It’s the second weekend of the Third Day ‘Miracle’ tour-6 concerts gone and nearly 40 more still to come. Already we have begun to realise that by naming the album and the tour ‘Miracle’ the bar has been set high! There is an expectation that this truly will be a miracle tour-onstage, for the audience, backstage, in the dressing room, on the tour bus.
For devotions with the band I am mostly going to be focusing on Paul’s 2nd letter to the Corinthians, and for Sunday tour devotional time we will be looking at some of the miracles of Jesus. In the first chapter of 2 Corinthians Paul writes these words:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 2Cor. 1:3-4
Sharing this passage in our devotions tonight, I reflected on the characteristics of God that Paul highlights when he designates God as the Father of all compassion and as the God of all comfort. I was reminded too that whenever Jesus healed people His motivation was compassion for that person and a desire to bring them comfort.
Paul further reminds us that once we have been comforted by God in our troubles, that immediately qualifies us to bring His comfort to bear in the lives of others. I believe we will be living testimony on this tour to the truth of these verses.
Already we have begun to receive prayer requests from people in desperate need of the Lord’s compassion, comfort and healing: people who need a miracle. We have prayed for a young married couple with a one year-old daughter suffering from leukaemia, a young man with cancer of the liver and kidney, and an older lady in the advance stages of cancer.
We have heard tell of a prison inmate listening to local Christian radio and requesting Third Day’s ‘I need a miracle’ and asking listeners to pray for a miracle to save his marriage.
Each night Tai and I spend a few moments on stage encouraging members of the audience to be the miracle in the life of a child the poorest nations of the world by entering into World Vision’s child sponsorship programme, and we see on average more than 60 children sponsored each night.
I have also been auctioning artwork from the Gateway School in India in the VIP meet n’ greet before the show. This tour we have elephant collages created by some of the Gateway school children, and each night we have been amazed at the generosity of fans. All the proceeds goes to the upkeep of the school and the education of the 400 plus children.
What is clear is that our faith levels are rising, we are being bolder in our prayers and we are believing that God is truly a miracle working God! For our tour devotion last Sunday I shared the story of the miraculous catch of fish from early in John’s gospel, and explained that although the miracle happened out in deep water- that place of complete abandonment and surrender to God and to the flow of the Holy Spirit- that first of all Jesus asked John to push out a little way. The biggest miracles sometimes start with the smallest steps. Yet you can’t stay in the shallows forever, you have to push onto the deep.
Will you pray that on this tour we really discover the thrill and the abandonment of the deep and of the miraculous.