Chapter 14--Do You Want a Miracle?
Everybody wants a miracle, right? Wouldn’t you love to see someone do a real miracle that couldn’t be explained by slight of hand? Wouldn’t you like to see a loved one raised from the dead?
Jesus did authentic miracles. He did them so his people would recognize him. The Israelites knew that God could perform all kinds of miracles because He performed them in the Old Testament. There were the 10 plagues which we don’t often see as miracles until we consider that 7 of them stopped at the doors of the Israelites and only affected the Egyptians. There was the parting of the Red Sea, manna in the wilderness, water from the rock and countless others.
Let’s compare some of the miracles Jesus did with the miracles in the Old Testament. Jesus changed water into wine. God changed water into blood in Egypt. Jesus fed the five thousand. God fed two million people in the desert with manna. Jesus made the blind see. God made Elisha’s servant see the hosts of heaven when they were surrounded by enemies. Jesus raised people from the dead. God (through Elijah and Elisha) raised people from the dead. Jesus cured lepers. Namaan was cured of leprosy in the Old Testament. Do you begin to see WHY the Jews should have recognized WHO Jesus was???
Jesus was doing everything he had seen the Father do first! That is called glorifying God. When we reflect God by doing what he does, we glorify him. We draw people’s attention to God, because they know we could never do those things on our own.
Some people think God doesn’t do miracles in our day, but that is only because they are not paying attention. Every single time a person gets healed from something, it is God who does the healing. He still uses medicine and doctors and things to help us get better, but without God nobody would EVER get better. Without God we could not even take our next breath.
And then there is the GREATEST miracle of all. God changes hearts. When we are born, our hearts are already wrecked by sin. People think we are born good, but that is probably because they have not had children yet. All they need to do is work in a nursery for a while and they will know the truth. Nobody teaches children to be selfish or naughty. They just come that way. When my oldest granddaughter Alice was two years old, her parents were trying to get her to obey. They tried to motivate her by asking her if she loved them. Her response? “I don’t love daddy and I don’t love mommy and I don’t love Jesus. And I won’t obey!” You just gotta love two-year-olds! It’s a good thing Jesus loves us in spite of our attitudes. But God changes hearts and today Alice has grown into a beautiful young teen who loves God and all the rest of us too!
Alice at 2
So Jesus did miracles to help the people understand that He was God. Many people believed in Him and they were saved. But the religious leaders who should have known better were jealous. They tried to turn the people away from Jesus and plotted to kill Him. Once they even tried to throw him off a cliff. When they saw his miracles, they said he got his power from Satan! That pretty much sealed their fate which we will discuss another time.
Alice at 15
All of us need a heart change and if we don’t get it, we will not be saved. There is nothing we can do to change our own hearts. We can’t change by trying to be good or fighting to do better. It just won’t work. It requires a miracle. But if you ask God to perform this miracle in your heart, he will do it. He will not turn turn away anybody who comes to Him in true repentance. Do you know why? GRACE! OUTRAGEOUS, SCANDALOUS GRACE!
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