Do you make New Year’s resolutions? We do need goals and objectives for ourselves. Forming good habits and breaking bad habits help to move our lives forward. But there is something that can change your whole life in one moment. Today’s message is about the miracle of a word. One word from God can connect with your circumstances to drastically change the direction of your life. It has supernatural power to do what God says it will do.
In Micah 5:2, God speaks through the prophet Micah and declares that the ruler of Israel will come forth from an obscure Bethlehem. God spoke “Bethlehem” and 750 years later, we see the account of Mary and Joseph in Luke 2:1-7, days before her delivery of Jesus, making the trek to Bethlehem as required by the governing authority. It wasn't the government that led them to Bethlehem. It was the word of God spoken 750 years before Mary rode that donkey to Bethlehem that guided them and it was a miracle directing them to the exact place, at the right time, with the right people to accomplish God’s purposes and will.
C.S. Lewis defined a miracle as “an interference with nature by supernatural power.” God has the ability to interfere with your life. In ordinary circumstances, God interferes and what should have occurred doesn’t occur or what shouldn’t have occurred does! These are some of the biggest miracles we experience. We tend to think of miracles as the impossible such as the blind seeing, the congenitally lame walking, and the dead raised to life - the impossible being accomplished supernaturally.
God has done these types of miracles but there is another type of miracle. He interferes with our natural lives. There are things that wouldn’t have happened unless God interfered. These are miracles like a marriage being saved or a child returning to faith. God intervenes in circumstances and changes the outcome.
Everyone believes in miracles, even atheists and agnostics. In order to isolate why this is true, you can go back to creation. Where did the world come from? Those who say the world came into being by evolution believe in a miracle. They believe something came from nothing. Some believe the world came from a big bang, an explosion from which all was created. Creationists believe that the universe was created by the spoken word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible (Hebrews 11:3). Everything that man will ever build is built literally by the Word of God and on the Word of God; it is sustained by the word of God, by Him and for Him. Everybody believes in miracles. The miracle I believe in has a name and His name is Jesus.
God speaks and creates. In Romans 4:17, Paul tells us that God calls into existence things that do not exist. What isn’t becomes what is. He called Bethlehem so that a world bent around the spoken word of God, a ruler issued an edict and the Christ child was born in Bethlehem. Nothing becomes something by the word of God.
God speaks a word over dead circumstances, like in Abraham’s case. Abraham and Sarah were well beyond child-bearing years but 25 years before Isaac was born, God promised Abraham would have a child from his own body by Sarah. This word had the same power God spoke to create the world. God can speak over your circumstances with the same dynamic power. It just takes one word.
There are three things I want you to remember about a word from God:
- Where there is a word there is a will. Everytime God sends a word, that word has an assignment (Isaiah 55:11). The “Bethlehem” word had an assignment to be fulfilled. If you want to know the will of God, you need to know the word of God. Our job is to will the will of God on earth. We need to receive it, believe He sent it, pray and declare it, and act on it.
- Where there is a word there is a way. How can something come to pass? This is the providence of God. He goes ahead of us and orchestrates the circumstances of our life to bring us to where He wants us. Think of Mary traveling on a donkey ready to give birth. What would get her on a donkey for four days in that state of pregnancy? It was God’s ordained word over Bethlehem affecting the governing ruler of the day. God’s already in your future, working everything together for your good. God is making a way. If He gives a word, He gives a way for it to be fulfilled.
- Where there’s a word there is miracle. The word is living and powerful. It may be a word that comes alive in your heart. You may have a Bible verse leap off the page and impact you or a person of God speak something to you that redirects you. The Holy Spirit may whisper something to you that causes you to pause. All you need is a word. Where there’s a word, God is already working a miracle. He is up to something.
I believe the greatest miracle is that God could find you separated from Him and bring you into His own family. In 2 Corinthians 6:2 (NLT), “God says, ‘At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.’” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation. I want to believe today is your day... this is your verse today... God is choosing you to lift you up, to pick you up, to give you a new beginning. Call on His name today believing He loves you and will help you.
