Intimacy Conceives Miracles


  1. Message: In Romans 4 Paul used Abraham as an example to show that he was credited as righteous due to his faith before he was even circumcised. The idea of having right standing before God without being circumcised was a huge stumbling block to the Jews because this was the sign God required of them and anyone who lived among them. They wanted the new gentile converts to also be circumcised but Paul is teaching them that faithis what made Abraham righteous just like faith is what makes a Christian righteous. He further explained that Abraham accepted the physical reality that he was 100 years old and his wife was past the years of child bearing, but because God had promised that he would be a father of nations he knew that God could and would make it happen. Faith is a big topic in Christianity and we often use faith as the basis for things that we want, but our biggest testimony of faith is our salvation. Just like Abraham accepted his physical reality and had faith that God would make him a father, we accept the reality that we are born into sin and can’t be made right by our own doing. Our faith is the understanding that in our sinfulness, God makes us right before him and he works a miracle in our hearts that changes our sin nature. Abraham still had to participate by being intimate with his wife, but God worked the miracle of conception in her barren womb. Likewise, we still participate by intimate with God, and he works the miracle of conception in our hearts. Sarah birthed her promised son that would multiply and make Abraham a father. We birth life and multiply the kingdom of God.
  2. Command: Let the miracle of salvation draw us to intimacy with God.
  3. Promise: Our promise is salvation through faith.
  4. Warning: If we are not intimate with God we fall into a pattern of trying to obtain our salvation through works just like the Jews believed their salvation came from circumcision.
  5. Application: We don’t struggle with circumcision, but we carry other traditions and ideas that we believe make us a Christian. When we understand that the miracle of salvation came from God, we stop trying to make it happen by our own works. In other words, we stop trying to “act like a Christian” and we start to truly become one. We accept the miracle of our salvation by faith and our intimacy with God reveals that miracle because it produces good works. Our good works and our faith is multiplied out onto others as our lives becomes a living, breathing testimony. We make this more complicated than it really is but the point is that we don’t earn our righteousness. It’s impossible. Some people really struggle with the idea that God makes them righteous and they are never able to move on into intimacy with God that brings the miracle of change. Instead they struggle and struggle to make themselves right. My challenge to myself is a little different today. I have already accepted the miracle of salvation and I have experienced intimacy with God, but I feel an urgency to help people turn this around in their hearts so they can truly be set free. When people are truly set free they will multiply the kingdom just like Abraham’s seed multiplied the earth.

Leave a Reply