Anything is Possible

I’m convinced that Jesus looked at the people around him and thought, “Anything is possible.” I believe he regularly surveyed his circumstances and said, “Anything is possible.”

The Samaritan woman in John 4 drops her water jar and runs into town to tell everyone about Jesus. He had welcomed her. Jesus had accepted her. Even in her horrible sins, even with all her baggage, he had treated her with respect and dignity and hospitality. And this hopeless woman now had hope. This dead woman now had life. She’s redeemed. She’s reconciled. She’s saved. And it’s stunning to me that by the end of the story, the entire village of Sychar is taking their religious direction from the town sleaze! Anything’s possible! The way Jesus treated this one lonely woman rocked the whole city!

With Jesus, anything is possible.

The blind see, the lame walk, the prisoners are released, the dead are raised. The fisherman who betrays Jesus three times the night he’s arrested becomes a foundation stone for the eternal Church of God. The angry apostle who begs to call down fire to incinerate a whole village that rejects Christ winds up giving God’s people the most beautiful words about love ever written. The Church’s biggest enemy, the killer of Christians, becomes by the grace of God the Church’s greatest writer and preacher and church planter.

Anything is possible.

Zacchaeus is pulled out of a tree. Lazarus walks out of a tomb. Demons are sent back to hell. The hungry are fed. Money is found in a fish’s mouth. Doubting Thomas believes. Storms are stilled. The temple is cleared. Gentile jailers are baptized. And camels pass through the eye of a tiny needle.

We will never grow, we will never be transformed, we will never be moved, we will never live up to our God-ordained potential until we adopt the mind of Christ and begin to see and believe that anything is possible! It really is!

But, Allan, my church will never change.

Wrong answer! With Christ Jesus, anything is possible!

But, Allan, this world will never change.

Oh, no! With Jesus, anything is possible!

Allan, I don’t think I can ever change.

Are you kidding? Have you read the gospel story of salvation from God in Christ? Have you heard the good news? The almighty Creator of heaven and earth loves you! He welcomes you! He’s taken care of your sins! And it’s all very, very, very possible!

Peace,

Allan