I’m Possible
Good Morning Friend,
One of our volunteer ministers at Moorings greeted people with “Happy Easter” instead of “Happy New Year.” Ok he is older than Methuselah but I am not so sure it is a mistake to look at new beginnings on the first Sunday of the year. So in honor of revival possibilities we take a look at Jesus healing the Gerasene Demoniac and a prophet that had visions of how dry bones might get a fresh start. Today we look at believing in the impossible. Today we explore domination and destiny. Today we look at the power of positive thinking even in the graveyards of life….believing that in the breath and Word of Jesus you are possible and I’m Possible.
Scripture: The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord GOD, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.
Ezekiel 37:1-5 (NRSV
Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.
Hebrews 2:14-15 (NRSV)
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
1 Thessalonians 4:14 (KJV)
They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes.
And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him anymore, even with a chain; for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; and he shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” Then Jesus] asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion; for we are many.” He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; and the unclean spirits begged him, “Send us into the swine; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea.
Mark 5:1-13 (NRSV)
Message: A very prominent British philosopher named Bertrand Russell wrote: “The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach and where none can tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent death. Brief and powerless is man’s life, on his and all his race the slow, sure doom falls, pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way. For man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gates of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day.”
But Nelson Mandela said, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” And Miguel de Cervantes said, “In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd.” And Vince Lombardi had the winning attitude when he said, “We would accomplish many more things if we did not think of them as impossible.” Likewise Thomas Carlyle said, “Every noble work is at first impossible.” “There is nothing impossible to him who will try,” said Alexander the Great. And one of my personal favorite quotes by George Washington, “It is impossible to reason without arriving at a Supreme Being.”
Wow. Talk about going from depressing to inspiring. All this life and death stuff makes my head spin as in a dream. Are we to get cloned like in Jurassic Park? You will have to decide for yourself, but this I know to be true, real change and growth begins when people tell others about their personal relationship with Christ. Real growth occurs when we are part of a community of love. Real change happens when we let the Spirit of God take us in the direction God has planned. It is the Presence of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as one that makes life eternal. That is new life.
Pray we celebrate the empty tomb. Pray we stop making excuses. Pray we evaluate our lives. Pray we act in faith. Pray we focus our thoughts. Pray we trust God. Pray we believe that in Christ all things are possible. Pray we get fresh starts in Christ. Pray our resolutions are impossible revolutions of the mind made possible in Christ. Pray we believe in the life everlasting.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 