Friday, March 5, 2010

Fooling the Wise


Yesterday for my Life Session (group devotion) at LeaderTreks we watched a documentary on miracles called, "The Finger of God". It was quite interesting to say the least & I think everyone should take a look at this movie (it is about 90 minutes & is free to view on YouTube).

The movie was about a gentleman who basically took his video camera, "which looked like he bought at Radio Shack for $39.99," says Phil, & just started meeting up with people who were witnessing & taking part in miracles. The first part of the movie seemed a little ridiculous because the miracles were gold teeth, & jewels showing up at churches who met at airport hotels. But as the documentary went on it began to show miracles were happening all over the world. High school students here in the US, to underground churches in China, to men rising from the dead in Africa were all apart of these miracles.

Now I'm not here to convince you that God does or does not sprinkle gold dust on people, or allow children to place hands on people and heal them, but I am challenging you to think about just how great and powerful is our God? 1 Corinthians 1:27 says, "God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise." Who are these wise people in our lives? No I don't think the Olsteens, Warrens, & Bells of our Christian world count, mainly because we have no interaction with them. But really, can we think of wise people in our lives who we can or have shamed with foolish things?

I have begun to be a little restless with this idea because I am really struggling to think of who these wise people are in my life, and if they don't exist does that mean I am the wise person who is being shamed? Just a few verses later in verse 2:4 it says, "we want men's faith to rest not on men's wisdom, but on God's power." Miracles are one of the big ways that we can show just how powerful our God is, & to be honest I don't think any of us experience our Lord this way enough. How much more exciting would it be for us, & how much easier would it be for us to smash stereotypes as Christians if we were able to experience God's power & then be able to share about it.

So let us not jump to conclusions or make assumptions the next time we hear about strange or unrealistic miracles happening around us. Most of these are happening without us even knowing, which adds a bit more validity to them because people are simply being a part of God's power without seeking recognition for it. Let us go into our day remember that, "the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power" (1 Corinthians 4:20).