Daily Devotional
THE HOLY SPIRIT — PT 18
Five Day Devotional — The Gift Of Miracles
_______________________________
DAY 1 — MONDAY, AUGUST 24
Nothing Too Hard For Him
“‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.’”
— Jeremiah 32:17, ESV
There is a moment in almost every hospital room when the doctor runs out of options. We started this week's message there, because most of us have sat in a version of that chair. And most of us have felt the same two things collide at once… fear, and a strange, stubborn hope that reaches past what any human hand can offer. Jeremiah prayed this verse from the middle of a siege. Jerusalem was about to fall. The Babylonian army had the city surrounded. By every visible measure, it was over. And yet just before this prayer, God had told Jeremiah to do something that made no earthly sense… buy a field. Spend real money on land in a city that was about to be destroyed, in a country about to be taken captive. Jeremiah obeyed, and then he prayed. Notice the order of his prayer. Jeremiah does not wait to see what God will do before he decides God is able. He settles the question of God's ability first, and lets his requests come from that settled place. “Ah, Lord GOD… nothing is too hard for you,” and only then does he go on to voice his confusion about the siege closing in around him. Faith did not require Jeremiah to pretend he understood what was happening. It only required him to be honest about who God still was in the middle of it. That is worth noticing, because we tend to do this backward. We measure God's ability by what we have already watched Him do. If we have seen Him heal before, we expect it. If we have not, we quietly lower the ceiling on what we ask for. Jeremiah measures God's ability by who God already is… the One who made the heavens and the earth. That ceiling never moves, whether the siege lifts or not. This is the same posture behind everything Sunday's message called “the working of miracles.” It is not a formula for getting God to act. It is a settled confidence that His ability was never in question, even when the outcome still is. You can bring Him the field you cannot yet see a future for, the same way Jeremiah did.
Prayer
Lord, I have some situations I have stopped bringing to you because I decided they were finished. Forgive me for shrinking you down to the size of what I can imagine. You made the heavens and the earth. Nothing is too hard for you. I bring this to you today, not because I know what you will do, but because I trust who you are. Amen.
Today
Name one situation you have quietly decided is beyond hope. Say Jeremiah's words out loud over it today: “Nothing is too hard for you.”
_______________________________
DAY 2 — TUESDAY, AUGUST 25
Jars of Clay
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:7, ESV
On Sunday we watched Peter refuse to take credit for a miracle. A man who could not walk was walking, a crowd was gathering, and Peter's first move was to point everywhere except at himself. “Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?” Paul gives us the image behind that instinct. We are jars of clay. In the ancient world, that was not a flattering picture. Clay pots were the cheapest, most disposable containers available… fired dirt, easily cracked, easily replaced. Nobody kept a clay jar because it was beautiful. They kept it because of what it could carry. And what it carries, according to the verse right before this one, is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” That is the treasure. Not the miracle itself, not the ministry, not the platform. The actual treasure is the knowledge of God in Christ, and everything else… every gift, every answered prayer, every working of miracles… is simply one more way that treasure gets carried to someone else. That is worth sitting with today. Somewhere this week, God may work through something you said, something you gave, something you prayed. The temptation will not be dramatic. It will be small… a little extra credit you let people give you, a little extra weight you let your name carry. Paul's answer is not false modesty. It is just true math. The power was never the jar's to begin with. Here is the strange mercy in it… if the jar looked impressive, people might start crediting the jar. God seems to prefer using ordinary, breakable people precisely so nobody can confuse the container for the treasure. Your cracks are not disqualifying. They are part of how the light gets seen for what it actually is.
Prayer
Jesus, I confess how easily I want credit for things you did. Remind me today that I am the jar, not the treasure. Let people see you through the cracks, not me around them. Amen.
Today
Think of one moment this week where God worked through you. Tell the true story to someone else, and point it at Jesus the way Peter did… not at yourself.
_______________________________
DAY 3 — WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26
Signs That Point Beyond Themselves
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
— John 20:30–31, ESV
John wrote an entire Gospel and then openly admits he left almost everything out. He did not write to give us a highlight reel of miracles. He tells us exactly why he wrote… so that you would believe, and in believing, have life.
It helps to notice John's word choice. Throughout his Gospel, he almost never calls what Jesus did “miracles.” He calls them signs. Water into wine, a blind man seeing, Lazarus walking out of a tomb… every single one is doing the same job, pointing toward the same conclusion. John is not collecting impressive stories. He is building a case for who Jesus is.
That is what a sign is for. On Sunday we used the picture of a highway sign… Nashville, eighty miles. Nobody pulls over to admire the sign. It exists to move you somewhere else. The moment a sign becomes the destination, it has stopped doing its job. It is possible to collect spiritual experiences the same way a driver might photograph every highway sign and never actually arrive anywhere. You can testify to what God did, tell the story at every opportunity, and still never let it move you an inch closer to Jesus. The sign was real. It just never got to finish its job. Our lives function as signs whether we intend them to or not. People watch how we handle provision, sickness, disappointment, and answered prayer. The question worth asking today is simple: when people watch what God does in my life, where does it point them? Toward Jesus, or toward me?
Prayer
Father, do not let my life become the destination. Let everything you do in me and through me point past me, toward Jesus. Use what is ordinary in my life as a sign of what is true about you. Amen.
Today
Identify one thing from this week — an answered prayer, an unexplained provision, an unexpected peace — and give God credit for it out loud, to at least one other person, before the day ends.
_______________________________
DAY 4 — THURSDAY, AUGUST 27
Testing What Wonders We Follow
““If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.””
— Deuteronomy 13:1–3, ESV
This is one of the more sobering passages in the Old Testament, and it is worth pondering. God is describing a real sign. A real wonder. Something that genuinely comes to pass, exactly as predicted. And His instruction is still… do not listen. Notice where this warning sits in Deuteronomy. The chapter right after it warns about false teaching coming from your own brother, your own son, your own close friend… the very people you would least expect to lead you wrong. The danger Moses keeps describing is never the obviously fake. It is the thing that actually works, wrapped around a wrong direction. That combination is exactly what makes it dangerous. Long before charismatic culture, cessationist debates, or any of the categories we argue about today, God had already answered the question we keep asking. The presence of real supernatural power was never the test of whether to follow something. The test was always where it leads, and what it reveals about what you love. Paul says something similar centuries later, warning that even a lawless deception can arrive “with all power and false signs and wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). Scripture never treats supernatural power as self-authenticating. It treats truth and character as the authenticators, and lets power be evaluated by them, not the other way around. That is exactly the discernment Sunday's message pointed toward. Testing a wonder is not unbelief. It is obedience. God is not offended by the question, “where is this leading me, and who am I loving more because of it?” He built that question into His own instructions for His own people.
Prayer
Lord, give me a heart that is not moved by power alone. Let me test every wonder, every voice, every experience against your Word and your character. I do not want to follow signs. I want to follow you. Amen.
Today
If something unusual or supernatural has moved you recently, spend a few minutes testing it honestly: does it point toward Jesus? Does it match Scripture? Does it produce love?
_______________________________
DAY 5 — FRIDAY, AUGUST 28
The Miracle Underneath Every Miracle
“But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
— Romans 8:11, ESV
We close the week where the message closed… underneath every specific miracle is one miracle holding up all the others. Whatever you asked God to do this week… heal, provide, deliver, intervene… that request sits on top of a much bigger, already-settled fact. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead already lives in you.
Paul does not stop at that sentence. A few verses later, in the same chapter, he says creation itself is “groaning,” waiting for the day our bodies are finally set free (Romans 8:18–23). That is the already and the not yet, named in the same breath. The Spirit's resurrection power already lives in you today. Your body still gets sick, still grows old, still waits for its final healing. Some prayers get answered now, as a preview of that coming day. Some wait for the resurrection itself. But both of them rest on the exact same power, and neither of them is what your hope is actually anchored to.
This matters for whatever you brought to this week. If God moved the way you hoped, that was a preview, not the main event, so let it point you to Jesus rather than settle into pride. And if He did not move the way you hoped, that does not mean the power was never real. It means you are still living in the not yet, alongside a whole creation that is groaning for the same thing you are. Your hope was never supposed to rest on getting the specific thing you asked for this week. It rests on a Person who is already alive. That is true whether this week's prayer gets answered the way you hoped, in a way you did not expect, or not yet at all.
Prayer
Jesus, thank you that my hope was never resting on getting everything I asked for this week. It rests on you being alive. Whatever you choose to do in my specific situation, I trust the Spirit who raised you is living in me right now. Amen.
Today
Write down what you are asking God to do this week. Underneath it, write what is true no matter what happens: “Christ is risen.” Carry both into the weekend.
Five Day Devotional — The Gift Of Miracles
_______________________________
DAY 1 — MONDAY, AUGUST 24
Nothing Too Hard For Him
“‘Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.’”
— Jeremiah 32:17, ESV
There is a moment in almost every hospital room when the doctor runs out of options. We started this week's message there, because most of us have sat in a version of that chair. And most of us have felt the same two things collide at once… fear, and a strange, stubborn hope that reaches past what any human hand can offer. Jeremiah prayed this verse from the middle of a siege. Jerusalem was about to fall. The Babylonian army had the city surrounded. By every visible measure, it was over. And yet just before this prayer, God had told Jeremiah to do something that made no earthly sense… buy a field. Spend real money on land in a city that was about to be destroyed, in a country about to be taken captive. Jeremiah obeyed, and then he prayed. Notice the order of his prayer. Jeremiah does not wait to see what God will do before he decides God is able. He settles the question of God's ability first, and lets his requests come from that settled place. “Ah, Lord GOD… nothing is too hard for you,” and only then does he go on to voice his confusion about the siege closing in around him. Faith did not require Jeremiah to pretend he understood what was happening. It only required him to be honest about who God still was in the middle of it. That is worth noticing, because we tend to do this backward. We measure God's ability by what we have already watched Him do. If we have seen Him heal before, we expect it. If we have not, we quietly lower the ceiling on what we ask for. Jeremiah measures God's ability by who God already is… the One who made the heavens and the earth. That ceiling never moves, whether the siege lifts or not. This is the same posture behind everything Sunday's message called “the working of miracles.” It is not a formula for getting God to act. It is a settled confidence that His ability was never in question, even when the outcome still is. You can bring Him the field you cannot yet see a future for, the same way Jeremiah did.
Prayer
Lord, I have some situations I have stopped bringing to you because I decided they were finished. Forgive me for shrinking you down to the size of what I can imagine. You made the heavens and the earth. Nothing is too hard for you. I bring this to you today, not because I know what you will do, but because I trust who you are. Amen.
Today
Name one situation you have quietly decided is beyond hope. Say Jeremiah's words out loud over it today: “Nothing is too hard for you.”
_______________________________
DAY 2 — TUESDAY, AUGUST 25
Jars of Clay
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:7, ESV
On Sunday we watched Peter refuse to take credit for a miracle. A man who could not walk was walking, a crowd was gathering, and Peter's first move was to point everywhere except at himself. “Why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?” Paul gives us the image behind that instinct. We are jars of clay. In the ancient world, that was not a flattering picture. Clay pots were the cheapest, most disposable containers available… fired dirt, easily cracked, easily replaced. Nobody kept a clay jar because it was beautiful. They kept it because of what it could carry. And what it carries, according to the verse right before this one, is “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” That is the treasure. Not the miracle itself, not the ministry, not the platform. The actual treasure is the knowledge of God in Christ, and everything else… every gift, every answered prayer, every working of miracles… is simply one more way that treasure gets carried to someone else. That is worth sitting with today. Somewhere this week, God may work through something you said, something you gave, something you prayed. The temptation will not be dramatic. It will be small… a little extra credit you let people give you, a little extra weight you let your name carry. Paul's answer is not false modesty. It is just true math. The power was never the jar's to begin with. Here is the strange mercy in it… if the jar looked impressive, people might start crediting the jar. God seems to prefer using ordinary, breakable people precisely so nobody can confuse the container for the treasure. Your cracks are not disqualifying. They are part of how the light gets seen for what it actually is.
Prayer
Jesus, I confess how easily I want credit for things you did. Remind me today that I am the jar, not the treasure. Let people see you through the cracks, not me around them. Amen.
Today
Think of one moment this week where God worked through you. Tell the true story to someone else, and point it at Jesus the way Peter did… not at yourself.
_______________________________
DAY 3 — WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26
Signs That Point Beyond Themselves
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
— John 20:30–31, ESV
John wrote an entire Gospel and then openly admits he left almost everything out. He did not write to give us a highlight reel of miracles. He tells us exactly why he wrote… so that you would believe, and in believing, have life.
It helps to notice John's word choice. Throughout his Gospel, he almost never calls what Jesus did “miracles.” He calls them signs. Water into wine, a blind man seeing, Lazarus walking out of a tomb… every single one is doing the same job, pointing toward the same conclusion. John is not collecting impressive stories. He is building a case for who Jesus is.
That is what a sign is for. On Sunday we used the picture of a highway sign… Nashville, eighty miles. Nobody pulls over to admire the sign. It exists to move you somewhere else. The moment a sign becomes the destination, it has stopped doing its job. It is possible to collect spiritual experiences the same way a driver might photograph every highway sign and never actually arrive anywhere. You can testify to what God did, tell the story at every opportunity, and still never let it move you an inch closer to Jesus. The sign was real. It just never got to finish its job. Our lives function as signs whether we intend them to or not. People watch how we handle provision, sickness, disappointment, and answered prayer. The question worth asking today is simple: when people watch what God does in my life, where does it point them? Toward Jesus, or toward me?
Prayer
Father, do not let my life become the destination. Let everything you do in me and through me point past me, toward Jesus. Use what is ordinary in my life as a sign of what is true about you. Amen.
Today
Identify one thing from this week — an answered prayer, an unexplained provision, an unexpected peace — and give God credit for it out loud, to at least one other person, before the day ends.
_______________________________
DAY 4 — THURSDAY, AUGUST 27
Testing What Wonders We Follow
““If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.””
— Deuteronomy 13:1–3, ESV
This is one of the more sobering passages in the Old Testament, and it is worth pondering. God is describing a real sign. A real wonder. Something that genuinely comes to pass, exactly as predicted. And His instruction is still… do not listen. Notice where this warning sits in Deuteronomy. The chapter right after it warns about false teaching coming from your own brother, your own son, your own close friend… the very people you would least expect to lead you wrong. The danger Moses keeps describing is never the obviously fake. It is the thing that actually works, wrapped around a wrong direction. That combination is exactly what makes it dangerous. Long before charismatic culture, cessationist debates, or any of the categories we argue about today, God had already answered the question we keep asking. The presence of real supernatural power was never the test of whether to follow something. The test was always where it leads, and what it reveals about what you love. Paul says something similar centuries later, warning that even a lawless deception can arrive “with all power and false signs and wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). Scripture never treats supernatural power as self-authenticating. It treats truth and character as the authenticators, and lets power be evaluated by them, not the other way around. That is exactly the discernment Sunday's message pointed toward. Testing a wonder is not unbelief. It is obedience. God is not offended by the question, “where is this leading me, and who am I loving more because of it?” He built that question into His own instructions for His own people.
Prayer
Lord, give me a heart that is not moved by power alone. Let me test every wonder, every voice, every experience against your Word and your character. I do not want to follow signs. I want to follow you. Amen.
Today
If something unusual or supernatural has moved you recently, spend a few minutes testing it honestly: does it point toward Jesus? Does it match Scripture? Does it produce love?
_______________________________
DAY 5 — FRIDAY, AUGUST 28
The Miracle Underneath Every Miracle
“But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
— Romans 8:11, ESV
We close the week where the message closed… underneath every specific miracle is one miracle holding up all the others. Whatever you asked God to do this week… heal, provide, deliver, intervene… that request sits on top of a much bigger, already-settled fact. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead already lives in you.
Paul does not stop at that sentence. A few verses later, in the same chapter, he says creation itself is “groaning,” waiting for the day our bodies are finally set free (Romans 8:18–23). That is the already and the not yet, named in the same breath. The Spirit's resurrection power already lives in you today. Your body still gets sick, still grows old, still waits for its final healing. Some prayers get answered now, as a preview of that coming day. Some wait for the resurrection itself. But both of them rest on the exact same power, and neither of them is what your hope is actually anchored to.
This matters for whatever you brought to this week. If God moved the way you hoped, that was a preview, not the main event, so let it point you to Jesus rather than settle into pride. And if He did not move the way you hoped, that does not mean the power was never real. It means you are still living in the not yet, alongside a whole creation that is groaning for the same thing you are. Your hope was never supposed to rest on getting the specific thing you asked for this week. It rests on a Person who is already alive. That is true whether this week's prayer gets answered the way you hoped, in a way you did not expect, or not yet at all.
Prayer
Jesus, thank you that my hope was never resting on getting everything I asked for this week. It rests on you being alive. Whatever you choose to do in my specific situation, I trust the Spirit who raised you is living in me right now. Amen.
Today
Write down what you are asking God to do this week. Underneath it, write what is true no matter what happens: “Christ is risen.” Carry both into the weekend.