January 21 Miracles

Acts 8:6-8 When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. 7 With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. 8 So there was great joy in that city.
 
JESUS’ Great Commission is a command with promise and hope as recorded in Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  Jesus said there would be revival in the world. People and nations would change in the gospel’s power. This became real in Philip’s preaching in Samaria in Acts 8. It is what happened in the U.S. in the Layman’s Prayer Revival from 1857-59.
    We have seen the past few days how this revival began with one man’s prayer. It spread throughout New York City and into the eastern U.S. And you’ll see today how it spread into people’s lives as God fulfilled the Great Commission promise. Here is more from “Firefall 2.0 How God Shaped History through Revivals” by Malcolm McDow & Alvin R. Reid. We are defining “revival” as turning from sin’s death to becoming alive in God.
 
Amazing answers to prayer were recorded across the nation. One man spoke of his burden for an unconverted son. This son, who had traveled across the world, was converted soon after the request was made at Fulton Street. One young man came to the meeting seeking salvation. He was converted after hearing a request by a mother for her son. “It struck me that the request was from my mother,” the youth reported. “After the meeting I got sight of that request. And sure enough, it was from my mother, in her own handwriting.”
 
    “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Have you ever considered how these words point us to John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The world is God’s. He has promised mankind that many will receive his salvation as they call on his name. Each disciple, as did Philip and the early apostles, must have seen the world as one community under God’s sovereign authority. Revival comes to new places when true disciples eagerly go into “God’s community” to pray and preach the miraculous work of God’s salvation.  
 
Prayer: My Father in Heaven, you are truly Father of all the world. I pray I see all people of the world as my brothers and sisters. In Jesus’ name, amen.