As I grew older and more mature in life, I
became increasingly more aware of the
marvelous Creation of God all around me and it
began to reveal to me just what was really
important in life. I believe this Great God
wanted me to “stop and smell the roses
” once in a while. Most of us go
through life, hurrying along, without ever
really stopping long enough to ask: What is
the reason for my being here? Is there any
real meaning to life? What is the purpose of
my life anyway? Most are too busy with their
trivial pursuits to ever think about the
deeper questions of their existence. I
certainly never did.
Now this does not mean to stop living a full,
exciting, happy, invigorating and productive
life! I hope all you young people can enjoy
all the multiple and enjoyable pleasures of
life that I have, and still do! I don’t
mean the sinful, lustful and hurtful ways that
always brings great disappointment and grief.
I swim, boat, water ski, fish, play a little
golf (poorly), I might add. I rode nice
motorcycles for several years. I’ve had
nice, neat, “cool” and good
performing autos nearly all my life. I’
ve had Cadillacs, Lincolns, convertibles, even
“hot rods”. But still there was a
void in my life, that I just couldn’t
put my finger on. I took flying lessons and
flew “solo”. I even enjoyed some
minor success in the music business,
performing on a local radio program for about
five years. I “rubbed shoulders”
with some of the very successful entertainers,
at one time.
But all these “ things” do
not fulfill! I found out, on a lesser
scale of course, what king Solomon found
out. Ecclesiastes 12: 8
“Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher
(Solomon) ; all is vanity.”
Missing Dimension
What I didn’t know at the time, was that
something was missing in my life. There was
another “dimension” that I had never
even heard about. It turns out, that the “
missing dimension” was God and His Holy
Spirit. It took a Great Miracle in my life to
change my way of doing things; even changing my
way of
thinking.
I want to stress here that it was not
just age
, that gave me this new and wonderful outlook on
life that I never had, before a
transformation took place. I was
only about thirty years old when this change
began. So young people can have this same
experience. I believe Timothy was a teenager when
God began to work with him, through the Apostle
Paul.
I want to read excerpts from an article I recently
read that would have passed right over my head
when I was “going through the motions”
of living, before God awakened me to what was
going on around me.
“Nature’s”
complex devices
Quoting from a science article in the Knoxville
News Sentinel; Source: Nature Magazine, by David
Perlman: “A University of California
engineer, entranced by the uncanny ability of
insects like dragonflies and bumblebees to peer in
all directions at once, has for the first time
created microscopic versions of their compound
eyes in the laboratory.”--- (ibid) “
The bulbous compound eyes of many insects contain
thousands of individual lenses, each of which
sees in a single direction, but whose images are
melded into a single, wide-angle view that allows
the insect to survey its entire neighborhood at
once. Lee confesses he can’t figure out
how
nature
could develop the complex devices that
function so well in living organisms
, but the team’s success in creating a
synthetic fly’s eye, ----is only the
beginning, --”
I want to candidly ask a question about what we
’ve just read above: Where did the
life
come from in the organism, the insect? Mr. Lee
states “the team’s success in creating
a
synthetic
fly’s eye, is only the
beginning.
What about the original
beginning?
Genesis 1:1
“In the beginning
God
created the heaven and the earth.
24.
And God said, Let the earth bring forth the
living creature after his kind cattle and the
creeping thing (including insects), , and the
beast of the earth after his kind: and it was
so.”
Undoubtedly Mr. Lee has not been introduced to
this Great Creative God at this time, but some
day, he will be. One final quote from the science
article: “I’m always fascinated by
how
nature
makes these complex things;
I don’t understand it,
but I think engineers need to
use nature as a model
to make such useful devices in the laboratory.
”, Lee said. Quite an admission!
Change Comes in the Way We View Things
In the beginning of the subject, I spoke of a
transformation
that had taken place in my life that gives me a
new
perspective
in how I view things. Things I thought were
important
before the change
took place, became irrelevant, compared to what I
now desired.WHAT CAUSED THAT CHANGE?
In just a few weeks, The Church of God, Worldwide
Ministries will be observing the Feast of
Pentecost. It is the key to God’s life
changing MIRACLE. It is THE GREATEST MIRACLE IN
YOUR LIFE! Without it, we could never, ever
understand what life is all about.
It is the begettal of GOD LIFE, God’s MIND
in you. (For more information on Pentecost read
our article “God’s Master Plan of
Salvation.”)
The World Does Not “Get It”
Even the apostles and other disciples of Christ
did not
completely
grasp what He was teaching them at the time He
was with them.
John 14:8
“
Philip saith unto Him, Lord, shew us the father,
and it sufficeth us. 9. Jesus saith unto him,
Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast
you not known me, Philip? he that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then,
Shew us the Father?” Continuing on in
the same chapter:
Verse 15
“If ye love me, keep my commandments,
16.
And I will pray the Father, and He shall give
you another Comforter,
(means “One who goes alongside” or a
“Helper”.)
that he (it) may abide with you forever;
17.
Even the Spirit of Truth; whom the
world cannot receive, because it seeth (It)
not,
(It cannot be perceived by the five human senses
because It is Spirit - It is invisible like the
wind.)
neither knoweth It
:
(It is not a
third person of a trinity
, but a
Power or Essence
, that can be
poured out like water
.)
but you know It; for It dwelleth with you,
and shall be in you
. ”
This Spirit of Power and Truth Would Come Later
Luke 24:46 “And said
unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it
behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the
dead the third day: 47.And that
repentance and remission of sins should be
preached in His name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem. 48. And ye are
witnesses of these things. 49.
And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon
you: but tarry ye in the city of
Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power
from on high.” “Tarry
” merely means “to sit or set down
” i.e. “wait” And they did --
until they had counted fifty days, beginning
with the first day of the week (Sunday),
following His resurrection on Sabbath (Saturday)
at evening, during the days of Unleavened Bread.
Want proof? Matthew 12:40 “
strong>For as Jonas (Jonah) was three days
and three nights in the whales belly; so shall
the Son of man be three days and three nights in
the heart of the earth (
the grave).”
John 19:30 “When Jesus
therefore had received the vinegar, He said, It
is finished: and He bowed His head, and gave up
the ghost (died, about 3 PM).
31. The
Jews therefore, because it was the preparation,
that the bodies should not remain upon
the cross on the Sabbath day, (for that Sabbath
day was an high day,” (an annual Sabbath,
the 1st Day of Unleavened Bread, following the
Passover, not the weekly Sabbath!!!
Christ was slain on the Passover
Day, which fell on a Wednesday, of the
crucifixion year of 31 AD. You can
’t get three days and three nights in the
tomb, from “good Friday” to “
Easter Sunday” morning, as traditional
Christianityobserves it! This tradition is
based on rank Paganism, if you care to check it
out, by several sources. John
19:40 “Then took they the body
of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the
spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
42. There laid they Jesus
therefore because of the Jews preparation day;
for the sepulcher was nigh at hand.”
This burial took place about 6-7 P.M., just before
sunset, the same time of the day of His
resurrection, three days and three nights
later.
This Information Is More Important Than Most
Believe
Why do I say this? Because if you don’t know
when He arose from the dead, you can’t
determine the correct day to begin your count,
from the day of the Wave Sheaf Offering, to the
right day of Pentecost! And now, let’s
continue in “The Greatest Miracle in Your
Life.”
As I stated in the beginning of our subject
matter, one of God’s annual Holy Days,
Pentecost, is just a few days ahead of us. It,
pictures the giving of the Holy Spirit of God to
those who would willingly submit their will to
God, by repenting of their sins, accept Jesus
Christ as their Savior, be baptized (by immersion
in water, as a type of burying the old person)
and have hands laid upon them for the receiving of
the free gift of the Holy Spirit. Do people
really grasp what that means?
Without the addition of the Holy Spirit with
our human spirit, we would be no different
than Old Testament Israel. They failed utterly,
when God called them out of Egypt.
Hebrews 3:7 “Wherefore
( as the Holy Spirit saith, To day if ye will
hear his voice, 8. Harden not
your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of
temptation in the wilderness: 9.
when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw
my works forty years.10.wherefore
I was grieved with that generation, and said,
They do always err in their heart; and they have
not known my ways.”
No, they didn’t have the right heart to be
able to do what God desired of them: (Deuteronomy
5:29). But that was to change under the New
Covenant! Hebrews 8:6 “
But now hath He (Christ) obtained a more
excellent ministry , by how much also He is the
mediator of a better covenant,
which was established upon better promises.
7. For if that first covenant had
been faultless, then should no place been sought
for the second. 8. For finding
fault with them, He saith, Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and with the house of
Judah. 9. not according to the
covenant that I made with their fathers in the day
when I took them by the hand to lead them out of
the land of Egypt; because they continued not in
my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the
Lord. 10. For this is the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My
laws into their mind, and write them in their
hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they
shall be to Me a people.”
Can you grasp the enormity of what you just read?
We have the opportunity of having God’s
Laws engraved in our hearts! And this is done
through the Holy Spirit, that was given on the
day of Pentecost! What a miracle God is
performing on certain, called individuals, in our
time. And of course there are prerequisites to
having this performed on our hearts. Notice in:
Acts 5:30 “The God of
our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and
hanged on a tree. 31. Him hath
God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince
and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel,
and forgiveness of sins.
32. And we are
witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy
Spirit, whom (which) God hath given to
them that obey Him.”
Another part of the
miracle! Being granted repentance and
forgiveness of all our sins! (But it requires
obedience to His Holy Commandments!)
The Greatest Miracle of All
Perhaps the most awesome miracle of all, that
began on the Day of Pentecost, is the one
described in Romans, the eighth chapter.
Read the following verses in the
wonderful section of the Bible, written by the
Apostle Paul, which describes life in the
Spirit and the depth of God’s love.
Romans 8:1--11, 12--18--23, 28--30,
35--39 Did you notice Verse 11?
The most important Miracle of all, is that the
Holy Spirit is the Agent, the POWER, the Means
that God will use to GIVE US ETERNAL LIFE! We will
become literal GODS! I John 3:2 “
strong>Beloved, now are we the sons of God,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but
we know that, when He shall appear, we
shall be like Him, for we shall see Him
as He is.”
So you see why I equate the giving of God’s
Holy Spirit, on the Day of Pentecost, as THE
GREATEST MIRACLE IN YOUR LIFE. I believe it is the
greatest Miracle that can occur to anyone. Some
day, according to God’s Plan, it will be
offered to all who have ever lived.
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