Hello All,
(This is just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. These weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in our Father. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Study Guide” is titled “Miracles Around the Lake”. A good look at some of the miracles of Jesus. Miracles are a part of Christ’s ministry here on Earth. These are “incredible displays of power that are drawing the disciples closer to an understanding that He is the Son of God” (Quarterly for Sabbath). But miracles (or the appearance of them) can be duplicated. Think of Moses’ first confrontation with Pharaoh. His shepherd’s staff turning into a serpent was seemingly duplicated by the Egyptian magicians (see Exodus 7: 8-13). Or the first two plagues upon Egypt. The Egyptian magicians seemingly duplicated those plagues, too (see Exodus 7: 22 and Exodus 8:7). In many ways, miracles are the poorest form of evidence, reserved for those who have the merest beginnings of knowing our Father.
Christ Himself warned of this… cautioned us about basing any faith on miracles. “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” Matthew 24:24). “Then said Jesus unto him, ‘Except ye see signs and wonders, you will not believe’” (John 4:48).
EGW also cautions about this, giving us the reason why we cannot base our faith on miracles. “The way in which Christ worked was to preach the Word, and to relieve suffering by miraculous works of healing. But I am instructed that we cannot now work in this way, for Satan will exercise his power by working miracles. God's servants today could not work by means of miracles, because spurious works of healing, claiming to be divine, will be wrought” (2 Selected Messages pg. 54).
Paul the Apostle cautions us about this, too, giving us the underlying heart disease behind it all. “The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, will all power, signs and lying wonders and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved (healed)” (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10).
Love what truth? Paul is not telling us to love (agape) a concept; a primordial recognition of some accurate statement of fact or of some Scriptural concept of divine principles. He is telling us to love the truth… The Truth. “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me’” (John 14:6). We cannot agape a concept or statement of doctrines. Agape is reserved for persons. For God. And “If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). Agape-love is for God… and for our brothers and sisters.
Once again, it all comes down to love. “And Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And the second is like it, you shall you’re your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22: 37-40).
How to have this agape-love? It is truly simple. “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). It is as simple as allowing the truth about the Father and His love for you, reach into your heart and mind. “But when the kindness of God our Savior, and his love toward man, appeared, not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Savior; that, being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3: 4-7). I cannot truly love until I fully receive the love of the Father for me. A love that sees all of me… and loves me. Loves the “me” that is His child. Damaged by sin and self, to be sure. But His son, nonetheless. “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39-40). He loves me… period. And only if I know this agape-love deep in my being, will I admit who I am and confess it to my loving Dad. And “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Cleanse me/ heal me. This is the greatest miracle. “Which is easier to say…, ‘Your sins are forgiven you’, or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? (Mark 2:9).
“Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God” (1 John 3:1). “The wonder of it all! Just to think that God loves me” (SDA Hymnal #75). Amen and amen!
With brotherly love,
Jim