[Peter] described how the Lord had brought him out of prison. Acts 12:17

God does the most surprising things. Look at Peter. Peter had not known that his fellow Christians had stayed up this night to ask the Lord to deliver him. It was the only thing they could do. They were absolutely helpless, and therefore they were all the more willing to let the Lord handle the matter. The result was that the Lord surprised them. They had not expected that their prayer should be answered. They had miscalculated; they had made God too small.

All of us need to learn this fact about our prayer. We are praying to the true God who loves us dearly. We are asking things of Him who can do all things. We usually feel that we should bring to the Lord only such things as are possible in our thinking. After all, God already has given us the strength, the talents, and the ability to do the possible. We need to have the courage to step to the throne of grace and ask God for the impossible. That is when our faith really begins to shine. Then we have acknowledged God to be the great God that He really is. Nothing pleases the Lord more than this.

We need to think about this especially in our church work, in the great mission work in which we are engaged. Let us pray to God to do what we think is impossible, then we shall better understand that with God all things are possible.

PRAYER: Almighty God, forgive us for thinking You are too small to accomplish great things. Help us by Your Spirit boldly and confidently to call on you; in Jesus' name. Amen.

(Devotions from "The Abundant Life" copyright 1998, CPH. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be printed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of Concordia Publishing House. Permission is granted for one-time e-mailing of this link to a friend. For information on other devotional material, please contact CPH at 800-325-3040 or visit CPH at www.cph.org.)

Today's Bible Readings: Judges 16-18    Luke 15:11-32

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