SYW Day 2: Miracle Worker

Reading: John 11: 1-43

John 11:25-27

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; 26 and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

Devotional

Do you believe in miracles? Not the “I-can’t-believe-the-Vikings-made-it-to-the-Super-Bowl” sort of miracle, but the awe-inspiring, world-changing, unexplainable sort of miracle that is clearly from God. Do you believe that God still works in supernatural, astonishing ways?

Our Liberian friends don’t wonder if God is still in the business of miracles. They experience the miraculous on a pretty regular basis—from dreams that turn Muslims into Christians, to healings that simply cannot be explained. We love hearing their stories of God’s faithfulness in extraordinary ways. Their witness has challenged us to consider who we believe God is and how he interacts with his people.

One of our favorite miraculous stories centers around the healing of Emmanuel Bimba, the head of Christ our Hope Children’s Home (COH) and senior pastor of Abide in the Vine Disciples’ Church (AVDC). Early one morning, Emmanuel was in the ocean just outside of church campus. He’s not much of a swimmer, but Emmanuel had a very good reason to be in the ocean that day: he was performing baptisms. As new members of the church came forward to give their lives to Christ, Emmanuel dipped them below the water and baptized them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was a beautiful, faith-filled morning, and a time of celebration for the entire congregation that waited on the beach to welcome the new members of their family. Until Emmanuel felt something strike his leg. To this day, we don’t know if Emmanuel was stung by a jellyfish, a stingray, or something altogether, but it was immediately apparent that he was in big trouble. An elder in the church helped to pull him from the water, but before he even made it to the sand Emmanuel was convulsing. Not much later he passed out, and in the back of a car on the way to the emergency room, his heart stopped.

But back on the beach, the congregation of AVDC was praying—and begging God to spare Emmanuel’s life. And when the doctor who examined Emmanuel kindly shared that there was nothing the hospital could do to save him, the community only prayed harder. God heard their prayers, and in a single moment he spared Emmanuel and healed him from the poison that should have killed him. There were no doctors involved, no medicine, and no logical explanation for how he could be on the brink of death, and then, suddenly, okay.

We praise God for sparing Emmanuel’s life that day and believe that He worked in a miraculous way so that we could testify to His glory. God did this! And we are in awe.

Further Thought

Have you experienced a miracle in your life? Don’t try to explain it away—share it! God works in mysterious ways so that we can bear witness to who he is and how he works. He is the resurrection and the life.