Category: Gods power

Miracles all around us

Annette CoffeyLeave a comment

Believing in miracles is difficult for many people. If you asked most people they would love to see a miracle in their life. Most can probably remember one occurring in their life or the life of a friend or family member. Miracles are happening, though, every minute of every day. God is performing many miracles and just his nature is a miracle. We just need eyes to see them.

Living in faith helps us to see more of God’s miracles. If we have faith to believe in God we can see miracles. What is a miracle: an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause. That sounds like God to me. From day one he has been doing miracles.

Making our entire world and universe and everything in it in six days. Yep a miracle. Why is that so hard for some to believe. It takes real faith. Faith is: confidence or trust in another person or thing: faith in another’s ability. By reading the Bible over and over your faith will be strengthened.

Another way to increase faith is in prayer which is:a devout petition to God or object of worship. Every time we ask God for something to be answered by him we are opening ourselves up to a miracle. We tend to do things ourself until it gets out of our ability. Then we need him to come to our need. That’s when miracles happen.

The more we pray for God to work in our lives and in those around us the more miracles we will see. As our faith grows by seeing God do amazing things we ask him to do more.

Tommy Barnett has believed God for many things in his life and in turn this has changed the lives of his children. They now are believing God for more and more miracles. Dreaming for extra amazing moves of God has become this family’s legacy. The more risks this family takes the bigger the rewards become. It has gotten to a point where day to day living takes more miracles to get by. Just the monthly budget for a church of that size with all of the ministries they are involved in to remain solvent requires miracles every day.

When you get to the point where you believe God to use you more and more in your life. He is able to show you more and more of his ways. Miracles are a big part of his ways. John 14:12 always seemed odd to me. It says: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” NIV. Me do greater works than Jesus?

That always seemed hard to believe. But Jesus is in heaven with God and he is interceding on our behalf with his father. He is believing with me for me to see God work. That’s got to cause miracles to happen.

So if you want to see miracles in this life just ask God to meet more needs. Needs for you, your family and others in your life and you will see many more miracles.

Following God and Serving

Annette CoffeyLeave a comment

You have to make a choice in life who you will serve. Either you choose God or you will end up serving something else. Maybe it will be someone good and fair. But can they give you blessings or eternal life. God says in His word how much he loves us. Even at our worst he wants us to come to him. He wants to make your life the very best that it could ever be.

God doesn’t just desire a casual acquaintance. He wants a relationship with you. Spending time together. Good quality time. As I was growing up I was blessed with a good Christian family. He blessed me in so many ways that I didn’t even realize till I was almost fifty. Things I took for granted. I didn’t know what I had. A loving Christian family with both a mom and dad who adored each other.

Loving and caring brothers and a sister who shared everything with me. We were in church each Sunday. My family read the word together during are great family dinners each night. Vacation Bible school spent with my friends making crafts and bible learning games and skits.

In summertime I went to church camp for a week and spent time with God meeting new friends. But other than that I just lived my life. I knew all about God and Bible stories. I could name all the books in the Bible and got a trophy for that but, didn’t really do anything about it. I was a Christian from five years old but I didn’t really know Him.

Even as an adult I attended church with my family but did not have any fruit in my life. I was a good person but had no personal relationship with God or Christ. I didn’t spend much time with Him beyond church just living my life. It wasn’t till I had my stroke and started looking deeper into who God really was to me. I met a wonderful woman who loved God so much and was always talking about her and God. All he did for her and all she was doing for Him. She was our care home chaplain .

She knew something I didn’t. I was determined to find out. At the time I had committed to reading my bible every morning. That was a good start because I would start in Genesis and read every word. Then start all over again. I would read several pages each day. After a few years I was really understanding who God was and how he would act in different situations.

I told myself this is God’s Holy inspired word and I would believe each and every word. This started changing my behavior. I would be careful to keep his commands and do what he said. Each time I would read a new thought would pop up. I didn’t remember reading before.

I decided to listen to Christian music and would sit outside with my earphones on and listen for a long time. One year I made a resolution to start praying every day. For my family, my caregivers, my nurses and my church chaplain. These prayers grew from five minutes to where I now wake up when the caregivers check on me at 4:00am till breakfast comes at 8:30. Some of that time I nod off or sit and listen to God chat with me.

He will tell me so much and time spent with him is so sweet. I can think of so many people to pray for and so much to bring to him that I sometimes keep praying longer.

If you don’t have a dream of your own then start by praying for others. I prayed for everyone in my life and their dreams, I prayed for more love for others. More love for God and his ways. Then just watch God work. Until you have your own dream to pray for like living the life he gave me.

The relationship I share with God is so great. I have seen so many prayers answered and every day I spend more and more time with him.

I always start every morning thanking him for a brand new day to spend with him.

And always tell him to help me do all he has for me. Let me be part of what you are doing in the word. He has made my life so exciting and has shown me so many things to do for Him.

Following him now means finding a need and helping to fill it. I spend my time trying to make others happy. That might mean teaching a bible study about my closest friend. The one I love spending time with. New Year’s Day he gave me an awesome gift he told me we were leaving this nursing home and returning to my family home in the pines.

He has a lot of new things to teach me and new things to do for him there. I will be living in a home with in home help. I don’t know what my life has in store for me. What challenges I might face. But, I know who does and am willing to follow him to the ends of the world to do it all.

A Brand New Day

Annette CoffeyLeave a comment

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. We get to have only one life so make the best of it. As the new year starts there are many changes we want to make in our lives. For me I am planning a move back to my hometown. Looking forward with great excitement it’s always good to stop and pray about it. It will be a big change for me with my disabilities. The Lord has great things planned for me and I can’t wait to discover them.

I have the support of some really great people and care workers. But as we all look to make changes we need to be doing it all for the Lord and seeking his guidance. Spend time each day talking to God and seeking his wisdom. Spend time each day in his word. As you read you will understand more of what the mind of Christ is. Learning his commandments so you can keep them.

Making resolutions is great we all have things we want to do better or change. I myself have problems judging people by their actions. I need to remember that they are all God’s children. He loves each and everyone of them. They may be far from him. Lost. But they do not know what they are doing. As Christians we have higher standards to live by.

“ I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13 NIV

By leaning on him he will help you. We can’t always change ourselves by willpower alone. We may want to break bad habits such as drinking, smoking, or drugs. With God we can. Maybe it’s just bad habits or procrastination.

Let’s make decisions the way Christ would. Go out and make it the best year yet.

Being Thankful

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This being the season for thankfulness I thought I would write about what we really should be thankful for.
Think back in time to a formless void world where all there was was God. He had a plan. He wanted to have someone to talk with and love. Someone to relate to and to enjoy life with. Someone to love him back. Not someone who would automatically love him but someone who could decide on their very own to love and want to have a relationship with him.
First he would have to create an environment for that creation to dwell in. Some place perfect. Light and dark, night and day, come around every day without fail, season after season. He set the world in motion and the sun. Everything works perfectly for 365 days and then starts over. We never get too warm or too cold to survive. Clouds come and go and the earth waters itself.  
Plants of millions of different colors and varieties were placed here just for us. Flowers with awesome fragrances. All seed bearing to continually renew themselves over and over again. Some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. Deserts, tundra, snow covered hills, jungles. Such variety.
Now think of all the different creatures in the sea and in the air. How about all life on the earth. Every animal, insect, creatures too many to comprehend. These were all given to Adam to enjoy and rule over. He was given the opportunity of naming them all. Talk about an unbelievable gift.
And he made man in his own image. He was so awesome to create all this just for us. It wasn’t just sufficient but mind blowingly awesome if you really think about it. He made us with everything we would ever need to survive and live awesome lives. Someday he would give us some of the knowledge he had to create things for ourselves.
Everything we would need to create for ourselves was growing around us, deep down in the soil, or in the air over us. He gave us the knowledge to make things happen. He gave us dreams to see fulfilled. He taught us so much about the world we live in.

He showed us things he made to cure sickness and taught us about the human body.
Our bodies are so amazingly made so precisely that it has taken thousands of years to discover. We still don’t know it all. God does though. He has helped us discover our planet in so many ways. We have been to the moon. Built aircraft that is able to carry so many people and equipment yet can still climb to altitudes and speeds unheard of. Ships as big as football fields that float around the world.
Yet with all knowledge he still wants to have a personal relationship with each one of us. Who am I in the grand scheme of things? Why would he want a relationship with me? He has placed his spirit inside of me. My life can never be full and I will always be searching for something until I have that relationship with him.
He knows me and what is best for me even though I don’t always know it myself. He knows the full picture and knows everything that will happen in my life.
I am so thankful each morning that he has given me a new day to discover and I will never take that for granted. He has done so much for me that I could never show him how much they mean to me even though I try.

Plugged In

Annette CoffeyLeave a comment

As Christians we need to stay plugged in to our source of power so we can do everything God wants us to and live an abundant and successful life. We need to be full of God like cars need to be full of gas. Time spent in fellowship with our savior and King to be just like Him. Just look at yourself like an electric vehicle. You need to be charged with electricity to run your best. Just like my power chair and my iPad they need to be fully and properly charged to run everyday when I need them. Jesus Himself knew how important it was to stay plugged into the Father. He often times went away to a quiet place to talk to His Father and receive the strength to do what he needed to do. There are many ways we can stay plugged in nowadays. Worship to the one I adore and who adores me in return. We can read God’s word, pray, praise God, attend church, fellowship with believers, give, serve,and the list goes on and on. All things that can help me see His awesomeness and love for me. This is all quality and never wasted or in vain. I can do other things too to have a full life, but they are not as important as time with Him. I feel such joy, peace, and appreciation when I am filled, charged. I can even handle hard or rough times with so much grace. I don’t focus on the trouble, I focus on where my help comes from. Everything He does is for my good. Everything that happens to me, whether good or bad He works together for my good. All He does whether I like it or not He is using for my good. I can rest in His love for me and fear not because the worst that can happen to me is that I die and then I’ll be in Heaven with Him. In John 16:7 He says,
“But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”
Not only did we receive forgiveness for our sins, but eternal life. The Father God and Jesus Christ are in Heaven waiting for the great returning, but the Holy Spirit lives inside us 24/7 if we are Christians. He is there to give us the strength we need for every day. In John 15:4 He says,
“Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit; unless you remain in me.” 
We need to be plugged in to be able to live full and abundant lives as God has planned for us. In John 16:1-2 He says
“ I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will bear more fruit.”
Pruning may be hard and painful but rejoice it brings more fruit. We should be one with Him, spending so much time with Him that, we are like Him wanting what He wants love. Love for Him, love for others (deserving or not) doing all we can to make this world like Heaven. Thinking more highly of others. In John 14:11-14 says
“ Believe when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I am doing, and they will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”
Did He say a few things? No! He said everything. And God does not lie or change His mind. He can always give you more than you ask, but not less. Let that sink in for a minute. The same power that raised Jesus from the grave, calmed the angry seas, healed many people. Now that’s power. Whatever you do or think that spirit is in you. Sin brings death but being plugged in brings eternal life. David is a perfect example of someone who knew this. He was far from perfect but He always got right with God. That’s why God called Him a man after God’s own heart. Do you want Him to say that about you? No one is perfect, no not one. So stay plugged in for full power.

 

Something Great is Going to Happen

Annette CoffeyLeave a comment

We all go through trying times of stress, things that weigh us down and take away our joy. As christians we know that God promised us trials of many kinds. Look at all Jesus went through. Its not that God is mad or upset with us. If we are seeking all we can of our savior he is purifying us as in the fire so we come out as gold, righteous. 
It really comes down to our outlook. How are we handling the fire. First thing to do when down is pray for strength. God says don’t worry but pray about everything instead. He cares for us and wants us to have a great life. He is going to give us His very best, He has promised. Trust Him, He has never failed yet. Tell yourself positive things.
I know my Jesus loves me, Gods got my back, good or bad He works all for good, his plans are good for me . I talk to myself throughout the day. I’m my best cheerleader. But I’m also listening for Him. He knows I will do anything he asks me. One Saturday morning in my nursing home we were waiting for breakfast and God told me to get everyone water, so l did. They loved it.
Back to trials- I had a massive brain stem bleed and almost died. They even asked me if I chose to live or not. They did not give much hope. I could move nothing. And I could not speak or even open my mouth. But I lived and came through the fire. I’m happier now than ever.
Four years ago I started having leg spasms continually after a couple years I found some relief but they came back harder than ever. You saw my health update after surgery they are gone, Amen.
 “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice.” Phillipians 4:4. ASV
We are to rejoice in the Lord always even in trials . My cramps were so bad that at times it was ridiculous and I would start laughing. I got tired of crying. I would tease God and say boy you must be up to something awesome. Knowing he always comes through. The worse the pain the greater the reward.
Something good always comes after the trials so 

just press on graduation is coming with new blessings. Remember God never fails.