Find Your Miracle: How the Miracles of Jesus Can Change Your Life Today - Hardcover

Shook, Kerry; Shook, Chris

 
9781601427236: Find Your Miracle: How the Miracles of Jesus Can Change Your Life Today
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1601427239 ISBN 13: 9781601427236
Verlag: WaterBrook, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Discover the miracle you’ve been looking for through an exploration of nine miracles of Jesus, each filled with meaning, insight, and discovery for all who desperately need a miracle of their own.

Healing the blind. Walking on water. Calming the storm. Feeding thousands with a few loaves and fish. Every miracle Jesus performed was for a purpose. There was provision for that specific moment in time. But what if each miracle was also embedded with the promise of future provision…for you?
 
In Find Your Miracle, New York Times best-selling authors Kerry and Chris Shook take a fresh look at nine of Jesus’s most incredible times of healing and supernatural intervention. The Shooks unpack these moments in modern language to usher you into the pain, desperation, breakthrough, and miracle of each encounter. Plus they reveal a “miracle map” that connects that moment long ago to our needs today for revelation, transformation, and restoration.

Weaving together the biblical narrative with contemporary real-life application, Kerry and Chris Shook arrange these New Testament miracles under four overarching descriptions of Jesus the Miracle Worker: the Healer, the Provider, the Storm Chaser, and the Life Giver.

Rather than running from our overwhelming situations, the Shooks encourage us to remain steady, fully trusting that Jesus stands ready to guide us to the miracle we most need, and possibly least expect.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kerry Shook and his wife Chris Shook, are the New York Times bestselling authors of One Month to Live: 30 Days to a No-Regrets Life and Be the Message. They founded Woodlands Church in 1993, and it has since grown to be one of the largest churches in America. Kerry and Chris have been featured on NBC, ABC, PBS, Fox News, and USA Today; and they have a television show that goes to more than 200 countries. The recent establishment of Woodlands Seminary came out of their heart to train the next generation to make a local and global impact. Kerry and Chris live in The Woodlands, Texas.

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The Miracle You Need Most
 
I never have any difficulty believing in miracles since I experienced the miracle of a change in my own heart.
—Augustine
 
“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.”
—Mark 10:51
 
I believe in miracles.
 
I believe in the miracles of the Bible, the miracles of Jesus, and, yes, I believe that miracles happen today.
 
I believe miracles are not just natural occurrences that seem amazing yet have scientific explanations. I believe miracles are, in fact, instances of God entering into His creation, the natural order, to do supernatural things.
 
And I believe that God’s transformation of a human heart, His hand reaching into a person’s daily existence and turning a life around, is the greatest miracle anyone can experience. It’s a supernatural act called redemption.
 
So, yes, I believe in miracles.
 
But I realize many disagree with me. They say, “How can you possibly believe in miracles in our modern scientific age?”
 
Well, these modern times reflect some interesting and surprising things about people’s attitudes toward miracles.
 
Today a startling number of people who label themselves Christians don’t believe in supernatural miracles, while many so-called secular people do. Today a new generation of atheists tries to debunk the reality of miracles even as science seems to uncover phenomena that point to a Power beyond. Today many people consider a belief in miracles embarrassing even as those same people deeply long for them.
 
We seem to have an attraction to the possibility of miracles at the same time we are skeptical about them.
 
Some pastors, theologians, and churches explain away the miracles of the Bible and dismiss the reality of miracles today. One New Testament professor wrote, “Despite the prominence of miracles in the Gospel traditions, I don’t think historians can show that any of them, including the resurrection, ever happened.” A former bishop in the Episcopal Church has written that the miracles in the Bible cannot “be interpreted . . . as supernatural events.” A contemporary theologian said, “Because I do not accept this way of thinking about the world and God’s relation to the world, I avoid the term ‘miracles.’ ”
 
These voices are a part of the church that claims the name “Christian” yet tries to rewrite Christianity to exclude the supernatural and deny the existence of miracles, both in biblical times and now. They say what the Bible calls miracles were merely events that amazed people because they were ignorant of the rules of nature and the principles of science. These people preach a different gospel, which isn’t the gospel at all. 
 
This part of the church is literally dying. It’s taken the “beyond” out of the gospel. It’s taken the deity out of Jesus. It’s taken the supernatural out of miracles. It is left with a faith that doesn’t require faith. No wonder its numbers are dwindling. Many people long for what this church has chosen to deny.
 
It’s a common misperception that most people in America do not believe in miracles. In fact, 79 percent of Americans say they believe miracles happen. You might think the percentage of young people—Millennials— who believe in miracles would drop substantially. Yes, it does drop but by just one point—to 78 percent. People of all ages still believe in miracles. Most of us, regardless of our age, have this inner sense that there must be something more than we can see.
 
These longings point to the message of the gospel.
 
The true gospel says we are not merely physical beings but spiritual beings as well. The true gospel reveals a God who fashioned nature and stands above it, a God who is super-nature. The true gospel shows God reaching into our natural world and doing supernatural things. The true gospel reports how Jesus, the Son of God, entered our broken, natural world and walked among us, fully human and fully divine.
 
The Real Step of Faith
 
C. S. Lewis talked about some belief systems that acknowledge the presence of God but claim He is distant and apart. Lewis called this by the general term pantheism, but for him it also covered what some might call belief in a spiritual power or deism or Modernism.
 
In order to believe in miracles, you and I need to believe that God enters into the natural world and acts specifically in a particular life. We need to accept that He’s not just a spiritual power or a universal force or a distant deity but is, in fact, personal and present in our lives today.
 
To me, this is the real step of faith. Believing there is something more than nature, something beyond science, is the easy part. The hard part is to believe God is personal. So personal that He breaks through the natural order in various ways to make Himself known, to accomplish something supernatural, and, yes, to save us from ourselves.
 
True Christian faith claims that God became personal. God, who was outside the system, entered into the system Himself. Jesus, who is God in human form, entered creation at a specific moment in time.
 
Believing this is the real step of faith.
 
As we look at the miracles of Jesus, we need to remember that this was also a real step of faith for the people who encountered Him in those places and at that time. The wedding guests, the sick and the paralyzed, the crowds who heard Him teach, the fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, the Pharisees who resented Him, the thousands on a hillside who suddenly were supplied with food—each and every one of them had to face these questions: Who is this Jesus? Was this really a miracle? Is this Jesus actually God? And if He is, does that mean God is really here with us?
 
It is good for us today to step into their shoes because their questions are our questions. For the Jews, who had lived for hundreds of years under a system of law and sacrifices, could they accept this Jesus was Yahweh in person? Could He be the long-awaited Messiah? For Romans and Greeks, who believed in a pantheon of gods and various myths about how they lived in the heavens, was it possible that Jesus was actually the one and only God, walking on earth? For Samaritans and fishermen and others outside the religious and political systems, who was this remarkable Healer? Possibly God Himself?
 
One particular person, a fisherman, was with Jesus from the beginning of His ministry on earth. This fisherman was at the center of many of the events and was a witness to many of the miracles in Jesus’s life. It’s interesting to me that only after many experiences with Jesus, spanning perhaps most of three years, finally Simon Peter became a true believer:
 
[Jesus] asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:13–16)
 
Believing that Jesus was a prophet or a magician or a good man or a captivating teacher was easy. Believing that Jesus was the Son of God was the real step of faith.
 
That’s still true for us today. Through His miracles, one after...

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Verlag
WaterBrook
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1601427239
ISBN 13 
9781601427236
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
240
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar