Miracles
Miracles are a free tool Jesus Christ offers to show that you are not just a piece of luggage. You are much, much more: You are God's creation. You are not simply the result of chemical reactions. Every person is greater than the sum of their parts. Miracles happen often, around good Christians. Miracles also happen for non-believers, so that they might believe in Christ and praise Christ and follow Christ. The Bible teaches to not cast pearls before swine. Therefore it would follow that non-believers who choose to continue to non-believe, would not receive the bounty of a flood of miracle blessings. Miracles follow excellent Christians. Those goodly Christians are a part of the miracles, nearly as if those goodly Christians are the cause of those miracles. Christ is the cause of those miracles.
Life is too precious to not include you in Christ's blessings according to your decisions for the benefit of Christ, including your decisions and activities for Christ's priority list as you and/or we do our best to glorify Christ, our source of glory:
The above is a list of tools. For example if someone tells a mountain to move and nothing happens, it may be because they don't have the right tools.
If they don't have sufficient charity, their words are empty (a joke, meaningless, empty, hollow, without purpose) [Note: jokes can have meaning, but this is not a sermon about jokes.].
If a person gives to charity, but relys on those gestures and not on their works of volunteerism, then on biblical precept we can refer to the adage: Actions speak louder than words. Volunteerism is certainly not limited to donating your time to charities. Volunteerism should pervade all of your activities.
Earn a living for your family, your boss, your friends, and others. Simply taking time and money from your boss for yourself is empty, it limits your life. Jesus did not say take from Caesar, but said render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.
Miracles flourish with the happy abundance of a good and honest heart.
To perform a miracle, let's first understand what a miracle is:
Jesus said, accept a prophet in the name of a prophet, and you will receive a prophet's reward.
Accept a miracle. I used to have carpel tunnel syndrome. Some said it was incurable. I don't have carpel tunnel syndrome.
Many people say that by definition a miracle cannot be reasonably explained. While true, that definition missed the point. The factors (Who can explain a miracle?), and (When can they explain it?) are crucial to the miracle concept.
Miracles have personal significance. Miracles are about you specifically. Miracles are there for you.
Imagine this example situation. You are in an airplane and hear an explosion. Suddenly you are outside the plane, falling, watching the plane (with a hole in it) fly away. You have no parachute and the ground is far below. Then someone with a parachute grabs and rescues you. It is explainable so by some people's definition it is no miracle.
However, your life was in the balance and you were saved as if beyond your control: by your faith that God gave to you for you to opt to use: by your faith in God's charitable nature.
The dictionary has a definition of the word "God", but it cannot explain all that "God" is. Likewise you being saved is a miracle.
If, instead of someone with a parachute saving you, what if it was a gust of wind that saved you, or a rope, or tree branches, or a helicopter, or a bolt of lightening that somehow saved you? These are all the same, they all resulted in saving you, they are all miracles.
If you lie on the floor, or if blood moves through your body, or if you think a thought, those are all miracles. The greater part is what are you going to do with all these miracles?
Are you going to acknowledge them? Are you going to bring benefits to others because of them? Are you going to receive them as guidance from Jesus Christ?
The Bible Book of Mormon tells of a great miracle: the Lord made bare his holy arm.
What a fantastic miracle. To see the arm of God Almighty, what a terrific experience. Never before seen by any person, yet miraculously there it was, according to the viewer's faith to see it.
You have a gift, the gift to see miracles for what they are and for the charitable purpose they serve.
You can prophesy, but if people will not listen, they receive it not.
You can receive a miracle, but if you do not acknowledge it and act on it, you hardly reap the benefits of it.
Do yourself a favor by giving good miracles to others. And don't do it for yourself, but to glorify God, the source of goodness. Respect your miracles for their greater value, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.
Hold to your miracles and start to learn to use them as great tools. Work them together with the optimal good strategic plan.
Start to use miracles in everyday life, [to] give gifts, to clean, to bake, to study for exams, to cure diseases, and to start the car. Then wean yourself through Christ to greater things, such as taking extra responsibility for helping neighborhoods, nations, and life.
Use miracles to rest on the Sabboth. Use miracles to do good subconsiously, automatically, as a natural response, as a new you.
Would you prefer to be a person who would say "Some nut just ran into me, my car is ruined." Or would you rather be a person who states "There was a big accident and no one was injured, it's a miracle!"
Vic Bey said "Don't dwell in misery."
Dwell in miracles.
Sermon by Bob Benchoff March 9, 2002
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