A Faith Jesus Marvels At by Nina Keegan

There are only two things in all of Scripture that Jesus marveled at... And they both are concerning levels of faith

Matthew 8:9-10

 For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go , and he goeth ; and to another, Come , and he cometh ; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. 10 When Jesus heard it, he MARVELED , and said to them that followed , Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

Mark6:4-6

Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home."

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them

And he MARVELED because of their unbelief. And he went about among the villages teaching.

A faith that makes Jesus marvel is something worth looking into..

The Centurion or Roman soldier had faith in the spoken word of Jesus,  he did not believe Jesus had to go be physically present to heal his servant he just heard that Jesus was near by and he rode off to meet Him, and when he met Jesus, he simply asked him to heal his  very ill servant. Jesus offered to come to his house but the Centurion did not believe Jesus had to be physically present to heal his servant..he asked Jesus to just say the Word and His servant would be healed...the soldier believed Jesus's Word was all that was needed to manifest the miraculous.

The 2nd scripture above states how the lack of faith in some disallowed even Jesus to perform miracles..

 Lack of faith halts God from moving..

These opposing degrees of Faith show us what we need to bring the manifestation and demonstration of the miraculous into our lives.

If you simply can believe in the written word of God you are in a place in your faith to receive miracles as Jesus marvels at that kind of faith and that kind of unwavering steadfast assuredness that Jesus is who He says He is.

 The Centurion would require no additional proof.. Jesus simply spoke that his servant would be healed and he believed that when he returned home a miracle would've already taken place.. And it did! The servant was healed! 

Jesus marveled "for verily I say to you that I have not seen this kind of faith in all of Israel"

Many of us find it hard to believe in things that we cannot physically see or touch but if we could see all things there would be no need for faith..the bigger blessing abounds to us by having a kingdom size faith and a steadfast knowing that God's Word can be trusted,  His Word does not fail or return void ..

We many times think if we don't see immediate results that God has not been moved to answer our prayers..

 God's ways are not our ways,  He is omniscient (all knowing) and He sees the whole storyline.. many times our yearnings, trials, and times of peril, ultimately work amazingly for the good by causing us to be stretched in our faith and to draw closer to God.

The Bible says it all must be used for our good.. we decidedly do not want anything that God does not want us to have in our lives..

God always answers our prayers, sometimes just not the way we think He should, but His timing is always perfect ..He's never late... Simply put, God is God and we are not..

 When you're waiting on God, stand...believe.. Let Jesus be marveled at your faith ..Jesus's spoken words and God's written words are the same; we need to have faith and believe through a trusted loving relationship with God

 that His faithfulness and character are enduring and steadfast forever. He loves us and there's nothing He will not do for us..

Lord we are in your hands we are in your will Lord you know the future, we don't... show us Lord ..show us..let us have faith that you can marvel at..

Thank you Lord..increase us in our faith today! In Jesus name  we pray!

Amen 

Then Suddenly by Nina Keegan

Then Suddenly..

God is saying that when the enemy was chasing the Israelites out of Egypt...the Red Sea was in front of them ..but the miracle was in the sea, the miracle was in the impossible! 

   This is a time to advance, God will empower you with a staff to part the Red Sea in your life; whatever your enemy is, whatever your struggle is, family, financial, health, oppression, depression anything...what ever giant is in front of you, you will conquer! You have been authorized to break your chains with the authority available to you in Jesus Christ..

He's giving you a staff to remind you of your strength in Him. He's supplying you with enabling grace to part your Red Sea and watch it turn into a dry desert bed that you can walk across safely and with ease.

 

  The Lord says He wants you to begin to raise your expectations..He is getting ready to do marvelous things on your behalf! 

 When the people of Israel fled Egypt running for their lives followed by all of Pharaoh's army.. they wound up at the beach of the Red Sea... Imagine that feeling of great fear and utter pandemonium, the feeling of defeat and complete devastation..

But God... Yes... God! He then SUDDENLY pulls off the most impossible to imagine, mind blowing, miracle!

  It never entered the minds of the Israelites that right then and there God would perform a spectacular event, A SUDDEN MIRACLE!  He would open an entire Sea,  He would part an entire ocean for them and let them cross safely on dry ground, a surreal path etched through the impossible .. barricaded with enormous walls of water hedging each side. 

   God would then swallow up all of their enemies; the horse and rider and chariots alike with giant sweeping waves as the sea was commanded to flow back into its trough ...

Can you imagine witnessing this astonishing supernatural phenomenon? 

This is how our loving God moves and operates on our behalf.. There is nothing that He is not prepared to do for us.. There is no rescue mission to hard or to risky for God.. You are worth it to Him.. You matter and He will never abandon you to be devoured by your Red Sea.

  "Get ready for the unexpected miracle"says the Lord .."the unexpected blessings you have not even fathomed."

  The Lord says "I have already destroyed your enemy through the blood my Son has shed on the Cross... I want you to release the sound of victory, the sound of triumph, the sound of praise, the horse and rider have already been trampled into the sea and washed away in the crashing waves."

God is making ways for you.. He's clearing the path..divine victory is at hand.. Hallelujah!

 Rejoice! the enemy has been destroyed under your feet! The miracle is in the trial you face because God is all powerful to go before you and use what the enemy has meant for harm to bring to you complete restoration, victory, and a testimony of unparalleled  proportion.

 Do NOT look back..  Through your unseen faith and determined declaration that God is who He says He is...you have crossed your Red Sea and have been planted safely and freely on the other side..   

Keep your eyes straight ahead on your miracle maker Jesus Christ who is deserving of all praise and glory...

Is there anything to hard for Him? Ask yourself..How BIG is possible? 

 

Genesis 50:20

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Matthew 19:26

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

Keep Your Eyes On Jesus by Nina Keegan

 I find myself increasingly shocked everyday when I watch the news or see the covers of the celebrity magazines in the grocery store..  What is going on in this world today..? Where do we draw the line between the Godly and the Godless? The line it would appear seems to be getting quite blurry.. In fact the anything goes mentality is flooding our morals and we become desensitized to  real truth..

 Job 36:17

 But you are obsessed with whether the godless will be judged.

Don’t worry, judgment and justice will be upheld.

Many of the us these days are questioning why it appears that the wicked of this world are seemingly prevailing in their evil schemes and living a prosperous life style. 

  Why does it appear that people who are not even remotely living for God seem to "have it all"?

  The answer is very simple .. They don't! 

 They are living for the here and now, contagiously void of all the blessings of Heaven that can only be acquired through a relationship with Christ. 

The time we spend on earth is a mere counterfeit speck in comparison to the time spent in Eternity with our loving Creator and Heavenly Father limitlessly enjoying thought defying fathomability to the magnitude of peace, joy and brilliance our Father has in store for us. 

 

  We are not to be deceived, God himself reserves the right to be jealous and the carry out vengeance upon the wicked we must never be obsessed with the apparent unfairness the eye can see. 

  We must look to our own lives stay in repentance asking for forgiveness and continuously try to be a demonstrative example of God's love here on earth.

  We must display to the very best of our limited human capabilities, a life that follows the pathway of Jesus.  We should incessantly be exemplifying God's pure light to others. 

God is tolerant in His love and intolerant of our sins. He will not allow sin to go unchecked forever. 

  Many people wonder why God doesn't immediately punish evil as it happens ..

  We must remember this; that if He did punish evil immediately, none of us would be here... We would rid the world of it's habitants.

   We all need to be thankful that God gives us renewed chances and time to repent and turn back to Him. 

 He gives us mercy and an allotted grace period to look inside ourselves in revelation and see our evil ways and steadfastly turn away from them. 

 He implores us to hand our lives over to Him, the One who can restore, forgive, and redeem us. No person on earth can safely defy God .. He is after all the creator of all the universe.. There is nothing that unnoticeably slips past Him. 

 People who refuse to believe this concept, to them, God's punishment will be like an angry vengeful fire! To those who love Him and fear Him, His mercy will be a safe haven and a privileged refuge. 

  The Bible says that God's enemies will be swept away like a flood ....the relationship we have with God, either way, is decidedly left to our own accord...

 God sets before us a fork in the path,  every time we stray even the slightest bit towards  the calls of sin and a life drifting away from God, we will pay an enormous price. Sin has a cost! We may not immediately see the consequences of our actions and simultaneously we may think we've gotten away with something and with that in mind ,we simply drift a little more and a little more. Even still, not having witnessed the looming ramifications in our lives, we feel as though we have pulled one over on God..

 But.... There it is... The but...before we know it, we are so far away.. So lost... we are creviced deeply into the wrong path. This path of wrongs  winds haphazardly through our life stealing all it can from our basket of contentment and joy. Getting off this wretched detour, mirrors the impossible. 

  After a brief time in our life of sin we slowly become blind and deaf to the things of God ...We no longer can see Him or hear Him because we've drifted so far off course. We cannot see the path that He has prepared for us any longer.. It's blurry,  we are drowning in the muddy, murky, bumpy, pothole filled road of despair and destruction that leads to nowhere but heartache, pain,  more sin and  irrevocable crimes against Christ.

 

 He sees it ...yes, do not get this wrong...God sees it all! 

 You are NOT getting away with anything.. we can never hide anything from God!  He knows what you're going to do before you do it, but He's always standing right there; Steadfastly and sturdily waiting on the main road with open arms ready to receive us, ready to welcome us back,  ready to help us in our painstaking turnaround...

 He does not abandon us to our own wickedness, He helps us climb out of this vast pit that we've created for ourselves through sin, guilt and condemnation . 

His outstretched arm is reaching deep .. It's never too short to grab us from the depths. 

  We can call on His name.. JESUS.. He will not let us go. He redeems! He is our vindicator. 

  Our sin however comes with price tag..there will be consequences; make no doubt about it.  For our time immersed in disobedience there will be ramifications. God alone has the right to be jealous and carry out His vengeance on our wrong doing. We don't want to be acting in a spirit of selfishness... it's appropriate for God to insist on us having complete allegiance to Him always. It is just for God to punish unrepentant evildoers, and to bring retribution for our selfish choices.

 God's ultimate purpose for us is to set us free from our bondage so as we can live completely for Him and restore back to us the peace and joy that His Son died for us to have.

 God will display His mighty power in the whirlwind and in the storm. we must make a choice today to call on the name of Jesus and live under God's grace, His guidance and within His guidelines and covenant for our lives. 

Justice will be served in the world. God will settle all accounts! Stay on His path only and do not be tempted to stray .. 

The Lord is a strong refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust in him. He will sweep away his enemies in an overwhelming flood, He will pursue His foes into the darkness of night why would you ever scheme against the Lord ? He will destroy you with one blow He won't need to strike twice

Nahum1:7-9