miracles

Don’t Follow the Recipe

/ Mark Brady / 2 Comments

April made the dinner in the photo the other day. She made sweet and sour chicken that I thought was better than most Chinese restaurants’ versions, and I would know. I asked her how she did it and she replied, “I just followed a recipe.” It’s funny though how you can give 12 cooks the same recipe and the final dishes will all taste differently. Most likely due to each individual’s uniqueness.

A few years ago, while attending a church service that featured a semi-famous man of God, I witnessed individuals taking notes, as if they were there to learn the recipe of how to get God to do the same thing in their lives as He had done for them. They failed to realize the man of God was giving his testimony in hopes to boost one’s faith. Knowing that God did something for one can help you believe that God can do something big in your own life.

When one such note-taker tries to implement the same practice in the exact same way but fails to get the same result they can become disgruntled and dissatisfied with God. Attitudes Satan can use to draw an individual away from God.

Keep in mind, that God is extremely creative. He does things in unique ways. Not because He gets bored, but to exhibit just how vast his power and imagination are. He likes to do things in new ways. He may ultimately do for you, what He did for the man of God, but He will do it in a new, fresh way. In a way that is most likely due to each individual’s uniqueness.

See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? Isa. 43:19a (NIV)

God’s word assures us He likes to do new things.

Copyright © 2022 Mark Brady.  All rights reserved.

Flakes of God

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As this past Christmas was April’s first in America, she was just as excited when she heard we could have snow. Growing up in the Philippines it would be her first time to see it, feel it, and see its beauty as it covers the ground. As I witnessed her enthusiasm I thought of people who have heard about God, but have never seen him, or felt his presence.

I have known some people that seem to stay on the fringes of God. They might even hear that God is at a certain location doing marvelous signs and wonders, but despite their own need for him, they won’t go.  They might need a healing, a place to live, or a job, but it’s as if they would rather continue to struggle and hurt on their own then accept Him, and truly know what real living is all about.  They settle for only “flakes of God”. They have never sensed his presence or have experienced the peace of his Spirit, and they have no idea how beautiful it is when their sins have been covered as white as snow.

Come now and let’s deliberate over the next steps to take together.
Yahweh promises you over and over:
“Though your sins stain you like scarlet,
I will whiten them like bright, new-fallen snow!
Even though they are deep red like crimson,
they will be made white like wool!” Isaiah 1:18 (TPT)

I heard this morning there is a chance of snow later this week. Hopefully this next front coming through will generate some accumulation instead of only flakes, or flurries, and perhaps provide enough snow so April can learn how to make a snowman, or a snow angel. I’m forecasting there is a move of God coming soon. I sense He wants to make himself known.  He wants to heal, He wants to rule and reign in the life of those who love him. I pray for those who have not ever experienced God in a personal way will seek him, and know for themselves what it is like to have their sins forgiven, and be white as snow.

Copyright © 2022 Mark Brady.  All rights reserved.

It’s Christmas at Denny’s Tonight

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I dream of what my life might have been, if only…

Do you live with regret?  I could, if I allowed myself to.  I sometimes wonder what the church would look like if I had stayed on track and became the pastor I believed God had called me to be.  Would we, the people of the church be an Acts chapter 2 type of church?  Believing in, and walking out the power of the Holy Spirit.  Would we see souls saved daily?  What about signs and wonders?  If only.

But instead, I stopped holding on to, waiting for the promises of God, and I accepted the devil’s substitute for my life, because it was there, now, in the moment.  I just had to believe the lies he was telling me that it was okay.  Kind of like accepting the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.  As I mentioned in my last blog post, Satan tempts or attacks us where we are weak.

Life didn’t end there, for me, as I imagined it would.  I could have become a shell of a man.  I didn’t.  I received God’s forgiveness, asked that his Spirit not depart from me, and moved on.  That is what one should do when things don’t work out the way we think they should.

I read a post on Facebook the other day.  A young woman just had a child in the hospital, but after returning home her and her husband came down with Covid.  The baby was fine, but had to be separated from his new mother.  The baby’s father had to return to the hospital, this time in the intensive care unit.  The young mother wrote something along the lines of, “We dreamed of hiking in the mountains with a tour guide.  But now we are hiking through this with the Lord as our guide.”

Life is not going the way they dreamed, but her focus remains on target.  On the Lord.

That is the only way to deal with potential regret.  Give it to him, and continue to seek him for guidance, for his leading.  He knows the way.  Life may feel like Christmas at Denny’s, but it doesn’t have to.  It comes down to your perspective.  Your view of life.  Is your current situation a set back?  A delay?  A roadblock, or simply a detour?  No matter what it is, God can speak into your spirit and say, “Recalculating.”  God knows the way.  He will get you through the storm and to the other side.

Trust in the Lord completely,
    and do not rely on your own opinions.
    With all your heart rely on him to guide you,
    and he will lead you in every decision you make.
Become intimate with him in whatever you do,
    and he will lead you wherever you go Prov. 3:5-6 (TPT)

Copyright © 2021 Mark Brady.  All rights reserved.

Looking For Jesus (Part 3)

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Elizabeth.  The Virgin Mary’s cousin.  Elizabeth and her husband, Zachariah were quite old, and childless.  They lived honorably before God, yet while on a normal day, at work, when an unannounced angel appeared to him in the temple of God, he was frightened.  Of course the angel said, “Fear not.”  The angel went on to inform Zachariah that his wife would become pregnant with a son, and he was to name him, “John”.  Then the angel continued and gave him instructions for John and told his life cause was to prepare the people for God.  He returned home, and I’m sure he had a difficult time getting his wife to join him in the bedroom, but soon after Elizabeth got pregnant.

I love how God takes everyday, ordinary people to join him in doing some of his most extraordinary work.  “How?” you ask. “Really?  You don’t think God can use you, that you have nothing to offer?  Watch God.  You’re never too old, too short, too tall, too under resourced, or too anything.  All God needs from you is a willing heart.  One that has been given to him.

I had a similar experience when I was married to my first wife.  In a dream I was told our first “born” child would be a boy, and that we were to name him, “Joshua David”, and he was to be a spiritual warrior.  We lost our first child after 9 or 10 weeks of pregnancy, and sure enough, our first born was a son.  You can bet we had no problem picking out his name.  And I am holding God to his word that my son will be what God has called him to be.

Zachariah, being a priest of Judah, had to have known the heart of God’s chosen people were turning away.  He and his wife had been waiting for so long for God to answer their prayers for their nation and for their own lives, but God did.  They certainly had no idea God would use them and their son to set people free from sin.  In fact, I love what Elizabeth says.

Elizabeth, conceived. She went off by herself for five months, relishing her pregnancy. “So, this is how God acts to remedy my unfortunate condition!” she said.  Luke 2:25 (MSG)

Mary went to see Elizabeth and to announce her own pregnancy.  I’m sure Mary knew what had happened to her cousin, and would have no problem believing her own testimony, because of it.  The scriptures say that when Elizabeth heard the news of Mary the baby she was carrying leaped.

Elizabeth was not only looking for her own son, John, but now of a greater one her son would later say he was not worthy to untie the straps of his sandals.  She too was looking for Jesus.

It seems some people have a hard time accepting and believing Truth.  When they hear how much God loves them and that He gave his only son to die on a cross for them.  I think the reason is they try to figure out God with their natural minds, but God is spiritual.

This Christmas season, and always, look harder for Jesus.  Expect and believe even when it doesn’t make sense.  Look for your healing.  For the salvation of your family and friends.  For the future of your children, or for the financial miracle you desperately need.  Who knows?  You may soon be responding like Elizabeth, “So, this is how God acts to remedy my unfortunate condition!”

Copyright © 2020 Mark Brady.  All rights reserved.