S: The Oxford Reference defines miracle as “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.”

Miracles are supernatural. They are events that occur outside of our laws of nature and science to demonstrate God’s divine power and immense love for us.

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A: Time and time again, we see the experts viewing any “one off” situation as a crazy coincidence, a statistical anomaly that they can’t explain. But what happens when we start collecting all of the “one off” stories? What happens when we realize these “statistical anomalies” actually happen quite often. What happens when we realize they’re happening every day, all around us?

Joe Rogan often quotes Terence Mckenna saying, “Modern science is based on the principle: Give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.” The one free miracle being the Big Bang Theory, the sudden appearance of the perfectly fine tuned universe from nothing.

Mckenna should have continued his statement of science asking for one free miracle with science also asking us to ignore all the random ‘one off’ events and ‘statistical anomalies’ it can’t explain either.

Science and experts can’t explain everything because there are supernatural forces at play. There are supernatural variables that will defy the laws of nature, defy all the controllable variables, defy the constants known to be true.

What if I told you there is always an uncontrollable variable at play? That God’s supernatural power, God’s miracles are always a possibility. God’s power is a variable that can’t be controlled, predicted, or fully understood. While this makes God an uncontrollable variable, it also makes Him a constant variable. The constance of knowing a supernatural miracle is always a possibility, always a variable in the equation – that’s the beginning of hope.

There is more to this life than our natural laws can explain. The supernatural exists. God is real. Miracles happen. They’re happening all the time, all around you, even right in your hometown.

S: The Oxford Reference defines faith as “Trust, especially in the reliability of God.” Faith is believing and trusting in something you can’t see. Not just trusting God on the mountain top, but trusting Him all the more in the valley. The Bible explains in Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The entire chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews references stories of triumph of faith throughout the Bible explaining “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6 NASB1995

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A: Think of a trust fall, when you’re standing there and you choose to fall backward trusting the person behind you will catch you. In this scenario you can see the person behind you and most of us look back at that person about 20 times to make sure they are there and close enough to us before we choose to fall backward and trust fall into their arms. Faith is a trust fall without being able to see the person that is going to catch you (terrifying, I know). Faith isn’t about crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. It’s confidently falling backward into the trust fall knowing you are going to be caught and won’t hit the ground. Even when you can’t see the person catching you and even when you don’t know how the person is going to catch you, falling backward into the trust fall anyway, because you have faith they will catch you. You can’t walk on water without stepping outside of the boat, right? Miracles happen after an act of faith; not a “show me how you’re going to catch me before I fall” attitude but instead a “I have no idea how you are going to catch me but I am choosing to fall backward knowing I won’t hit the ground and knowing you are going to catch me” attitude.

While terrifying, yes, walking a life in faith is walking a life of excitement, and purpose. Walking a life in faith is a life that allows God to show up in big ways, a life full of miracles and the spiritual spectacular.

S: Believing that Jesus is God’s son, sent down to Earth to die on the cross for our sins and was risen from the dead three days later. Repenting for your sins through prayer and asking Jesus to come into your life (yes, it’s that simple). It’s not about your moral score card or earning your way into heaven. Jesus tells us the only way to the Father, God, is through Him (John 14:6). We must surrender ourselves to our creator, to our Father. We must accept His grace and forgiveness. That’s how we get into heaven – through Jesus, through believing, through faith, through accepting His grace.

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A: Imagine you are standing wearing a weighted vest so heavy you are having trouble taking steps forward. In the very far distance, you see a light so bright you feel a need to get to it. All of a sudden you are filled with hope and excitement as you begin to wonder and dream what will happen once you get to the light. You begin to try to get to the light but your weighted vest is too heavy, you can barely take a step. Before you know it, life starts adding more weight to your vest. And suddenly your vest can’t even hold all the weights so people begin stacking the weights around your feet, trapping you inside a circle of weights that begins stacking higher and higher. You are now wearing the weights via your weighted vest and you are trapped inside a tower of weight set around you – you can’t even see the light anymore that you were so hopeful and excited to get to – but you know it’s still there. You are desperate. You can’t see the light, you can’t feel the light, the weight of the world is literally on your shoulders and has trapped you away from the light. Then you fall to your knees as the weights in your vest grow heavier and you pray. You say to God, “God I don’t know how to get out from under all these weights, it seems impossible, I want to get to the light, I want to get to you, but I can’t even see you.” And in that moment your weighted vest falls off of your shoulders, the weights surrounding you, trapping you in, they all disappear. You see the light; you feel its warmth for the first time. You feel light as a feather. And you begin to run. RUN toward the light, the closer you get the more exciting, hopeful, purposeful life gets. Suddenly the path to the light seems so clear. You keep running. As you run, people are chasing you trying to lay more weights around you, but you’re not worried now. You know what to do now – you pray. Every time a weight gets thrown in your path or placed around you, you stop, kneel and pray, asking God to remove the weights. You breathe as you watch every weight lifted and you get up and keep on running.

The weights are sin, the light is God, the path you are running is the purposeful, exciting calling God has on your life. God has a specific calling for your life. He created and designed each individual person on this Earth with a purpose. We are all sinners, you can’t escape sin, you can’t escape the tribulations of life, but you can pray, you can repent for your sins, you can ask God to deliver you from sin, and you can start running after Him again, again, and again.

S: Ask God to take it from you, ask Him to reveal himself.

          Mark 9:22-27 NASB1995

          The boy’s father said to Jesus, “But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us!”

          “And Jesus said to him, “If You can?’ All things are possible to him who believes.” Immediately the boy’s father           cried out and said, “I do believe; help my unbelief.””

          And Jesus performed a miracle and healed the boy.

Faith precedes miracles. Believing in God’s existence precedes faith.

Let Him show you who He is. Open your mind to the possibility of knowing your creator. It’s okay to doubt. Give him your unbelief. Sink into His presence. I promise, He will be there.

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A: Think of a child that is scared of the dark. The child goes and asks his dad to help him be brave, to sit in the dark with him so he doesn’t feel alone. The child then begins to let go of his fear and courageously sit in the dark room; not on his own accord but because his father is holding his hand, sitting right next to him in the dark. The child is still sitting in the dark and facing his fear – but it’s much easier to do when your father is sitting next to you holding your hand.

God does the same thing for His children. He’ll hold your hand and slowly walk you away from your unbelief and make Himself more obvious to you so you can believe – but you have to ask Him. Just like a child has to ask their parent to come hold their hand and sit with them in the dark. You have to seek out your heavenly Father and you have to ask Him to make Himself known to you, to take away your unbelief, and He will. God designed us in His image to help us understand our relationship with Him – a relationship between a child and their parent. Parents LOVE when their children come to them and ask for help.

S: The Bible describes 37 specific miracles that Jesus performs (although so many more happened). Out of all the 37 detailed miracles recorded, 34 of the miracles were preceded by faith. Jesus calls us to walk in faith, to trust Him. Miracles can happen outside of faith (God can do anything) but if you are actively seeking and asking God for a miracle, scripture tells us to step out in faith first.

Listen, Pray, Step out in faith, Watch God move.

Get rid of the noise. Talk to God. Strive to stay in His will. Ask Him to lead you. Ask for continuous course correction. Trust His plan is far greater than yours.

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A: God is not a genie. He does not guarantee He will grant your every wish and request. But He does tell us He will never fail us or forsake us. He does tell us He will use all things to work together for good. He does tell us He has mighty plans for us. He does tell us all things are possible to him who believes.

To quote Nick Voichye, “No matter where we are in our walk with Christ, we all have ups and downs. The one thing God continues to tell me over and over again is ‘You never know what I can do with your broken pieces until you give me your broken pieces.’”

Give God your broken pieces. Step out in faith. Trust that His plan for your life is far greater than your plan for your life. You will experience God’s presence. You will witness God’s miracles, even if it wasn’t the miracle(s) you had in mind.

S: God refers to the body as a temple because it houses God in the version of the Holy Spirit. The moment you surrender your life to Jesus, the moment you make the decision to believe the gospel – you receive the Holy Spirit. It is part of your inheritance as a child of God (Ephesians 1:13-14). There is power in that decision, power in you as a follower of Christ.

Every person that follows Jesus has the power of the Holy Spirit. It takes practice to learn God’s voice, to be able to feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit prompting you.

First, learn God’s voice. Open your Bible and read the scriptures.

Second, Pray. Pray to receive and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Pray for discernment, to discern what thoughts are from you (the flesh) and what thoughts are from the Holy Spirit (God). Pray for courage, for boldness to not just recognize the Holy Spirit speaking and moving through you, but the courage to act upon it.

Third, Listen. Listen for the whisper. Remove the noise. Stay disciplined. Practice. Soon you will recognize the whisper. Soon it will be a familiar voice. Soon the Holy Spirit will be leading you every step of the way helping you live the life of purpose, excitement, and joy that God designed for you.

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A: I like to think of the Holy Spirit like genetics. We are children of God. So, we have the genetic makeup of our Father.

Think of a grand Olympian that set world records. If that Olympian had a child, we would expect that child to be capable of Olympic greatness, right? The child has the genetic makeup for it. However, the child doesn’t automatically become an Olympian, right? The child would have to learn the rules of the sport, physically train for the sport, practice the skills of the sport to unlock their Olympic potential. Think of the Holy Spirit as our genetic makeup. We were made to know our creator. We were made to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. But we have to do our part, we have to make an effort, we have to unlock our spiritual potential that is God given, just like an Olympian’s child has to do their part to unlock their God given genetics. We have to learn the rules of the sport (read scripture, gain knowledge), we have to physically train (pray), and we have to practice the skills of the sport (sitting in His presence, listening for the whisper of the Holy Spirit, becoming aware of the signs being placed in front of you) to unlock the power of the Holy Spirit in your life. It’s there, I promise you, that’s how God designed you. Now it’s just time to do your part. Awaken the power of the Holy Spirit within you.

Resource links coming soon…