To be fully HUMAN — A Daily Reflection

 

When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

 

Aren’t people amazing?  For three years, Jesus had been in the area, performing one miracle after another… turning water into wine (the first miracle), healing the sick, raising the dead, walking on water… not your run-of-the-mill miracles.  Big ones.  When He died on the cross, the miracles got bigger… tearing the massive Temple veil in two from top to bottom, blotting out the sun, shaking the whole earth with an earthquake, blowing open the graves and letting the dead in Christ walk the earth once again.  Then there was that little thing about resurrection.  No biggie, just absolute living proof that He had conquered death once and for all and made it certain for each of us that the grave would never hold us either.  Now Peter used the power of Christ and gave a crippled beggar his legs.  Pretty inconsequential in light of all that Jesus had done here on earth.  But still, the people were amazed.  And once again, signs and wonders were what were needed to convince them.

 

Today, most of us have a different reaction to signs and wonders.  Somehow, we’ve decided that God doesn’t do that any more… that He doesn’t heal the sick, restore the lame to wholeness, return sight to the blind.  He stopped doing all that a couple of thousand years ago, right?  That was just Jesus’ way of letting people know who He was, right?  And He gave the power to the Apostles for a while, so they could get things rolling with the church.  But then He stopped.  He doesn’t answer that kind of prayer any more, right?

 

Did you see the video tape of the ultrasound of the little girl’s heart that was changed into a healthy heart right before the doctor’s eyes back in the late 1980’s?  I did.  So did her praying parents and other Christians… and so did the whole country as the tape was aired on national news!  Why were we all surprised?  Because we’ve stopped believing in God’s power.  I don’t know about you, but my God is the same yesterday, today and forever.  That means the same in everything.  Including signs and wonders.

 

Does God heal every time?  No, He doesn’t.  Neither did Jesus heal everyone while here on earth.  Does He do signs and wonders because He has to?  No, of course not.  God does not “have to” do anything!  Unlike what some people will tell you, God is not “compelled” to do what we ask if we ask in the right way, or pray in just the right manner, or have enough faith.  Rather, God performs “signs and wonders” when it will glorify Him, and there is no “formula for prayer” that will force God to do what we ask.  However, if you are abiding in Him, He will be abiding in you, and the things that you ask for will be those things that HE has instilled in you to ask… 

 

So – with all of these things in mind - pray for miracles in your own life and in the lives of those around you.  Signs and wonders from God haven’t stopped.  We’ve just stopped praying for them.