Unlikely Miracles in Hard Places

 1941 Paris under Nazi occupation. Jews had to wear a yellow star and were deported and murdered en masse.

A seven-year-old Jewish boy was visiting a Christian friend, but stayed too long. There was a curfew for Jews. After 6 pm, he risked being arrested in the street.

He turned his jacket inside out to hide the yellow star and made his way home.

But then his nightmare got worse. A German officer in a black SS uniform approached him.

It wasn't a dream, but then, as in a dream, the tables were turned.

The officer hugged him lovingly and spoke to him in a friendly way, even though the boy didn't understand German. Then he showed him a photograph of a boy, perhaps his son. And it got even better. He gave the astonished boy some banknotes and sent him home with more kind words.

The boy and his family survived the Nazi era, and they settled in Israel after the war. The boy never forgot the kind SS officer. Fascinated by the contradictions of human nature, he studied psychology.

He became a psychologist in the Israeli army and then went to America to do his doctorate.

He became a world-famous author and Nobel laureate.

Are you perhaps in an inhuman situation like this SS officer? But there is a good God who has good plans for you.

Oskar Schindler was a wealthy businessman and Nazi member. He used his position to save many Jews.  

I met a Russian woman. Her father was a communist, but her mother took the children to the church while her father was politically active.

A German concentration camp commandant used his position to save many Jews. He helped the Jews to build hiding places in the camp so that the SS could not find them.

As a young Christian, I was cruelly abused in an authoritarian church. I had a nervous breakdown and needed intensive psychiatric help. I spent a whole year in hospital, but God still had good plans for my life.

When I returned home, I visited other patients and encouraged them to trust in God.

The Apostle Paul was cruelly persecuted, flogged and sometimes imprisoned, but he used his imprisonment to pray for persecuted Christians. He also wrote letters to the churches. These letters are now books of the New Testament.

What is your situation like? Probably not ideal. Perhaps a nightmare.

Jesus wants to rescue you from your predicament, but perhaps not overnight.

Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch woman who ended up in a concentration camp in Germany because her family had been hiding Jews. She suffered terrible ordeals, but even in the concentration camp she served as a missionary.

Her sister was murdered in the camp, but she was released one day because of a clerical error by German officials.

After the war, she became a travelling evangelist, also in Germany.

Is your situation very difficult? If it's possible to escape a brutal marriage, it's probably all the better. Maternal care and the safety of the children outweigh the obligation to stay in the marriage.

If you are being victimised in a legalistic church, you may not be allowed to leave, but such rules do not come from God.

But even if you can't escape your situation, God can help you to be a blessing to others.

The apostle Paul vividly describes his trust in God in the midst of adversity.

We are hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;
persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 2 Co 4:8–10 NIV

God loves you. You can choose to respond.

 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. Jn 12:32–33 NIV

Jesus was not compelled to die on the cross. Although he was arrested, he could have escaped. However, he chose to sacrifice his life willingly to bear God's judgement for us.

Jesus was not coerced; he acted out of love.  Jesus does not want to force you and me to accept his love and forgiveness. Instead, he desires to win us over through love.

Unlike conscripts in armies who do not obey voluntarily, Jesus does not want any involuntary slaves. He loves you and wants to win your love. True love is always voluntary.

God's love is always active.

So he told them, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.” Jn 5:17 NET

Are you feeling discouraged or stuck? Where is God?

God is at work in your life even when you feel frustrated. If you ask where God is, it's a sign that God is whispering to your soul. Where does the thought of God come from? From God himself.

Remember that there is a good God who wants to help you, so please don't give up.

God is Actively Involved

 In 1718, a Dutch writer described God as an all-powerful watchmaker who created the universe and then let it run by itself like clockwork.

William Paley (1743-1805) was an Anglican clergyman looking for good sermon illustrations. He popularised the idea of God as a watchmaker. Everything in the universe runs according to scientifically predictable laws, with no ongoing involvement of the Creator.

Science was becoming the new religion.

God was thus understood as an absent and insignificant creator.
If you believe in such a God, it makes no difference to your life.

But in the Bible, God does not appear as an absent landlord without compassion.  

God in the Bible is actively involved in this world. He intervenes again and again. 

Today, these interventions are understood as supernatural miracles or are explained away by humanistic theology. 

There are even conservative Christians who claim to be Bible-believing, but who quote Bible texts that supposedly teach that God only wanted to work miracles in ancient times.

But they still believe that God answers prayers. How do you distinguish between a miracle, which God supposedly no longer performs, and an answer to prayer, which is not supposed to be a miracle?

They then say that the greatest miracle is the salvation of a converted soul, which is true, but they then dismiss other miracles as unimportant.

This doctrine is full of contradictions.

If you pray for a job and get it, that's fine, but if your daughter is dying of cancer and is supernaturally healed, you shouldn't believe it. Really?

A conservative preacher prayed for a girl who was dying and God healed her. But that's not supposed to happen in his denomination because the age of miracles is thought to be long gone.

The preacher attended a conference where he asked a charismatic preacher for a biblical explanation. He wanted to know if he was praying correctly.

He got a completely unexpected answer:

Why don't you ask the little girl?

God is love. Jesus tells us that God is our loving Father.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Mt 7:7–11 NIVUK84

Living in Love

 God created us in love and for love. If we all loved as God wants us to, no one would be lonely.

But even if you love and are full of love, you will sometimes suffer from the unkindness of others who are not loving.

Jesus himself was a victim of rejection when he was brutally crucified.

But Jesus had to endure misunderstanding and rejection all his life.

Jesus taught that we must love everyone, even our enemies, or our friends when they misunderstand or even betray us.  

Jesus himself always loved in this way. Jesus is our example.

We are all learning to live a life of love.

God is love. He made you to live in love. When we do not live in God's love, we do not function properly. Our thoughts, feelings and physical health cannot be optimal.

If you are driving a Formula One car and you put in poor quality petrol, your racing car will not work properly.

You are meant to love and love must be the fuel of your life.

God is love itself. When we are connected to God, God's love flows in and through us like a river of living water that never runs dry.

On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.”

By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. Jn 7:37–39 NIVUK84

When you entrust your life to Jesus, you always have access to the source of life.

But it doesn't happen automatically.

•     How do you react when your boss bullies you?

•     What do you think when you hear the news that terrorists are taking hostages and probably torturing them?

 Jesus told us to love our enemies. How did Jesus himself react when he was slowly dying on the cross?

 Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Lk 23:34 NIVUK84

You may be appalled by a political party and its policies. How do you respond in your spirit? Like Jesus on the cross? I often don't, but we are in a learning process.

New Start, New Life

 God has given you your life because he loves you. Whether you were born in loving marriage or not,  you are loved by God from the bottom of His heart.

God has given you talents and abilities because He loves you infinitely. God has built talents into your being, even if you have not developed your potential yet.

God designed you to have loving relationships and friendships because He loves you. You may have been so hurt that you withdraw from love and friendship, but God wants to heal your broken heart.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Ps 147:3

God has a good life planned for you, even if you have messed up your life, or people have so mistreated you, that you have not fulfilled God's good plan until now.

But in the Bible, I read how Jesus restored totally ruined people so that they could start again with God's love.

Jesus found a lonely woman at a well. She had been married five times and was now in a de facto relationship.

Did Jesus see her as a sinful woman?

How could she survive as a single woman? As a prostitute or beggar? Starving, abused and raped?

The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” Jn 4:25–26 CSB

She believed that Jesus was the Saviour from God and that He could and would save her.

She became a missionary with a whole new life.

God's Peace in Wartime

 Valentin Silvestrov is a wonderful Ukrainian musician, a composer of classical music.

Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, his family urged him to flee the country, and he reluctantly agreed. Aged 84 he escaped with his daughter and granddaughter to Poland and then to Berlin, where he settled as a refugee.

As he fled to safety and freedom, he heard music in his mind, but he said he was surprised that it did not reflect the fear and trauma he left behind in Ky iv. It was heavenly peaceful music, lovely setting of the Lord’s Prayer.

Silvestrov describes Putin as a terrorist like Bin Laden but a thousand times more dangerous. Nevertheless, his music is not angry or nationalistic but rather peaceful and prayerful.

Jesus said to his disciples:

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. Jn 14:27 NIVUK84

Mutual Submission

As a new convert in an authoritarian cult like church, I learnt that submission to Christ meant that a Christian must have no freedom of choice, no personal preferences and no unique personality.

The death of the self was strongly emphasised. Love for anything other than God was idolatry.

But then I read in Genesis that God gave Adam the freedom to choose names for all the animals. God submitted to Adam's choices regarding the names of the animals.

Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. Ge 2:19 NIVUK84

When a husband loves his wife, he respects and honours her wisdom, gifts and abilities. The Apostle Paul writes that each of us should esteem others more highly than ourselves.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Php 2:3 NIVUK84

A husband who loves his wife will submit to her in those areas where she is wiser or more capable than he is. If a wife is much more spiritually mature than her husband, which is very often the case, he should be willing to value her spiritual guidance.

This leads my thoughts back to Ephesians 5:21.

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Eph 5:21 NIVUK84

I also learned to question the rigid hierarchical culture of some churches.

Mutual submission means that the Senior Pastor should give children’s church leaders freedom to make decisions. 

A good pastor will also seek the advice of the elders, computer specialists, financial experts and prophetic people. 

A good pastor will also be willing to release church members into missions, and not only missions under his direction. 

A healthy marriage is a partnership. A healthy church is a team.