Greater Things…

Dear Worshippers,

“Greater things have yet to come. Greater things are still to be done here in this city.” That’s pretty encouraging considering all that has happened over the last 40 years or so. Steel mills closing, and the slow decline which followed…now the uncertainty of GM and its subsidiaries. God is not finished here, and those opening statements are based on His word.

Jesus said, “I tell you the truth” which is actually kind of humorous, being the Son of God and all, but He was obviously very serious about this. He continued, “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” I have faith, but I must admit that whenever I have read this passage it really makes me stop and consider carefully what Jesus is saying.

When Jesus says “greater things than these”, do you know what He is referring to? The miracles that proved He was one with the Father. Those are the things He said people with faith would do greater. He was referencing miracles. What is a miracle?
Wikipedia says, “A miracle is a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature, such that can be attempted to be explained by divine intervention. Merriam-Webster says a miracle is “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” Those are insufficient to me. My friend John Grundy in a conversation last week defined a miracle as “God restoring something [i.e. a situation or person] to the condition it would have been in had the Fall never occurred.” I like that. That’s what Jesus has said we would do, and has called us to do.

Seeing things restored to the untainted condition they were intended to possess before the Fall. That is a miracle. A blind person seeing. A lame person walking. A dead man living. Greater things have yet to come…

How can someone as ordinary as me be involved in something so extraordinary? I still struggle with this thought. It is overwhelming. But I believe Jesus. Do you? Are you trusting Him to do things through you that when they occur God gets all the glory? Are you trusting Him to use you in miraculous ways? Are you living the same way day after day, or are you believing that God wants to do something through you that will require you to change?

God is changing me, causing me to long for more of Him in every area of my life. I want more of Him in my marriage, in my family, in our ministry, in our church, in our city. I am believing you do to. Pray with me to that end.

In Christ,

Pastor Timothy