Episode Transcript
It is all too often said that there are no miracles performed these days. I'd like to challenge this idea with my story of faith versus feeling. Welcome to Miracles in the 21st Century.
I'm Jill Morikone. My journey goes back a few years in my journey of faith versus feeling. When I would wake up in the morning and I would open up God's word and I would begin to study, and if I prayed and I felt as if today was a good day, do you know what I mean by a good day? Do you ever have a good day? Those are the days when the sun is shining and there is joy and gladness in your heart.
The days when you have your devotion in the morning with Jesus and you pray, and it just feels as if you're connected with God, that He's there right beside you in the car as you drive to work, that he's sitting there beside you at the desk or he's walking with you throughout the day. On those days, I always believed my relationship with God must be secure. I must be connected with Jesus.
Today, my sins must be forgiven. But the next morning, if I were to wake up and maybe it's a cloudy day. You ever wake up and it's a cloudy day.
You ever wake up with burdens on your hearts? You ever wake up with questions of faith or doubt or issues that you're dealing with in your life? Sometimes it's financial challenges that we face and we just don't know how going to put food on the table for the next meal. Sometimes it's relationship challenges and we struggle getting along with people or forgiving our spouse or disciplining our own children. Sometimes we deal with deeper questions of faith and that relevance to us as Christians today.
On those days when I would wake up and it was just a bit gray or a bit cloudy, as you would say. And I was dealing with one of those challenges, emotional or mental or even a spiritual challenge. I would sit down with the Word of God and I would pray, but it felt as if my prayers hit the ceiling and they bounced back down again.
Have you ever been there? Have you ever cried out to God and said, where are you? But you couldn't hear his voice. Have you ever said, I want to hear you in the Word, Would you speak to me? And it felt like God was silent. What do you do then? On those days, in my own Christian experience, when I felt as if God was far away, when it felt as if the day was cloudy, I would walk by feelings.
Now, when you walk by feelings, it's not based on the Word of God. It's based on how that day feels. And I would say maybe God doesn't love me as much today.
Maybe God hasn't forgiven me of that sin that I asked for forgiveness and I confessed. Maybe there's something between me and God when I discovered in my own journey with Jesus that my walk with God is not dependent on how I feel. My walk with God is dependent on the authority of the Word of God right here that I'm holding in my hands.
In fact, John 6:63 says, it is the Spirit who gives life the flesh, it profits nothing. The words I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. You know what that says? There's power in the Word of God.
Hebrews 4:12. The word of God is living. It's quick and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword.
You and I don't have to base our walk with Jesus, our Christian experience, on how we feel. It's based on the authority of the Word of God. So what does that mean? Practically? When I wake up and it's a gray day, cloudy outside, or maybe I'm dealing with some issue in my life.
When I wake up and feel that I go back to the Word of God, I know that all God's promises are yes and Amen in Christ Jesus. First John 1:9. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So those days when I don't feel forgiven, I say, get thee behind me, Satan. Because the Word of God says that I am forgiven if I confess. And I have confessed that Jesus, his blood cleanses me from all sin.
And I can stand before the Father as if I have never sinned. On those days when it seems like there's turbulence and trouble, I can claim John 14:27 Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you.
On those days when I just don't have the strength to carry on, I claim. Second Corinthians 12, verse 9. His grace is made sufficient in my time of weakness.
So this is my journey of faith. This is my journey of miracles in the 21st century. Discovering the authority of the Word of God.
Discovering that God's Word was not just relevant in the time it was written. God's Word is relevant to me today. That I can rest my faith with assurance on God's Word.
And it doesn't matter how I feel. All that matters is what God's Word says right now about me. I remember going back maybe 18 years.
My husband Greg and I can't have children. We have a journey of infertility is one of our journeys. I remember when we got the news from the doctor.
He told us over the phone, we had had multiple tests. And he told us over the phone, I'm so sorry, you all will never have children. And I remember the click and the dial tone, and I was just left there.
My hands. I'd been making bread, and my hands were all covered with bread dough. And I just remember crying in my kitchen, and Greg was at work, and I thought, I gotta wait till tonight to tell him the news, and what am I gonna do? And I washed my hands and I went running out on our gravel road.
And it was springtime. I'll never forget it. The birds were singing, and the sun was warm on my face, but I couldn't feel that.
I couldn't hear the birds. I couldn't see anything. All I felt was pain.
You ever been there? All I felt was devastation of the dream, the death of a dream. And I remember crying out to God, and he said, jill, my precious daughter, count your blessings. And I remember thinking, what, God? I need some pity.
I'm having a hard time right now, and all you care about is praise. But I wanted to honor God and I wanted to do what he had asked. And so I began to praise.
I. This tells you the state of my mind at that present moment. I couldn't even think of anything to praise initially.
And then it took some time, and I thought, oh, the word of God. And there's power in the Word. And I could.
I could. Thank you, God, for your word. Oh, the blood of Jesus.
I'm saved by Jesus blood for me on Calvary. Thank you for that. Oh, I have a wonderful godly husband.
And thank you, God, for my husband. Faster and faster, those blessings tumbled out. And I remember as I turned around and started to walk back to the house, I could hear the birds chirping where I hadn't heard them before.
And I could see the sun and feel its warmth on my face when I couldn't do that before. All because of the authority of the Word of God and choosing to praise and to claim that that's inherent within God's Word. I don't think I've ever experience in my walk with Jesus such a dramatic change in emotion as I did that day.
And you know what? No matter what you're going through, no matter what experience you are walking through right now, Jesus loves you. Jesus is walking right beside you. And Jesus encourages you to stake your faith on the authority of the word of God, and watch as he does a miracle for you as well.
