In the bible, both Old and New Testaments, we see impossibilities become possible as people follow the leading of their God. We see babies born to women who are barren, a fully armed giant slain by a boy with no armour on, walls around a city fall when there are no battering rams, Joshua 6:20, and water turned to wine, when there are no grapes involved and of course the dead raised when there is absolutely no defribulators any where to be seen.
The miraculous, or the impossible happening, is a regular feature in the life of God’s people, because our God, who created all things by the power of His word, is more than happy to break the rules of nature and the universe for His people and for His glory. We have a supernatural faith.
One of the most famous impossibilities was when Mary was told that, although a virgin, she was to have a baby and so was her barren, very old, cousin Elizabeth. The Angel Gabriel explains, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, so the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God”, and then he said “For nothing is impossible with God”. Luke 1:37.
The other time that we hear that expression is when Jesus was talking with the disciples about how hard it was for the rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. They asked “Who then can be saved?” and Jesus said “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God”. Mark 10:26,27. We have a God who can make an axe head float, 2 Kings 6:6, make the sun stand still, Joshua 10:13, and raise His Son from the dead after satan had done his worst. Matthew 28:5-7.
For many of us (myself included) our faith levels, that the impossible can happen in our day, can be somewhat depleted. There are people we have prayed for, and things that we have asked God to do, and we have not seen what we wanted to see, and nothing has changed over a long period of time. We are however living in days when God is drawing us back to believe that our God is the God of the impossible. We hear of those in Muslim countries having dreams and seeing visions of Jesus, we hear of healings and miracles in areas of the world where there is no real health care, and we hear increasing numbers of testimonies in our own country of conversions and healings.
We have a choice. We can either be discouraged by the hardness of heart to the gospel that we see all around us. We can be discouraged about the ones we have prayed for who have not been healed, and feel saddened by those that we love who seem disinterested or hostile to the gospel. Or we can thank God that He is still the God of the impossible and seek His face how we should pray. We can thank Him for the provocation to grow in our faith and move some mountains!!
Jesus said ‘these signs will accompany those who believe: In my Name they will drive out demons; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well. Mark 16:17,18. These were some of His final words to the disciples before He ascended, and we know that Jesus Christ is ‘the same yesterday, today and forever’. Hebrews 13:8.
We have a choice like Joshua, Caleb and the other ten spies, recorded for us in Numbers 13:26-31, and summarized beautifully for us in a children’s song we use to sing with our family. When faced with the size of the giants and walled cities in the Promised Land – ‘ten said “NO”, two said “GO”. Ten looked at the size of their problem, two looked at the size of their God and promise that He had made them.
Let us thank God for our impossibilities, and not revise our theology. If we didn’t have impossibilities, (or impossible people!), in our lives we would not be challenged to seek Him for more. Let us thank Him, for the people we know and love who seem oblivious to the Lord, those that appear to us like ‘walled cities’, and for the ‘giant’ miracles that we need to see in our lives or the lives of our families and communities.
Let us thank God that He is calling us back to being a supernatural church and take every opportunity to dig deep, feeding our faith on the stories of the people of faith that we read about in the Bible. Let us thank God that He is still the God of the impossible, and find a faith story in the Word to feed on. Let us thank Him that He has not finished with us yet!!
