All who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels they are mine.”
Today, Jesus announces you are His. Tomorrow, Jesus announces you are His. Every day for the rest of your life until you stand before the throne of judgement, Jesus announces you are His.
1 John 1:7 puts is so simply, “The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.”
Why is it so important to be cleansed from our sin? Because with our sin, we cannot have access to God now or in the future. And truly, it’s impossible for us to not sin. No matter how hard we may try, we will always fail. Every single one of us have failed. And even one tiny failure makes us forever not good enough ourselves.
1 Corinthians 6:9, “Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God?”
You – have you ever done wrong? Have you ever told a lie? Have you ever done something you shouldn’t have done? Of course you have! We all have. And that means that we alone cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. What is that Kingdom – that’s Heaven.
So, there’s our problem. We could never earn our way into his perfect Kingdom. We could never buy that ticket. We could never clean ourselves up enough for it. And the miracle is that Jesus bought that ticket for you. Jesus paid the price for your sin to be forgiven so you could be forever good enough.
1 Corinthians 6: 11, “But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God (how????) – by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
What a miracle! Every wrong you’ve ever done has been made miraculously right. Every ‘not right’ in your unrighteousness has been covered by Jesus and miraculously declared righteous. Every mess you’ve made has been miraculously cleaned up. Every mistake has been miraculously fixed.
Your entire identity as the righteous, redeemed, worthy child of God is a MIRACLE.
It’s a miracle you’re not known by your sin. It’s a miracle you weren’t just left the way you were. It’s a miracle Jesus looked straight at you and said, “Her, yes her – I want to save HER. This is for her.”
I spent a whole lot of my life arrogantly assuming I hadn’t really been forgiven of very much. I didn’t have an unbearable load of regrets. I didn’t mess things up too terribly bad. Surely God wasn’t overly disappointed in me. I could probably outweigh my wrongs with my rights. The scale was surely heavier with my good deeds than my bad deeds.
Then God helped me see the truth about me. The truth found in Isaiah 64:6, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.”
Here I was parading around my filthy rags thinking they were something to brag about. Thinking my filthy rags dressed me up enough for righteousness. I WAS SO WRONG.
The miracle is, Jesus makes me something I could never be on my own. He makes me whole. He makes me worthy. He makes me righteous. He makes me sinless.
And has done the same for you.
You, with your past, you with your struggles, you with your doubts, you with your failures, you with your filthy rags … You are miraculously forever good enough.
And this miracle you and I have received isn’t just for this life. It’s for eternity!
So really, haven’t we received the greatest miracle of all?
Sure, healing our physical bodies is amazing. We want it. We’re soooooo grateful when Jesus offers that healing. We’re so totally in awe of when he changes what could never be changed before. But really, let’s always keep those miracles in their rightful place – those are the extras. The really important miracle here, the coffee in this cup of miraculous coffee is the face that Jesus, the son of God, has miraculously forgiven your every sin!
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