MONDAY 23 MAY
1 Kings 18: 20 – 39
We don’t doubt God because He answers prayers
The prophets of Baal tried very hard to pray to their god but it was of no avail. They ranted and raved and shouted but they got no answer. Their offering was not burnt up. Elijah prayed to the true God. He made it harder by pouring water over the wood and the sacrifice. Miraculously God answered his prayer and the sacrifice burnt up and Elijah rose victorious.
Time and time again God has proved to me and many others that He is real and that He keeps his promises and answers our prayer and allows miracles to happen.
Once (when I was rector of Emerald) God spoke to me and told me to live without a salary. I told Him I would only do this if He told Wendy. A week later He did. He told Wendy He wanted us to give up my salary, so we did.
With no money, we had to pray for our food everyday and for seven months with no pay, we had plenty to eat every day. God was so good to us.
Over the years, we have seen so many answers to prayers and many healings taken place. Many people have been saved and God providing in many different ways.
When Jesus said “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it without doubting in your heart. It will be yours” (see Mark 11:24). He really meant it. God is so generous and kind. He longs to help us.
PRAYER: Father God, we thank you for being so generous and kind and promising to answer our prayers. Fill us with faith with the help of the Holy Spirit so we can see many prayers answered. Through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
TUESDAY 24 May
Psalms 96
Go tell everyone the Good News
Yesterday we saw how real God is and how he answers our prayers. When we realise this, we are moved to sing to Him and praise Him with much enthusiasm!
The best miracle of all is when God saved us. When He let Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment for our sins, purify our hearts and give us the wonderful gift of eternal life. When we put our faith in the fact that Jesus died to take our sins away and when we repent and surrender our lives to Him, we are born again into new people.
When our lives are transformed, we can tell the whole world how wonderful and really fantastic Jesus is!
Bronwen Healy, the founder of the Hope Foundation, was once in the sex industry and a heroin addict.
When she heard the wonderful Good News that God still loved her and that Jesus gave His life for her on the cross, she surrendered her life to Him and was miraculously saved. Since then she has led scores of women with similar problem to the Lord.
Isn’t God so very wonderful? How can we stop praising Him? Let’s all celebrate and be joyful.
PRAYER: Wonderful Father God, we just can’t stop celebrating and praising You when we realise how fantastic You are. Give us the power of the Holy Spirit to tell the whole world how fantastic You are and all that Jesus has done for us and how He wants to save them all and answer their prayers. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 25 MAY
1 Kings 8: 22 – 23; 41 – 43
God never forgets the promises He has made.
King Solomon realised what a fantastic God we have. He went to the temple and lifted his hands in praise because he could see that there was no other God like Yahweh. He was the only God.
God was so good because He never forgets the agreements He has made to us! He always keeps His promises as long as we trust Him and obey Him and are loyal to Him.
As we go through the Bible, we can see so many promises Jesus has made. We need to learn some of these off by heart, and really believe them. Then we will see God acting in our lives and miracles happening.
God does not want us to keep Him for ourselves. He wants us to share the Good News with everyone and tell them that God loves them and wants them to be His friends. God wants us to pray for the people before we witness to them and invite them to open their hearts to Him and let Him transform their lives.
In the 19th century, Hudson Taylor, a great missionary, went to China and establish the China inland mission. By 1950, the Communist took over China and tried to wipe out all religions. There were only about one million Christians in that country. God moved powerfully and people were saved, healed and told others the Good News so now there are over 100 million Christians in China.
They have truly gone out to tell everyone the Good News.
PRAYER: Father help us all to experience how wonderful You are and because You keep Your promises. Then fill us with the Holy Spirit and make us to be powerful witnesses telling the whole world how wonderful and fantastic You are. Through Jesus, our most wonderful Saviour. Amen.
THURSDAY 26 MAY
Galatians 1: 1 - 12
The only true message – given by Jesus!
The only true message is the wonderful Good News that Jesus obeyed God the Father and gave Himself as a sacrifice on the cross to take away our sins and rescue us from the evil world! Paul said that the true message was not given to Him by any human person but by Jesus Christ Himself, who appeared to Him.
Many of us have believe this message that Paul wrote about in his letters and so experience the saving powers of Jesus transforming our lives.
Paul wrote to the Galatians to warn them about the people who were distorting the truth and causing trouble. God had chosen to give the Galatians the gift of undeserved grace and be saved.
Unfortunately, there are many theologians in the church today who are distorting the truth. They are saying that the Bible is not true or could be taken literally and they deny so many of the truths about Jesus, our God and say He didn’t rise from the dead, the miracles were made up by Man and that the Bible was not God’s word.
Many deny that God answers prayers and does miraculous things today. These people are shattering people’s faith and turning them away from God. They say that everyone is going to heaven and there is no need to be saved so they refuse to share their beliefs with people from other religion.
My own faith really came alive when I accepted that the Bible was indeed God’s word and that we can really believe it to be true. I made this decision after hearing Billy Graham, whose faith in God’s word had empowered Him to lead thousands to Christ.
Like Paul, we really please God when we believe God’s word and the true message Paul shared with us!! We may not please liberal Christians but we will please God.
PRAYER: Father God, help us to really please You by believing the true message given to us in the letters of St Paul which gave us so much faith and leading us to experience You, transforming our lives. Give us your Holy Spirit to make Your words in the Bible come alive for us and make us love You with all our hearts. Amen.
FRIDAY 27 MAY
Galatians 5: 14 – 25
Jesus gives us the power to love.
When Jesus died on the cross He released tremendous powers and has made it available for us to use all the time. It is what I call the incredible power to love. We have the power when we share in the crucifiction of Jesus by dying to self. With Christ we hang on the cross and allow Him to crucify our sinful selfish natures with their passions and desires.
When we allow this to happen the acts of the sinful nature fade out of our lives and we show forth the fruit of the spirit – love, joy, peace, patient, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control!
Jesus gives us the incredible ability to love our enemies and to be good to them, forgiving all who hurt us in any way. I believe only Christians who believe the true message has the power to love in the way Jesus loves.
Paul had this power in a magnificient way. He was loved and saved by Jesus when He was Jesus’ enemy – persecuting His followers. He loved Jesus so much He said “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ to which the world have been crucified to me, and I to the world”. He went on to say, “no one can trouble me for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”
PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, You loved us so much and died for us when we were still sinners and were hurting You. Help us all to die to self and let You crucify our sinful nature so we can love everyone, especially those who hurt us and so we can grow all the fruits of the Spirit in our lives. Amen.
SATURDAY 28 MAY
Luke 7: 1 – 10
Jesus say the word
Here is a man who really believed that Jesus would keep his promise and heal his servant. He was an officer in the Roman army and a gentile.
He said, “Say the word, and my servants will get well.” He did not want to be a bother to Jesus and felt too humble for Jesus to come to his house. But he had a strong faith in Jesus. Never had Jesus seen anyone who had so much faith in all Israel.
Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is doing the same thing today as He did a thousand years ago. He is still healing when He sees people with faith to believe His word!
In the past 40 years, I have seen Jesus do so may miracles. The first healing I saw was when Wendy, my wife’s back was healed. A bone graft in her vertebrate came unstuck after having 4 children and she had been in constant pain for 2 years, unable to do much at all.
When she was filled with the Holy Spirit, all the pain came out of her body. She was free of pain for 4 days. A few months later, when we were in Brisbane attending the Christian Life Centre, an American evangelist, Derek Prince, was given a word by Jesus that someone who had a spinal fusion operation was in the congregation. Jesus wanted to heal. When Wendy went forward, Derek prayed for her and she was totally heal, so much so she was able to have 6 more children and for 40 years she had been free of back pain. Isn’t Jesus wonderful?
That was the first of many more miraculous healings. In my library, there are books telling of hundreds of miracles Jesus has done in recent times. How can we not believe in God? He is doing so much in the world today to show us His power.
PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, thank you that You are the same today as You were in Bible times. Give us the faith to believe God’s word and to know You keep Your promise to answer our prayers. Amen.
SUNDAY 29 MAY
“Say the word and my servant will be well”
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
Jesus was truly amazed when He saw the strong faith of the Roman Officer who believed Jesus would keep His promise. Jesus just had to say the word and healing would take place.
Faith comes to us when we believe in what God says in the Bible. We often call the Bible “God’s word”.
In Romans 10:17 we read, “Faith comes from hearing the Message and the Message is heart through the Word of Christ.”
The Roman Centurion’s servabt was healed because He believed Jesus’ word. If Jesus said he was healed, he would be healed.
There is a fantastic word from Jesus in Mark 11: 24 which says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” Jesus also says in John 15:7 “If you remain in Me, and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.”
When we get close to Jesus, and really believe in what HE says, then we will see answers to our prayers.
Because Jesus says “ whatever you ask, believe you HAVE received it”, we can really start believing as soon as we have asked. So instead of being worried and anxious, when we have prayed we believe we have been healed before the symptoms go away. We immediately start praising God and thanking God for the healing. This is because the Bible says “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we DO NOT SEE.”
Lucy (a lady from Rockhampton) was told she had about 6 weeks to live as she was riddled with cancer. She believed Jesus had healed her after she prayed and she lived for another 20 years.
I prayed for an old lady, Hope, from Strathpine, because her kidneys had stopped working. Not long after, a test showed the kidneys were functioning and she didn’t have to go on dialysis.
Over the years, we have seen Jesus healing so many people when His words and promises had been believed!
Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He always keeps His promises to those who loves Him and trust and obeys Him. Isn’t Jesus absolutely wonderful?
PRAYER: Jesus, thank you for the power in Your word – the Bible – and for all the promises it contains. Draw us all closer to You. Drive out all sins, doubts and fears and give us faith to believe You keep Your promises and answers our prayers. We thank you so much and go on praising and thanking You. Amen.