Contending for a Miracle - The Miracle of Christmas

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

So our theme is God of Miracles during this season.

And what's cool about that is because everybody's got, I think almost everybody in America has a somewhat of a mystical, nostalgic perspective to Christmas.

I, as much as anyone, I have many Christmases that I remember that were really, really special to me and meaningful to me.

All of you probably have that.

Some of you have some really sad Christmases.

Some of you have deaths in your family that have occurred this year, or maybe in the last few years around the Christmas season, or at least you feel it during the Christmas season, and it's kind of a blue Christmas for you.

Whatever it is, I think it's hard to get away from the fact that the whole Christmas story, as it's found in Scripture, is miraculous.

It is just like one miracle after another.

And it's interesting because when I look at the mystical and nostalgic part, what I always have felt for years, it's actually a miracle.

It's like you read it again, you read it again, and in my case, I'm gonna teach it, so I read it and read it and read it, and every year I come away with this heartfelt belief that this whole thing's a miracle.

And yet I've never put together a set of messages on the miracle of Christmas.

And so I am just, I'm just blown away that I get to do it this year with you guys, such a special group, because I really believe that Christmas is a type.

It's a type, it's a prophetic type of how God works in our life.

Now, granted, it's a true story.

It's a real story about a woman, a maiden, a virgin in Nazareth, this very small town.

We talked about that last week.

We talked about this idea of conceiving a miracle in our lives.

But I was reminded uh this morning, I woke up going, well, you know, I haven't really defined a miracle.

I didn't define it last week.

So let me give you my definition of a miracle.

This comes from AI.

No, I'm only kidding.

Um, I got this just looking at different um biblical definitions, and I made it as simple as I could.

It's a direct action of God beyond the common laws of nature.

It's a direct action of God that goes beyond the common laws of nature.

It's a supernatural work of God that reveals, now this is a this is to me what I see in scripture, that it's a supernatural work of God that reveals God, his character, his attributes, and his purposes.

So it's something that, like a healing, and we've had a lot of healings around here, but a healing is a beautiful invasion of the kingdom of heaven to the kingdom of earth, giving you a foretaste of what it'll be like in the kingdom of heaven now.

You get to experience it now by getting healed.

Guess what?

Nobody's sick in heaven.

And so when we're praying for people, we're actually calling down that prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it's already in heaven.

Your healing's in heaven, and we're calling down that grace of God, that gracelet of God, that caris of God to come down and heal someone.

Well, that's what God does.

God's MO is the miraculous.

He works in the miraculous.

So 20 years ago, Liz and I were at kind of at the end of our rope financially.

I was, uh I built a very large church, but my salary wasn't very large.

Um, and I had seven kids.

So there was a lot of people in that family, and we had a lot of needs, and we always tithe.

We always gave 10% of our income back to the church, and we gave above and beyond that with our offerings to the Lord.

And this was one of the situations that we had run into several times where we had budgeted, we'd done everything right, but things break.

Have you noticed that?

Things break.

Cars break.

I hate cars.

I think cars are of the devil.

And I and I would say go back to horses, but I've worked with horses as a kid, and that's worse.

Okay.

So, all you horse lovers, I don't mean that.

I mean if you had to ride a horse, that was like your mode of uh transportation.

So we were at a we were there in a financial strait, so we were 10,000 behind.

And it wasn't because again, it wasn't because of anything we had done wrong, it was because of the circumstances.

Anyone know what I'm talking about?

Anybody go through that?

Okay.

So this was our tradition.

We took everything that we had to do with money, a checkbook.

Checkbooks were really important back then.

So you had a checkbook, you had a credit card, things like that.

We laid it all in the center of the great room.

We had all the kids come in.

We explained that this car had broken and this heater had busted, and this is where we were at.

Let's all lay hands on our money.

So we laid hands on the cards and the checkbook and all of that.

The whole family, all the kids are there.

We prayed three prayers.

Number one, Lord, bless our finances.

Bless it miraculously, do something supernatural here.

Double, triple, quadruple what we naturally would have.

We asked for that.

Number two, we rebuke the enemy.

If Satan or demons are involved in this, we rebuke the enemy.

And then number three, we prayed, God, if there's anything we've done wrong, if there's things that we're not using our money well in, show us and guide us in that.

And so that was our prayer.

And two weeks later, I get this letter.

And it says Sumitomo Bank.

And I remember Sumitomo Bank.

Well, that that was one of my investments back in graduate.

Before I went on the mission field, I had$7,000.

My parents had given me$5,000 for college, but I invested it, made some good investments, made$7,000 by the time I graduated, took the$7,000, invested it in all these little adventures.

It didn't hurt that Jimmy Carter was president.

And interest rates went up to 19%.

And so I figured out CDs.

So I put, I locked in a bunch of CDs at 19% for five years.

And when I came back from the mission field, I had$95,000.

So I'd gone from five to seven to$95,000 in about eight years.

It's pretty cool.

And um, so I used a lot of that money during graduate school to pay for stuff, graduate school and living, so I didn't have to work.

So I did that.

And then I used some of the money to do a down payment on a house to church plant here, and I figured I was done.

I mean, I I'd used it all.

In the letter, it said, we were going through our accounts and we found some money that is yours,$10,000.

So God does stuff like that.

And see, so you say, well, that never happens to me.

Well, it can start happening to you because you're hanging out with me.

Okay?

So I can help you know how to make that happen because that should be, I really believe, I mean, not every day, but I do believe that on a pretty regular routine of believing God for the miraculous, if, and this is the big if, you're not gonna like this, but this is the big if, you're following God's ways.

So if you're not tithing, if you're not tithing 10% and giving it, if you're not doing that, then don't expect miracles.

Now he'll give you little miracles.

I like big miracles.

Would you rather have a little miracle or a big miracle?

Well, big always is associated with obedient.

And he, and he, how many parents in here would like obedient children?

Well, so does God.

He loves obedient children, and when you're obedient, he gives you more.

I remember that with my kids.

I I blessed them a lot of times with more freedom because I knew I could trust them because they were obedient.

So here's what we're talking about today.

We're talking about last week the conception of a miracle, Mary being a type of that.

But now we're talking about contending, contending, fighting, battling for a miracle.

There actually is a connection between how you trust God and believe God and what God can do through you.

So turn to Luke 1.

Luke 1, in my opinion, is one of those passages that is in the top 10.

It's got to be in the top 10 in the Bible.

Luke 1, 37 and 38.

And then I want you to, if you're taking, if you're taking notes with me, I want you to put for today, contending for a miracle.

Contending for a miracle.

Now, it's interesting.

Last week, I think it was just the third service, but I need to be sure.

So you guys, did I say anything about Immaculate Conception last week?

Did I say that?

Yes, I did?

Okay, so I must have done it.

Were you guys in the second service?

Okay.

All right, let me give you.

Did I I looked up Immaculate Conception?

Immaculate Conception and virgin birth are entirely two different things.

So I don't know why I said that.

But here's what's interesting.

I was looking at Immaculate Conception, I thought I gotta make sure that I give a definition for Immaculate Conception.

Immaculate Conception, the celebration in the Catholic Church is today.

It's December 8th.

I didn't even know that until this morning.

But um, Immaculate Conception is a dogma of the Catholic Church that Mary was born without atomic sin, uh, without original sin, that she was sinless.

We don't believe that.

And virgin birth is the idea that Mary became or conceived the child through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Entirely two different things.

And so what I'm talking about today is contending for a miracle.

You're a note taker, a lot of you are right down contending for a miracle, and then write down Luke 1, 37 and 38.

This is the seminal passage.

In my opinion, this is the key passage of all of Christmas.

This is it.

Uh and it's the angel talking to Mary, and then look at Mary's response.

This to me is a picture of how we experience miracles in our life.

For with God, verse 37, nothing will be impossible.

Now that's circled in my Bible.

For with God, nothing will be impossible.

In other words, without God, a lot of things are impossible.

Without God, a lot of things are incredibly impossible, you guys.

You can think about it, you can dwell on it, you can go for it, it's not gonna happen.

But with God, nothing will be impossible.

That's a pretty phenomenal, miraculous sounding statement.

But verse 38 has to happen for verse 37 to be true.

Verse 38.

Then Mary said, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord.

In other words, I'm surrendered to you, God, let it be to me according to your word.

Now write this down.

This is really important.

When we cooperate with God's voice, when we partner with God's plan, anything is possible.

When we cooperate with God's voice, when we partner with God's plan, anything is possible.

Does it mean everything is possible?

No.

It means anything is possible.

And what's what God needs to do in the impossible and in the miraculous in your life, I don't know.

Nobody can answer that but you.

And you can't answer that if you're not hearing from God.

That's why you got to hear God's voice and decide, okay, I want to partner with His plan.

Because some people hear God's voice and they don't like it very much.

You go, God told me, you know, to quit sleeping around.

That's a dumb idea.

I'm a man.

I need to have my sexual desires met.

Or I should probably quit cheating and embezzling money at work, but what a dumb idea.

It's Christmas.

I've got to buy those gifts.

I mean, I don't know what it is.

We've all got stuff that we battle with at times.

So it's not just hearing his voice, it's partnering with his plan.

So Mary's willing.

This 13, 14-year-old, maybe 15-year-old maiden, she's like surrendered to God.

And I don't know how many Marys there were.

There might have been five other maidens, five other virgins in and needed to be in Nazareth to fulfill the prophecy, but there might have been last year another one.

Or the year before there was another one, and the angel came and he said, I'm not gonna do that.

There's no way.

You kidding me?

I'm gonna be an unwed mother in a town of Jews, Orthodox Jews, about 300 of them, and be shamed for the rest of my life.

Instead, Mary says, I'm available.

I'm ready.

Church, that's the beginning of a miracle.

We cooperate with God.

And when you're cooperating with God, I promise you, I promise you, God is going to speak and he's gonna do miracles.

And it's going to be amazing.

He's a miracle-working God.

That's what he does.

And so Liz and I cooperated with God.

We were part of his plan.

And suddenly somebody in the Sumi Tomo Bank in Northern California found$10,000 for us that I had missed.

And you say, well, that's not really a miracle.

That just sounds like a clerical error.

Let me just say this: the more you trust God, the more you're willing to do it.

God wants you to do, there's a lot more clerical errors that'll go your way.

I promise you that.

So, whatever you call it, that's what happened, and I like that$10,000.

It's very, very nice.

We contend for a miracle through a dynamic life of faith and expectation.

We contend, first of all, for miracle through a dynamic life of faith and expectation.

So, look at verse 38.

Circle word.

Circle word.

Then Mary said, Behold, the maidservant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.

And I want you to write on the side, Rhema.

Rhema.

R-H-E-M-A.

Rema.

I spell it that way.

Some people R-E-M-A.

But Rhema, there's two different words in Greek in the New Testament for the Word of God.

One is Logos, L-O-G-O-S.

Logos, some people say logos, some people say logos.

And there's Rhema.

Okay.

So I want you to follow with me on this.

And if you're if you're taking notes in your Bible, I want you to circle word.

And then I want you to draw an arrow.

Take an arrow straight down.

That's what I've got in my Bible, straight down to verse 45.

To verse 45.

This is what happens when Mary is talking to and in dialogue with Elizabeth, her cousin, which we're going to come to in just a second.

But look what's said here.

Blessed is she who believed.

So circle who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told to her from the Lord.

So here's what happened.

The angel says, nothing is impossible with God.

She believes it.

And the word in the word here is the word rhema.

It's not logos.

It's rhema.

It means revelation.

The best way I can describe it is there is a written word and there's a writing word.

Okay?

There is a hearing word and then there's an understanding word.

So Logos is the word of God.

This is the Logos of God.

It's right here.

But as you're reading God's word, church, verses suddenly speak to you, and the Logos becomes the Rhema.

Does that make sense?

So you suddenly have insight.

You realize that's for me.

That's what happened to Mary.

Mary hears this, she goes, that's for me.

It messes up my whole life, but that's for me.

I don't know how Joseph's gonna take this, but this is for me.

I'm gonna be the gossip of Nazareth for the rest of my life.

I'm gonna be shamed for the rest of my life, but that's for me.

I am willing to do that because there was this combustion, this spontaneous spiritual combustion in her heart to believe.

And that happens here every Sunday.

So some of you come up to me and you go, that word, Pastor Steve, that was so you just can't even believe.

That word was for me.

That's the Logos becoming the Rhema.

And so that's the choice.

Luke makes the choice to use Rhema here, not Logos, because it's now, it's gone from the written word, or in this case, the spoken word from an angel, to the speaking word, present tense in Mary's heart.

That's where a miracle begins.

And I call it dynamic faith.

Because to me, dynamic means it's changing, it's growing, you're new every morning.

That's the kind of faith God uses.

And so when you come to the road, I want to challenge you, especially in December, and then we're going into the new year, too.

Come with expectation.

Come, God, would you speak to my heart this week?

I'm not doing so good.

It's been a bad week.

I don't want to go.

It's like the story of the guy who's in the bed, you know, and he's sitting there and he goes, I don't want to go to church.

Nothing ever good happens at church, and nobody even likes me at church.

And his wife says, Get out of bed, you're the pastor.

And so, you know, sometimes we feel that way, right?

I feel that way too, and I have to listen to me, okay?

And I think I'm pretty good, and then I realize you're not very good, you know, you're just average.

Uh, don't you hate the word average?

But we are, you know, and so God's not average, though.

God's supernatural.

And so he's looking for the conduit, he's looking for the connection with a heart that really believes in him and believes that he can do what he says he's gonna do.

Vines says about Rhema a Rhema word is a specific word for a specific occasion at a specific time quickened to the spirit of an individual.

Let me say that again.

A rhema word is a specific word for a specific occasion at a specific time quickened to the spirit of an individual.

It is your mental capacities, your emotional dynamism of your heart coming together when you hear the word and going, that's a word for me.

I need that.

And I want to challenge you, church, come to the road expecting that.

Come to the road expecting God's gonna do that every week.

And if you come expecting God to do it every week, he just might blow you away and do it every week.

And it'll be amazing.

That's how we have dynamic faith.

That's how we grow, that's how we exceed everyone, including ourselves, expectations.

So, another example of this was um, and today I'm gonna do a lot of testimonies.

These are, I asked staff at staff meeting on Tuesday.

Guys, if you have a miracle story, send it to me.

So I wanted to share a few of these.

But this is my story.

Liz and I had resigned at Mountain Springs.

We went to 40 nights of prayer, and at that time we were fully ready to go back on the mission field, go to Japan, go to Asia.

Um, I had a particular connection to Nepal.

I thought it'd be so cool.

Finish out my life in Nepal.

Hiking the mountains, fly fishing the streams, and preaching the gospel.

It doesn't get any better than that, which is what I have here.

But he spoke this word from Isaiah 43 in Isaiah 43, 18 and 19.

I'd read this many times before, but this was this was a logos, it became a rhema.

This was a logos, it became a rhema.

Let me read it to you.

Do not consider or remember the former things, i.e., the mission field when you were a missionary before, nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth.

Shall you not know it?

I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers.

In the desert.

You guys, it's like, whoa! It was like it just came off the page and said, Well, we're gonna plant a church in Colorado Springs.

God's not done with us here in the city, and it's gonna be called the road, based on the road less traveled, based on the road in the wilderness.

So that was a Rhema word to us.

And we knew that we knew.

And when you know that you know, there's a confidence that grows.

And I think Mary had that.

I don't think Mary had any doubt.

Now, she had doubts later in the life of Jesus because he didn't turn out to be the kind of Messiah that the Jews were expecting.

But at this time, she's experiencing this conception of a miracle that's working in her life.

This story comes from Pastor Ryan.

When I was less than one year old, my father was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, pretty much a deconcept of a diagnosis at that time in medical science.

He went on chemo, was being treated at the hospital in Iowa City, Iowa University.

The disease continued to deteriorate him over the course of time.

He came to faith for the first time in his life while watching a TV evangelist.

So here's the Logos becoming the Rhema in his heart.

He prayed to the Lord that God would give him the rest of his life to see his children grow, and if so, he would serve the kingdom.

Over the next three nights, the doctors told my mother that they did not expect him to live through the night.

On the fourth morning, he suddenly started to recover.

And from that point on got better and better and better and walked out of the hospital in full remission and lived for the next 21 more years.

Okay, that's a miracle of God.

He heard a TV evangelist, he believed the gospel.

If you're here today and you've never put your faith in the gospel, that means put your faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

Do it, because you're now eligible for miracles.

And that would be the first big miracle of your life is getting saved.

Now, look at verse 39 with me.

Look at verse 39, because what's about to happen next is so important in contending for a miracle.

And that is you need others to help.

You're not supposed to do it alone.

You're going to need others that are contend and believe because they already believed.

In other words, you need some believing believers in your life.

How many of you know there's believers that don't believe?

America's full of them.

I'm a believer.

Oh, really?

So that you keep, hey, Rebecca.

Seven votes.

Is that what it turned out to be?

Four votes.

Three votes?

She won her district in the house by three votes.

Isn't that awesome?

I've been looking for you.

I've been looking.

I don't have your, I didn't have a way to text you.

I don't have your number, but congratulations.

That's fantastic.

That's a miracle.

Okay?

So, now I lost my train of thought, okay?

Um, all right, so we need others.

Rebecca needs us, we need her.

Well, Mary needs Elizabeth, Elizabeth needs her.

If you go back to chapter one, and we're not gonna do that right now, but if you went back to like verse 24, 25, it says that when Elizabeth got the word through her husband Zacharias that she was gonna become pregnant with what would later become John the Baptist, and he didn't believe, he becomes mute, can't speak.

She she actually goes into seclusion, it says.

So it's almost like she's not sure what's going on, but she heard from her husband, he wrote it down, uh, what what this angel said to him.

She's uh beyond child rearing age or childbearing age, so she's probably in the 70s or 80s.

So I think I wonder if there was some shame.

Like, what?

That's so weird.

You're like 80 and you're you're pregnant?

You know, but she's a cousin of Mary.

She's a cousin of Mary.

So Mary hears about the miracle, or it seems like it's a miracle, that she's pregnant.

Elizabeth hears about Mary.

I wonder if Elizabeth, I'm just gonna sort of do some conjecture time here.

I wonder if Elizabeth sent an invitation to Mary and said, Come, I wanna, I need you.

You're a believing believer.

And so she goes to meet with Elizabeth.

So we pick it up in verse 39.

Now Mary arose in those days and went to the hill country with haste to a city in Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth.

And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

Verse 45, Blessed is she who believed there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told to her from the Lord.

Men and women, we need believing believers around us.

Elizabeth needs Mary.

Mary needs Elizabeth.

Elizabeth speaks life into Mary, Mary speaks life into Elizabeth.

You need the church.

We need the church.

I need the church.

Liz and I need the church.

In our parenting, we had so many of you that were a part of our kids' lives when they were growing up, and we appreciated it.

We had the same vision and values, and because of that, you helped us with our kids by being there and modeling it.

And my family's been blessed by mountain springs before and now the road.

Just an amazing blessing.

You most of us cannot believe God for miracles on our own.

And you're not even designed to be able to do that.

We need blood-stained allies.

We need others in our life.

And folks, if we had time to go over all the stories and the testimonies that I received this week from so many people about miracles when I asked for it, with up here, right here during the kingdom ministry time.

It's amazing.

More miracles happen per capita on Sunday morning than any other time of the week because we're in the room worshiping.

We're in the room praying.

We're in the room talking.

You know, like every service, there's pockets of you guys.

You're talking, you're building up each other's faith by hanging out with each other.

You're out there and you're you're speaking with each other in the lobby, and faith is being built through others.

And so we contend for a miracle that way by hanging out with believing believers.

Pastor Josh Floyd spoke a couple of months ago and he shared this story, but I wanted to repeat it again.

I thought it was so good.

And so this is what he he uh emailed me.

This was my right hand in college, and he sent me a photo of his right hand just full of warts and scabs and stuff and uh rash all over his hand.

June of 2014.

I was pursuing a bachelor's degree in piano and was losing the ability to play because of the pain from warts spreading all over my hand.

No medical solutions working.

And I was planning to have some kind of a surgery before the fall semester.

I attended a church service at Bethel, and a word of knowledge was given from the stage about warts.

So I immediately took pictures of my hand, that's the one he sent me, expecting an immediate healing.

The speaker shared his own testimony of speaking to a wart every day and seeing it all fall off after a month.

He used Zechariah 4 7.

What are you, O great mountain, before his Rebabel?

You will become a plane, and he will bring forth the top stone with shouts of grace, grace to it.

So I began speaking to my hand phrases like grace, grace to you.

Be healed in Jesus' name.

Every wart left my hand over the course of the next two weeks and never came back.

And it's pretty nasty if you saw the picture.

Same meeting, okay, same gathering at this church.

My mom's tailbone was broken in the 80s when she slipped down some icy stairs.

Since then, she was unable to bend over and stand back up without pulling herself up on a railing.

At the same service in 2014, her tailbone in severe sciatica pain was instantly healed.

It's never come back.

Isn't that great?

So that's that's the context of the church.

Being in the church, God moving in that church.

Pastor Ben Wallace, I prayed for a gentleman at the road that has had debilitating daily migraines for most of his life.

After praying on a Sunday morning ministry time, he found me two weeks later and said he had not had a migraine since that healing prayer time.

He checks in with me every few weeks and months later, he still reports that he's had no more migraines.

Oh, what a coincidence.

Okay.

Asia Wall, director of our creative arts at the road, she's the one doing the production.

Next week, she's our director.

She wrote me, You asked for testimonies today, and there have been so many lately, but I thought I would share this one.

At the first healing night, I prayed for my friend Shannon's mom, who had stage four metatastic breast cancer, which had spread to the pleureal lining around her lungs.

She started coughing a lot during the prayer, which was not normal.

And I knew God was moving.

Apparently, she didn't cough at all after that night.

So she went to the doctor for a scan and is now cancer-free.

Shannon texts me the scan results, but you have faith.

So she sent me the scan results in the email.

So, church, we need believing believers in our life.

Where you come forward or you get prayer and you don't have any faith, let me tell you, you have faith.

You could not walk the aisle, come up here and get prayer if you didn't at least have mustard seed faith, and mustard seed faith moves mountains.

So you have the faith, but then you connect it with somebody else of faith, and wow, it's like a kingdom of God, spontaneous combustion of miracle starts to happen in your life.

So let's follow the rest of it.

So look at verse 46.

Look what Mary does next, because it's really instructive to us.

And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior, for he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant.

For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed.

For he who is mighty has done great things for me.

Holy is his name, and his mercy on those who fear him from generation to generation.

His own strength from his arm.

He has scattered the proud in the imaginations of their hearts.

He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and he exalts the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers and Abraham to his seed forever.

This is praise and worship, and nothing's happened yet.

She hasn't had the baby yet.

Elizabeth hasn't had John the Baptist yet.

You've got to contend for a miracle by praising God beforehand.

You praise him before it comes.

You set that faith by thanking him.

You know he's spoken to you, he's given you that Rhema word.

You feel it, it's birthed, it's concealed in your spirit, it's growing, you're pregnant with a miracle, praise him for it even before it comes.

So when I was about 16, I got chronic acne.

And I went to dermatologist after dermatologist, and nothing ever changed.

And my acne got worse and worse.

And when I was, I finished up my sophomore year at Georgia, I was in Newport Beach, California.

I heard a guy named Bill Bright, Dr.

Bill Bright speak, the founder and president of Campus Crusade.

I went up to him and I said, Would you pray for me?

And he said, Sure, I'd love to.

He said, I said, Would you pray that I'd get healed of my acne?

And he said, Okay.

So he he laid his hands on my face, he prayed for me.

I got back to Georgia and it got worse.

So I wrote him a letter and said, Thank you, Dr.

Bright, for your crummy prayer.

No, I didn't say that.

But I I wrote him a letter and he wrote back.

And he said, Maybe God wants you to learn to praise him even though you haven't seen anything happen.

Maybe you need to learn how to praise him by faith and thank him for your acne.

Well, I thought, that's ridiculous.

I could never do that.

So I figured out I could do it if I didn't look at myself.

And so I began to comb my hair by taking a mirror that was about right here, so I could see my hair.

And for three weeks, I never looked at myself in the mirror.

And one day I was walking on campus, and this girl with campus crusade came up to me and she said, What happened to you?

And I said, What?

He said, All your acne's gone.

I said, What?

And I man, I booked it back to my apartment, and sure enough, God had been over those three weeks healing it and never came back.

I had to learn how to praise him.

Sometimes a miracle is held up because you're holding out, and God wants you to lift him up.

So as you're waiting on that work of God, lift him up.

Thank him for your son, your daughter.

Thank him for your marriage.

Thank him for your finances.

Thank him, thank him.

God, you're gonna teach me something here.

I know you've got something good coming from this.

I'm gonna praise you.

I'm gonna thank you.

Even on your timetable, I don't know when it's gonna come, but I'm gonna keep thanking you.

Pastor Al gave me this story.

In September 2013, I was coming home from a friend's house in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, about 1.30 in the morning.

There was a con there was construction on the highway, so I took the back roads.

The road was narrow with many sharp turns.

I came around a turn and I saw a car with parts scattered everywhere.

The car was upside down with gas leaking all over.

There was a motionless body on the right side, another motionless body on the left side of the road.

I was the first person on the scene.

It must have just happened only minutes before.

I ran to the car first, but there was no bodies inside.

I ran back to the motionless body on the right.

All this was happening in a matter of seconds.

I checked for any signs of life, there was no pulse.

I was too late, she was dead.

So I ran over to the body of the guy on the left side of the road.

There was no pulse on that one either, a male.

So I started doing CPR.

By this time, people started coming out of the nearby houses.

After 10 minutes of CPR, there were still no signs of life, so my instincts kicked in and I started praying.

I grabbed the dead body by the shirt with both hands, raised it up, and said with authority, in the name of Jesus, life come back.

And I kept repeating this phrase over and over again.

The third time, people nearby started thinking I was crazy.

I knew EMTs had been called and were on their way, so I kept praying.

On the 13th time of shouting, in the name of Jesus, life come back, his eyes shot open and he started coughing up like a resuscitated, drowning victim.

I hugged him, started crying.

He was in shock, so I kept praying, and then the EMTs came.

His name was Ted, and he's still alive today.

You never know.

You never know.

If you'll contend for a miracle, what God might do in your life, that will amaze you.

Just amaze you.

Right?

Let's trust God this season.

Let's believe God for miracles.

Thank you for listening to the Forn for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.

God bless.