First off let me apologize for not getting this blog out last night… I was struggling with a cold and took some medication that made my thought processes even less coherent than normal (I know… hard to believe but it’s true).

Today we are going to continue with the theme of faith & doubt focusing in on one of the things that makes belief difficult- miracles.  The Bible is full of them.  From healing sick people to the manipulation of the laws of physics to resurrection from the dead and ultimately to the creation of matter where none existed before.

Miracles can be tough for people to come to grips with… especially if they didn’t grow up in a community where those miracles were taught and talked about and taken for granted.  I grew up in a community where it was believed (and taken for granted) that miracles were something that God did in the past (during Biblical times) but that now God has stopped that kind of activity.  And maybe before we go any further we need to define what a miracle is and why God used them in the past.  In John 20 we read:

Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

 Now I’m no expert on miracles… but one of the reasons God uses miracles is to prove to people that He is at work in the ministry of His ministers.  Like I said, the church I grew up in taught that all miraculous work of God ended when the Apostles died (that’s an overly simplistic explanation of the argument but I really don’t want to go into the whole thing right now).  They taught that God can still work miraculously on behalf of His people in response to prayer (i.e. someone with cancer getting better) but that He no longer uses “faith healers” to miraculously heal anyone.  Not only that… I was also taught that if anyone claimed that kind of healing power they were actually agents of the devil… not God.

So it was very strange to come to Eagle River almost 10 years ago and join Lee Fiske (the preacher here at the time).  Lee was part of a ministerial alliance that joined Baptists, independents, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.  The only requirement to be part of the group was a belief that Jesus is the Son of God and that He was raised from the dead (basically an agreement with the Apostles Creed).  There were lots of people involved who were pentecostals or charismatic’s (belieif in the miraculous work of God through His people) and that caused me to rethink what I believe about all of this.  What I noticed was that there were lots of people who believed differently than I did (specifically about the miraculous work of the Spirit) who were just as devoted to their faith in Jesus (and often better at living it out) as I am.  My entire world view was shaken.  I finally decided that I was going to stop telling God what He could and couldn’t do… I was going to stop thinking I had the whole thing figured out.  I was going to let God work however He wanted through whomever He wanted to without clearing it through me first (I’m sure God was very relieved that I cleared Him to do things however He saw fit).

But I still struggle somewhat with this.  At Riverside we have lots of people who believe strongly in the miraculous gifts of the Spirit.  They pray for people and believe that God still heals miraculously through the gifts of His people.  I believe this too but I have to admit I still struggle with my doubts about how exactly this works.  Maybe you struggle too.  Unfortunately many hucksters & frauds have claimed to heal in the name of Jesus and been caught.  This can make it even harder to believe when the real thing happens.  I have to admit I also struggle because it doesn’t always seem to happen the way it seems like it should happen.  As I listen to some people (not people at Riverside but from other churches) talk about healing it’s almost like a magic bullet.  That anyone who prays for healing gets it no matter what.  And while I don’t believe that it is God’s will for anyone to be sick, I also see that people of great faith and devotion to God struggle with physical illness and aren’t healed sometimes.  This can stir up some doubts in my life about my understanding about miraculous healings (and the fact that I have some doubts stir up even more doubts… that ever happen to you?).  

Let me be very clear here… I don’t doubt God’s ability to heal… I just doubt my understanding about what the Bible teaches about this subject.  However, there are people I know who don’t doubt or struggle with any of this… they believe wholeheartedly in the things I struggle with.  There are many things though that I don’t struggle with, that others do struggle with.  So what’s the answer?  How much do we need to believe in order to be ok with God?

I feel like I’m digressing from the point… I don’t have time to go into detail about the whole concepts of faith healing… I only bring it up to make a point.  I think we all struggle with different aspects of miracles taking place and our level of struggle probably has more to do with how we were brought up than anything else. 

So what is the baseline amount that someone has to believe in order to be “ok”?  Well, the Bible doesn’t talk a lot about that.  One thing that it does talk about is the belief in the resurrection of Jesus (something that was difficult for people to come to grips with even in the first century).  In 1 Corinthians 15 the Bible says:

I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said.

The Bible never talks in terms of how little do you have to affirm in order to be “ok” with God.  Instead God invites us to trust Him with whatever level of faith we can muster and then let Him prove Himself to us.  That’s the way it worked for Thomas (who’s name is now synonymous with doubting) and that’s the way He will work with you if you let Him.  That’s one of my favorite things about Riverside… people who are working through their faith & doubts can do so safely without worrying about religious people berating them for a lack of faith.  We’ll talk more on Thursday about the resurrection and why it has become one of the foundations of my life. 

Did any of that make sense?  Maybe the Nyquil is still doing that talking…