“Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”  John 4:48

We have to see that the Gospel is about relationships and the impacting, redeeming power of our Lord.  It is not about traditions, culture, or a show.  Christianity is cross-cultural and deeply impacting; it is more concerned with people than with customs.  It is not about easy belief; rather, it is about the impact of our Lord going deeply within us, so He is displayed and deployed outside of us.  Here is Jesus calling for us to cross our social and personal barriers to pursue people with a faith that is real, deep, and strong. Jesus transcended culture to minister to a person who would not have been associated with or helped.  In so doing, He cut across strict cultural barriers of race and gender, pointing us to the unity and impact of the Gospel.

Without the extraordinary we have no ordinary.  Real, true healing is all about that Jesus nailed our debt of sin to the Cross!

He paid a debt that we could never afford to do by any means conceivable–not by works, or ideas, or experiences, or education, or service, or being good.  If these things could add even an insignificant amount to our debt of grace, then Christ’s work on the cross would have been unnecessary and meaningless because we could have done it on our own!  Our saving faith is by Christ alone!  There is nothing to add, and nothing to declare except to receive His most precious free gift of grace by our faith alone!  The question inlaid in this wonders theme is  How then shall we live (Heb. 2:1-4)?

It all comes to the decision of whether we will make our faith real and impacting, relinquishing our pride to allow us to learn, grow, and teach others, or will we plant our rears in the pew, thus making our only impact our butt print in that pew!  Let us make sure our impact comes from a life transformed and carried on to the people around us!

The goal of the Christian life is our wondrous fear and zeal of a friendship with Christ!

We start with Him, and we end well with Him.  We are to receive His election, to know and pursue Him.  He is the One we are to follow, not the ways of distraction and destruction.  This is the wonder of simplicity that is to fulfill and sustain us.  Our Zeal is to know Him and make Him known to others with clarity and honesty empowered by His Spirit, for His glory!

One of the big issues and problems is that most Christians just do not understand that Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, IS the Head of the Church–the whole Church, every church.

This is includes your church.  Yet, our churches are run as if we were in total control and we reign supreme.  This is especially true when we become too busy chasing signs, fads, trends, numbers, and sides.

The Church must model and teach that we can learn and trust and rely on our Lord. Material things will not satisfy us.  Things of this world may satisfy us for a little while; but, the things of this world will never fill us, and we will always be longing for more–never satisfied.  True spiritual nourishment is not from a show; rather, it comes from God’s Word and our spiritual growth through worship, service, and prayer.

When we abuse the Bible, or draw attention to ourselves for showman sakes with pretentious pseudo miracles we are behaving like Satan!  When we use it well, we are modeling Christ (2 Pet. 3:16).  Satan seeks to get us to lose what God has given or has to offer.  He does not want us to believe in miracles; if we do believe, Satan tries to get us to abuse them.  In so doing, we are of no use to God, because we have bought the lie of the show and ignore Him as LORD.  Our outlook has gone from truth to fiction, to causing harm!  The way to spiritual maturity and the glory of our reward is not in finding shortcuts or shows.  The way to spiritual maturity is through learning, experience, and overcoming adversities and always seeking the Lord.  It is a long and difficult process (Acts 14:22; Rom. 2:7).