The End of Ourselves - The Beginning of Miracles

The Lord allows us to come to the end of ourselves, the end of our resources and our own “good ideas”…even to the brink of hopelessness before He “does His God thang”. When God works in our life, He does NOT want us bragging about how skilled we are or some great work that WE ACCOMPLISHED on our own. The purpose of our trials is to bring glory to God and increase our faith. 

I am reading through the Bible, cover to cover, this year. I’ve been intimidated by this and feared not being disciplined enough to succeed. I am notorious for reading books halfway and putting them down (don’t judge!). So I finally thought, I have to start somewhere. GOD IS MY STRENGTH. I’m pretty sure HE CAN DO THIS through me. Time to practice what I preach and just submit to prayer for God’s discipline and desire and perseverance to accomplish this awesome feat! Jana can’t, but GOD CAN.

Genesis 17:5 & 17:15
No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations….Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name…”

God inserts the letter “h” into Abraham & Sarah’s names. “H” is made with the sound of breath. God put the sound of breath into Abraham AND Sarah’s names…He INSERTED HIMSELF, because the hebrew word for breath = ruach = Spirit. Therefore, God inserted His Spirit, His life into them, bringing them into a whole new dimension of life – the life after the Spirit. A new identity. Just like the coming Messiah would come to give us…a new identity in Christ.

ABRAM = high father;  ABRAHAM = father of many nations.
SARAI = contentious;  SARAH = princess.   …pretty cool huh?!

Genesis 17: 19-21
Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.

At this point, their names had been changed (new identity). The former Sarai and Abram had already taken God’s promise of a son into their own hands and used Hagar, Sarai’s maidservant, to give Abram a son (Ishmael). They gave God a deadline and then tried to “help God.” NEVER A GOOD IDEA. Hagar got pregnant and gave birth to Ishmael. So now Abraham was old, his body was dead (impotent) and Sarah was way past the age of fertility (menopause).

It was the perfect set-up for God to work a miracle and give them the son God promised

They were in a place where they could no longer do anything themselves. They came to the end of themselves and their resources. There was jealousy and hardship over what they had taken into their own hands. They brought much hardship on themselves. But now God had room to move. And ONLY GOD COULD RECEIVE THE PRAISE FOR THE MIRACLE OF ISAAC! He proved Himself faithful, powerful, redeeming, and loving.

Genesis 21: 1-3
And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him. And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac.
We must stop taking life into our own hands. The end of ourselves is the beginning of miracles. He did it for Abraham & Sarah, His Word is documentation of endless promises and miracles, and HE IS ALIVE and still working miracles today.

Don’t give God a deadline. Just believe