“The continuation of the Christian life is also a miracle. When I was a very young believer, a friend said to me, “It’s a miracle that we desire to come together with the church to worship God each Sunday.” I thought about that statement for months. At first, I wasn’t sure that I agreed with it.”

A friend recently said to me, “I don’t deserve the life I have. Years ago I was wandering from God out in the far country and He saved me; He gave me a wife that I don’t deserve, children that I don’t deserve, a biblically faithful church and is now giving me opportunities to be used in His church. People are always talking about miracles, but this is the real miracle–that God would save us, redeem our lives and use us in His Kingdom.” I couldn’t agree more.

After the Lord gave me a new heart and brought me to repentance, I remember reading Joel 2:25 against the background of Deuteronomy 28:38 and 42 and being humbled by the fact that this is exactly what God was doing for me. A life once wrecked by sin–a life destroyed by sin and its consequences–God had redeemed and was now making useful by grace. Not only was I forgiven in Christ–God’s blessing and righteousness was being restored in my life. I had become a spiritual Onesimus (Philemon 1:11), so to speak. If you had known me prior to my conversion you would say that this was a real miracle.

Regeneration is a miracle. The way in which God works in the lives of His people to transform them and to restore the years that the locust have eaten is a miracle. In fact, when the Apostles sought to explain what happens to God’s people when they are redeemed they could only do so by appealing to creation and resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 4:6, the Apostle Paul explained, “It is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” In Ephesians 2:4-6, he wrote, “God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” 

Read More