How to Make the Impossible... POSSIBLE!

I started listening to Southern Gospel music when we moved to North Carolina, following the purchase of our Mustang GT convertible toward the end of 2014.  The car came equipped with a satellite radio and as we took our many drives around the area surrounding our new home, we perused different stations and took a real liking to the Sirius XM Southern Gospel channel, Enlighten.

Now don’t get me wrong here… I still enjoy a fairly wide variety of musical styles.  If you come over to my house, you’ll hear our home entertainment system filling the atmosphere with sounds that range from Contemporary Christian in the morning, to Southern Gospel throughout the day and Classical in the late afternoon, as well as the late evening as I read and wind down for the night!  And in the car… well, most times I enjoy listening to the local Fox affiliate news/talk radio and… you guessed it… Southern Gospel!

I think it was the harmonies, the vitality in which the vocalists seem to put into every note they sing and the complicated intertwining of the wide array of musical instruments throughout the arrangements of the compositions, that drew me to this genre of music.  I find that most of the songs tell a story of testimony that comes from deep in the heart and life of the song writers and is then transposed and personalized through the unique life experiences and styles of the groups or individuals who performs the songs.

As I continued my study this morning on the idea of Christians having personal relationships with individual scriptures that God has spoken into their hearts, I was reminded of a dynamic testimony that I heard a Southern Gospel artist give during a live recording that has repeatedly played on the Enlighten channel.

And to be honest, I don’t even remember the name of the group nor of the individual giving the testimony.  But what I’ll never forget is the emotion behind the powerful story of God’s healing hand in the life of this man.

The gentleman had been a gospel singer for many years when he was diagnosed with, what I believe, was throat cancer.  After the required surgery was completed, the doctor told the patient that the procedure had been a success, but due to the scope of the surgery needed to remove the entire cancerous area, he would have difficulty talking for the rest of his life and would never sing again!

So, after a long period of recovery and a lot of feeling sorry for himself, the man began to cry out to God, reminding Him that He had given him his vocal giftings and called him into the ministry of music… and that without a voice… he could not do what he believed he was put on this earth to do as a minister of the Gospel. 

This process went on for a while until one day, the singer began to meditate on the faithfulness of God in the Old Testament story of Job where the man of God seemed to have his whole world collapsing around his feet.  As he prayed and cried out, the former vocal artist reminded God of His faithfulness back in Job’s time and began to claim the same faithfulness of God in his own situation. 

Then one day, as he prayed aloud… he suddenly began to talk normally, without difficulty… and discovered that he was also able to sing with the same strength and range he previously had!  God had miraculously touched his body and completely healed him.  And now in the years that have followed, he tells of the faithfulness of God through his personal testimony of his miraculous healing in venues across the United States!

The thing that strikes a chord in me each time I hear this testimony, is the passion and unshakable truth that pours out of his heart!  It is totally unmistakable to me that this man had a connection or relationship with the faithfulness of God within the scriptures that he was standing on.  Beyond any shadow of a doubt, he knew that he knew that as God was faithful to Job, He could and would be to him in his particular need as well!

And the interesting part, is that the verses that he was connecting to God with… had NOTHING to do with the physical healing of his body!  I believe that this man received his healing for his IMPOSSIBLE situation because he saw and touched the same level of the faithfulness of God in making the IMPOSSIBLE in Job’s life to become POSSIBLE … through the power of Almighty God.

It would seem… and is consistent throughout the Bible… that God can use just about any scripture that we make a deep, personal and even intimate relationship with… as a conduit to meet our needs… no matter how difficult or IMPOSSIBLE they may seem to be.

I heard a statement that an older Canadian Evangelist/Missionary to the Inuit Indigenous people who inhabit the northern regions of Canada, made at church a couple of Sunday’s ago… that really made me stop and think.  Speaking from over 50 years of ministry and countess miraculous events, he declared that,

“IMPOSSIBLE should be the filthiest cuss word known to a Christian!”

Hummm…!  What do you think about that?  After his personal experience with God through the IMPOSSIBLE healing of his voice… I would imagine that our vocalist friend would most definitely agree… that the IMPOSSIBLE is POSSIBLE with God!

It is a theme that is consistent throughout the entire Bible.  The First Mention of this truth is found in Genesis 18:13-14 where the angel of the Lord responds to Sarah’s laugh when she overheard the Lord speaking to her elderly husband, while telling him that they were going to have a baby at their very old age.  The angel of the Lord stated,

“Wherefore did Sarah laugh, saying, Shall I of a surety bear a child, which am old?  Is anything too hard for the LORD?” (KJV)

The phrase “too hard” is translated into the Greek as “IMPOSSIBLE” and just happens to be the same Greek word that the angel of the Lord spoke to the Virgin Mary a few thousand years later, when he told her of the miraculous birth that she would have an active role in.  When Mary wondered how it could all come to be, he declared,

“For with God nothing shall be impossible.”

And it is interesting to note Mary’s immediate reply.  Without any doubt or hesitation, she said,

“Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.”

The truth that succinctly pulls these scriptures from both the Old and New Testaments together and flows with the purpose of our post… is what they tell us is NOT IMPOSSIBLE with the Lord. 

In the original Greek, the word “ANYTHING” in Genesis 18:14 and “NOTHING” in Luke 1:37, along with the word “WORD” that Mary replied in Luke 1:38, all speak of a “rhema” word… which again, is a word that God has given the reader special significance to in their life… and would be considered to be a word or verse in the scriptures in which the reader has developed a close, personal and even an intimate relationship with.

In the literal translation of these verses, these scriptures would actually declare,

“that NO RHEMA word of God shall be IMPOSSIBLE!”

I could tell you of time and time again when God gave both Piper and I special significance and heartfelt meaning to different scriptures that we stood on and thereby witnessed miraculous events, the positive changing of seemingly IMPOSSIBLE situations or words of wisdom and peace given in the midst of challenging and/or heated situations.

And I bet that you can too!

I love those times when I just “know that I know” that the truths from certain scriptures that I hold dearly in my heart are going to see me over and through the hard times that I face… and I then love to spend time studying and talking with the Lord in my daily Bible Studies in order to grow my inner library of RHEMA words to use in my life…

How about YOU?

I hope that you had a nice weekend and are looking forward to a positive week ahead… especially when you take the contents of today’s post to heart!