His Heart, My Home

In preparing for this teaching, I looked up the word “miracle” in Strong’s Concordance.
I expected to see hundreds of entries for the word “miracle”. I expected to find so many scriptures and so much information about miracles that it would take several days to sort through it, and study it all. But I was surprised. There are very few references to the word miracle. The word milk is actually mentioned many more times in the Bible, than the word “miracle”.

When I asked the Lord about this, He said, “Son, I don’t talk about miracles. I do them. Then my people talk about them.”

We are in awe of miracles because we so rarely see and experience the supernatural realm of miracles that God naturally inhabits. We visit the realm of miracles, but don’t live there.

When I was a missionary in the Philippines, we would facilitate and host groups of Christians from churches in the U.S., South Korea, and Australia, that came to visit and help in our outreaches.

I always enjoyed seeing their reactions to life in the Philippines. They “oohed” and “ahhhed” over everything! They were like children exploring their world for the first time! Everything was amazing! Everything was other-worldly to them!

They exclaimed:

“Wow! A lot of Filipino’s houses have roofs made out of some kind of grass.”

“Wow! Look at that traffic jam… bumper to bumper, with no traffic signal and no lanes!”

” Wow! Did you see that man climb up to the top of that coconut tree… without a ladder…
with just his bare feet and hands?”

” Wow! Look at all the people crammed into that tiny sidecar car of that motorcycle.”

My visitors were amazed. They were fascinated. But me? I was acclimated. This was my adopted home, the place where I lived, and worked, and worshipped. It was my natural environment.

It’s the same with God. He is a God of miracles. Miracles are a natural expression of who He is, of His nature, His character, His presence, His essence, His very being.
Miracles are normal to Him. They are just what He does.

But, miracles, because they are outside the bounds of our unrenewed, sense-ruled minds, most often leave us wide-eyed and unable to say anything but “Wow… just wow!”

Here’s some good news: As we allow Holy Spirit to acclimate us to God’s thoughts, purposes, and ways, we will begin to feel right “at home” in the midst of miracles.

“Now to Him who is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly more than all that we dare ask or think [infinitely beyond our greatest prayers, hopes, or dreams], according to His power that is at work within us…” (Ephesians 3:20, Amplified Bible)

To enter into and experience the realm of miracles, we have to leave our comfort zones and allow Holy Spirit. the Comforter  to usher us into His realm, the realm of the miraculous.

Let’s return to the account of the widow and the miraculous supply of oil. (2 Kings 4:1-7)
In our two previous posts in this series, we learned to:

● STOP talking about the NEED, and START 
   talking the language of FAITH!

● STOP focusing on what you DON’T HAVE 
   and START focusing on and using what 
   you DO HAVE!

Now to our next principle found in Verse 4:
Elisha said to the widow: “And when you have come in, shut the door behind you…”

Principle #3:

SHUT the door to fear and negativity.

OPEN the door to faith and possibility.

Most of us have not yet learned to operate and navigate in the supernatural realm, the place where the seemingly impossible is indeed, and in truth, possible.

The dictionary defines the word “possible” as “being within the limits of ability; being what may be conceived or done according to the natural order of things.”

Since there are no limits or boundaries of any kind with God, everything is possible to Him, and with Him. He operates far over and above what we are able to hope, think, imagine, dream, or conceive. He is neither controlled, nor constrained, by the natural laws or limitations of this universe.

His ability is supernaturally infinite! He upholds, maintains, guides, and propels the entire universe by his mighty Word! He is the Self-Existent One, the “I AM” of Eternity! With God, nothing is impossible!

And because our Father desires for us to live with Him in the place where all things are possible, He has given us both a map (His Word) and a GPS system (Holy Spirit) to personally guide us as we enter and explore that miraculous realm.

He invites us to come inside, into the secret place, the place of miracles, the place of connection to His unlimited ability.

The widow was in a place of desperation.
The prophet knew that she had to first be disconnected, removed, and transferred from that place of worry, fear, and unbelief, before she could be ushered into the secret place where the impossible is possible.

Elisha told her in 2 Kings 4:4 to go in and “shut the door“. This wasn’t just a quirky command given to the widow by an eccentric prophet. It is actually a powerful principle emphasized by Jesus as He taught His disciples about prayer.

“But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” (Matthew 6:6)

We see from the instructions of both Elisha and Jesus that we must first “shut the door” if we expect to enter the secret place where the miraculous takes place.

This “secret place” is called the “innermost chamber” by the Passion Translation of
2 Kings 4:4.

Taken all together, we know God is referring to much more than a physical door, leading to a physical room, in a physical house. These scriptures depict our human spirit communing with the Spirit of God. That’s our goal, to experience the powerful intimacy of a spirit-to-Spirit connection with God.

We are to SHUT THE DOOR to distractions, negativity, worry, fear, unbelief, and the lies of the enemy.

Want to know how to do that? There’s a little button on the side of your cell phone, and another one on your TV remote. Press those buttons until the screens go dark.

“OH, NO! NOT THAT! Please, let’s talk about something else… anything else but that!”
Don’t panic! We’re only talking about an hour or two, from time to time, not forever!

Remember, our goal is to enter the secret place so we can receive the miracle that we need from God. Do we want a miracle or not?

Slithering out of the social media swamp, and deserting the digital dungeon for a while seems really frightening, because we then experience a spooky sensation called SILENCE!

Modern reality is this: We are constantly connected to a world full of distractions: streaming news, sports, data, texts, video clips, games, memes, online shopping, social media connections, and on and on. It’s like a giant spider’s web in which we are trapped 24/7! Wait a minute! Maybe that’s the reason we call it “the world-wide-web”!

Embracing silence is an important step in creating an atmosphere for communication with God. Although it doesn’t cause God to speak, it does help us to hear Him speak.

Committing to a period of silence may close to door to outer external distractions, but it’s only the first step. How do I then close the door on my inner distractions?

How do I turn off the unending loop of my shameful past? How do I push back against the pressures I am presently facing that threaten to crush me? How do I conquer my fear of future failures?

The answers are to be found by continuing our spiritual odyssey from the place of SILENCE to the place of STILLNESS. Are you ready?

I hope so, because we’re going to dive right into this concept, and its application in our next post. I believe you will be blessed as you learn how to expand your faith and live continuously in the realm of the miraculous. See you then!

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Miracles!