Hosanna Restoration Church

It really should not surprise us when God does amazing things. After all, He said He would do amazing things. We have a book full of amazing things that God has already done and the assurance in that book that He has even more amazing things in store. He went so far as to tell us that all of the written word is good for us. It shows us what He is capable of. It tells us what to expect. He intended it to build our faith and trust in Him so that we would be prepared to spread the good news.

So how do we get beyond being surprised? We do it by spending time with God. We do it by seeing and hearing and receiving what He says. As we do this we speak with confidence what He says and we see Him do what He says He will do. If we don’t believe that He will do what He says, then we imply that He lies, but we all know better than that.

This was no small thing that the people had witnessed. It was huge. It was a manifestation of the power of God. These people had heard stories about God doing great things all of their lives. Recently, Jesus had been on the scene and many had been convinced that He must be who He said he was. Still, they were afraid to buck the religious folks and had not followed their hearts.

Peter quickly jumped on the opportunity to tell them the good news that Jesus was still doing miracles and that He would continue to do miracles forever. Along the way, He did mention their role in killing the very source of life (vs15), but the ultimate good news was that they could be forgiven if they would repent and turn to God and they would receive refreshing from the presence of God.

He also explained that all of the prophets had been speaking of and looking forward to the very days they were living in. The great news is that they experienced the beginning of what God planned to continue forever in an ever increasing measure.

Peter told them that they were heirs of the covenant that God made with Abraham. They all knew about that covenant. They all knew all the stories. They no doubt had dreamt of it working in their lives and had experienced it on occasion much like we may have at times experienced a touch from God. But they never experienced it in the measure God intended and neither have most of us. God wants to change that!

God told Abraham that all the families of the earth would be blessed and benefited by this covenant. Since it was God who said it, I think we should expect Him to keep His word. We should take a lesson from the confidence of Peter and John and expect God to do just what He says. The same great grace that was upon them is hovering over us waiting to be activated. It has always been His plan to perform His Word. Don’t be surprised!