October 12, 2010 God in the Extreme

October 12
God to the Extreme
Read Acts 17 – 19

Acts 19:11-12 God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, 12 so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.

WHAT IS the purpose of these miracles? It is obvious that the Holy Spirit’s power miraculously healed the sick, but was there a reason for the healing other than to make people well?
Since the time sin entered the world, God has been moving to make known his name and transforming power to save people from all sin known to humanity. Quite simply, God needed to make his name and power known in an extreme way to overcome sin’s extreme affects.
So he went to extremes to save people.
The very thought of an eternal God, who would come to earth, die a criminal’s death, then rise again to glory was preposterous! God is so far removed from the type of limited, death-dealing gods people create in their own image, that he needed to abruptly interject himself into people’s lives, and say, “Look! I’m the LORD of life!”
And he is still making his name known in extreme ways today. We have heard of accounts recently of similar types of circumstances in which God has healed many, many people. God wants to overcome sin. To do so he must extremely inject himself into life just as he did so long ago.
God’s healings bring people to attention. God glorifies his name, and he changes lives from death to life!
That’s extreme.


Pause and Consider: God is available to you to the extreme.