CAN YOU BELIEVE GOD?
by David Sisler
Janie is a young housewife and mother. She was involved in four car accident when a teenager apparently panicked and struck three other cars. Although two of the cars were a total loss, no one was seriously hurt.
After the cuts and bruises healed, Janie continued to have frequent, painful headaches. Finally the doctor said, “Janie, there is no real reason for the headaches. It’s all in your mind.”
She left the doctor’s office and went to see her attorney. She explained to him, that according to her physician, there was no reason for the continuing headaches. Believing that to be the case she said, “Let’s go ahead and settle the case.”
“Janie,” the attorney asked, “are you still having the headaches?”
“Yes,” she said. “I have one right now.”
The attorney replied, “Then before we close the case, I want you to see one more doctor. This time go to a neurosurgeon.”
Janie went to a neurosurgeon and he discovered a tumor that was totally unrelated to the accident. It was a particular type of tumor that causes no pain. It is undetectable, except by a brain scan, and if left untreated, will kill the patient within five years.
When the neurosurgeon operated, he determined that the tumor had been in Janie’s brain for over three years. It had not been caused by the accident. It had not been responsible for the headaches. In fact, the neurosurgeon found no cause for the headaches, but without them, he would never have given her a brain scan. Without the brain scan, Janie would have died in less than two years.
Just coincidence? You will never convince Janie of that.
Jesus and his disciples were seated around a table. They were sharing their third Passover meal together. But instead of celebration, a somber mood hung in the air. In less than 24 hours, Jesus would be dead.
In that atmosphere, Jesus looked at them and said, “I am going to prepare a place for you. If I go I will come again, so that where I am there you may be also.”
Thomas looked at Jesus and said, “We do not know where you are going. How can you expect us to know the way?”
Jesus said, “Thomas, I am the Way. I am the Truth. I am the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Within a few hours the disciples all scattered. Judas committed suicide. The rest went into hiding. Then word began to circulate among the followers of Jesus, “He’s alive!”
For the next 40 days, Jesus showed himself to them over and over again. When the skeptics had asked for signs that would prove his words, Jesus had refused to give any signs. For the next month he gave the believers many signs that no one could refute, signs that proved his words.
Then Jesus left them. But according to his promise, he did not leave them comfortless. While they were praying in an upper room, 120 followers of Jesus were filled with the Holy Spirit. They poured out of that room speaking in languages they had never learned and also communicating in their native tongues the good news of a living Christ.
Where once there had been skepticism, now there was faith. Where once there had been fear, now there was courage. Where once there had been defeat, now there was victory.
Jesus had proven his word to them over and over again. And those men and women were never the same.
When anyone asks Janie about the car wreck she says, “Thank God for the teenager who hit me.” How can she say that? She is trusting a God who has proven himself to her through his word.
Do you know of a single lie that God has ever told? Do you know of a single one of his promises he has ever failed to keep? Then why don’t you trust him with your life and with your future?
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Copyright 2003 by David Sisler. All Rights Reserved.
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