Why Miracles Happen--The Fingerprints of
God's Love
by Todd Bentley
BOOST YOUR FAITH
God wants to boost our faith in the power of the Atonement. It is God's desire for all of His people to walk in divine health and to minister complete healing to others. The commission of Mark 16:17, 18, should not merely be words on a page, but a daily reality.
"And these signs will follow those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."
If you're a believer, then you are a candidate for this commission!
HEALING IS FOR ALL
Surely He has borne (suffered for) our grief (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:4, 5).
In a prophetic fulfillment of the healing power of Jesus' suffering, Peter writes, "By whose stripes you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). It is done! The cross is a done deal. Both Scriptures speak of how Jesus paid for sin and healing all at once through the Atonement. He not only bore our sins in His body, but also "surely" bore our sicknesses.
Although we see and acknowledge Christ's suffering for our cleansing and healing, we must also see Him as the overcoming One. He didn't merely suffer; He conquered sin, disease, death, and the grave! We must see Him as the victorious Christ who rose up on the third day with resurrection power over sickness, disease, and death. He took the curse of the Law and redeemed us, so we could once again come into the blessing of Abraham, and be whole in body, soul, and spirit (Galatians 3:13, 14).
VICTORY OVER SIN AND SICKNESS
Christians today often fail to see Him as the resurrected, victorious Christ. They still relate to Him as the suffering, afflicted, wounded Jesus on the cross. Much of the church presents Jesus this way today. Isaiah is saying that surely, in the same way that He suffered for our iniquities, He was beaten for our sicknesses. After Christ suffered and died, He conquered the grave and rose victorious over sin and disease, so we can now walk in victory over these same enemies.
It is vital that the church begins to emphasize the overcoming power of Christ! Yes, He suffered on our behalf, but now He is the conquering One who has overcome sin, sickness, disease, death, and poverty. If we will put our faith in the victorious Christ, we can receive the blessing of sozo--the forgiveness, liberty, and healing He has provided for all through His atoning sacrifice. This sacrifice is freely given, so we can live a victorious Christian life by overcoming sin and sickness.
THE FINGERPRINT OF GOD'S LOVE
The fingerprint of God's love is on all 15 reasons listed below, of why miracles happen! Everything in the Kingdom works by love. Faith, power, and the anointing have no lasting value unless motivated by love (Galatians 5:6). Thus, the number 1 reason miracles happen is:
1. GOD'S LOVE
The Father's heart of love for people is the number one reason miracles happen. His love, expressed through the Abrahamic covenant thousands of years ago, now blesses us as 21st century believers with salvation, deliverance, prosperity, and healing. Under the New Covenant, we can receive those same blessings because we are redeemed from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13, 14). Love, compassion, and tender mercies motivated Jesus' ministry. "And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick" (Matthew 14:14).
2. GOD KEEPS HIS COVENANTS
God's covenants are extremely powerful and sure, because God is a God of His word. His promises are even more sure than His name, His very nature as God. If He promises something, He does it. It's as simple as that! God's promise of healing, "by whose stripes you were healed" is a sure thing we can stand on (1 Peter 2:24).
3. GOD WILLS IT
God wants to heal, and He's willing to heal you. It's easy to believe that He wants to heal, but harder to believe that He's willing to heal you. The leprous man said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean" (Matthew 8:2). Jesus responded, "I am willing. Be cleansed." Remember the Gentile centurion who didn't even have to ask Jesus to heal his servant? Jesus simply said, "I will come and heal him" (Matthew 8:7).
Similarly, the disciples prayed for God to release Peter from prison. Someone knocked at the door and Rhoda answered. It was Peter! (Acts 12:13.) Their answer was so immediate that they didn't believe Rhoda's report.
Believe for an answer while you're still asking. God wills it. He wants to heal you! Jesus is just as willing to heal us. Believe in His goodness and His desire to heal. He is saying to each of us, "My son, my daughter--I am willing. Be made whole."
4. MASS EVANGELISM
Lost souls are God's passion, and healing is the number one tool for the harvest. A great multitude followed Jesus "because they saw His signs that He performed" on the afflicted (John 6:2). Jesus reached the entire nation of Israel with the Good News, because He healed all kinds of sickness and disease, and His fame went through all of Syria (Matthew 4:24). We tell the world that God is real, but they cry out, "Show me!" Jesus showed them. He healed them and reached them, and they followed.
Two men, who didn't even receive prayer were totally healed when Jesus touched their eyes. They became known as the "two blind men." People were amazed by their testimony of God's healing power, and the news spread all over the country. That's the evangelistic power of healing and miracles.
5. DEMONSTRATION OF DEITY
The healing power of God provides convincing proof of God's deity--it proves that He is God. Moses understood this truth. Remember when God told Moses in Exodus 33 and 34, that He wasn't going to accompany them into the Promised Land, He would instead send an angel to travel with them? Moses told God that they wouldn't go unless He did. Moses said that without God's glory, they would lose their distinction as God's people.
Without the miracle-working power of God, Christianity is just another religion. What makes God, God, other than the demonstration of His deity? Jesus proved His deity through the miraculous.
Jesus began His ministry by turning water into wine. The Bible says: "This beginning of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him" (John. 2:11). This miracle was a manifestation of His glory as God in the flesh. This was the first miracle to demonstrate His deity. It was necessary, so that His disciples would be thoroughly convinced that He was God. Later in John's Gospel, Jesus said to His disciples, "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves" (John 14:11).
6. TO FULFILL THE PROPHETIC WORD
Isaiah gave us a prophetic promise of healing, hundreds of years before Christ. In Isaiah 53, he spoke of Christ's suffering for our pain, sin, and sorrow before declaring: "By His stripes we are healed" (verse 5). Those many centuries ago, God prophesied healing in the Atonement. Isaiah prophesied that Christ would suffer for our pain, sorrow, and sickness just as He would suffer for our sin. Healing is for all, in the same way as the forgiveness of sin is for all. It's not just for some. All! No one is excluded from salvation or healing.
The Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 8:16, 17), confirms that Jesus' healing ministry fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy. Jesus healed all in order to fulfill Isaiah's prophecy, that He would eventually pay the price for our healing. Jesus didn't come just to die for our sin, but also for our sicknesses. Jesus, through His healing ministry, established forever the prophetic promise of healing for those who put their faith in Him.
7. FAITH
Faith is one of the vital reasons why miracles happen. James 5:14 and 15, describe the power of faith: "The prayer of faith will save (or heal) the sick." The faith of the person praying is important, not necessarily the faith of the sick person. As we pray for others in faith, they are healed. When we pray for healing, we are to believe for it before we see the healing manifested in the natural realm (Mark 11:24). In other words, believe before we receive.
This is a powerful principle. That's why it's so important to develop the eyes of our hearts--to see by faith, things that don't exist yet on earth (2 Corinthians 5:7).
Faith of the sick makes them well, too. Often Jesus told people that their faith had healed them. Consider the woman with the issue of blood (Matthew 9:22). Another person's faith is very important too. Believers can stand in the gap for others who may be too weak or beaten down to fight in faith. By standing in the gap, they exercise faith on the other person's behalf. Consider the nobleman's dying son, healed because of his father's faith (John 4:47-50). Faith in Jesus, with His desire and ability to heal is a vital ingredient for miracles.
8. HEALING ANOINTING
This is the power of God's manifest presence. When it comes, it drives sickness and disease out. It doesn't have anything to do with people's own ability to believe God for their healing. It has everything to do with how much of God's presence is manifest on the person ministering healing. With a strong anointing, sickness comes under the authority of the presence of God.
On one occasion, Jesus was ministering and the "power of the Lord was present to heal them" (Luke 5:17). Read about Peter (Acts 5:15). People who were sick on beds in the street, waited for Peter's shadow to touch them. He carried so much of God into the street, that miracles happened. Some of the Old Testament prophets described how this anointing will be seen in the last days (Habakkuk 3:3-5; Malachi 4:2, 5). The presence of Jesus drives away sickness.
9. TO PROVE THE MINISTRY
The release of healing power is an important way of proving or validating the ministry of God's people. How will people know that we truly serve a living, powerful God, unless they see the demonstration of His power in our lives? Peter said to the crowd at Pentecost: "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested (proven) by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst" (Acts 2:22). What proved the ministry of Jesus? Miracles, signs, and wonders did.
10. TO KNOW HIM
Here's a wonderful reason for God's power: every miracle is an invitation to know Him! Jesus rebuked the people because they didn't recognize the true purpose of the signs, "Most assuredly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled" (John 6:26). There is nothing wrong with signs as long as we understand the reason for them.
According to Jesus, signs should prompt us to seek Him. The sign is a whole lot more than the "Wow." He didn't rebuke the people for seeking signs, but for seeking physical blessings like bread, instead of the Bread of Heaven--Himself. He was saying, "The signs were an invitation to know Me. I revealed Myself, My love, and My goodness by healing you." You've had a touch of the divine when you have a massive cancer, and a finger reaches from Heaven, touches you, and the cancer is gone.
It leaves you with a greater desire to know this awesome God. Jesus ultimately wants us to seek Him, not for the loaves or the benefits, but to know Him personally. He wants a relationship with us. In John 6, the Lord spoke of Himself as the Bread of Life, and called people to eat His flesh and drink His blood. This was His call for us to come into intimate relationship with Him. It's His desire that when He heals us, we will want to know Him--the Source of healing--not just want more of His blessing.
11. HE IS STILL THE SAME TODAY
We can also expect miracles because Jesus is risen and alive today. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He acts the same as He did two thousand years ago. He still does miracles and wonders today, because He is alive and He is the same. That's why miracles happen! Miracles couldn't have passed away with the apostles, because then, He wouldn't be the same today. He is the "Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning" (James 1:17).
God's methods may change, but His nature never does. He is the God "who heals you" (Exodus 15:26). If He doesn't heal the sick today, then He has changed. But God cannot deny His own name and nature.
Jesus made this powerful statement : "I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death" (Revelation 1:18). God heals today to demonstrate His resurrection power and sovereign dominion over the influence of hell and death.
12. HEALING COMMISSION
Miracles happen today because Jesus commissioned us to work the miraculous in His name. He heals us and works in power through us because of this commission (John 14:12). He also gave us another healing commission in Mark 16:15-18, telling us to go into the entire world to preach the gospel, and promising that signs would follow those who believe. Signs and wonders don't automatically follow us because we are Christians. It's a belief in signs and wonders--in the unseen--that releases the miraculous. It's "according to your faith let it be to you" (Matthew 9:29).
13. REPENTANCE
Repentance! With every miracle comes a responsibility to change. Healings can actually bring a judgment against entire cities. I believe God does miracles in some cities in North America, as a sign to them that they don't know God--that they are godless.
"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to Heaven, will be brought down to Hades; for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day." (Matthew 11:21-23)
God does miracles in cities, and in the lives of believers, in the hope that they will repent of their sin and unbelief. Supernatural signs demonstrate how real and awesome our God is--they call us back to the Father so our hearts are totally after Him.
14. SO THAT WE MIGHT BELIEVE
God does signs and wonders today, so that we will believe in His power to do the impossible. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, so that people would believe He was from God (John 11:42).
The apostle John confirmed this purpose for the miraculous: "And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name" (John 20:30, 31). John was saying that Jesus performed signs to make people believe. And it is clear, from Mark 16:17, 18, that healing and miracles are some of the signs that provoke faith.
15. GOODNESS
Miracles happen because of God's goodness. Jesus said, "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in Heaven give good things to those who ask Him!" (Matthew 7:11). Our Heavenly Father is a very good God--the Scriptures and nature testify to this over and over. He wants to lavish good gifts on us. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17).
God gave His only Son to die for us, then He gave us the Holy Spirit to teach, comfort, and empower us. He also wants to continually pour Heavenly blessings on us who will receive them by faith. God is so good that He wants to do "exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think" (Ephesians 3:20).
Todd Bentley
Fresh Fire Ministries
www.freshfire.ca
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Todd Bentley's Upcoming Itinerary:
July 15-18, 2006
California Revival Meetings
Church on the Hill
1445 Ford St.; Redlands, CA
Contact: info@freshfire.ca or 604-853-9041
July 20-22, 2006
Fresh Fire Partner Conference
Anaheim Convention Center
777 Convention Way; Anaheim, CA
Contact: partners@freshfire.ca or 604-853-9041
July 27-29, 2006
California Revival Meetings
Celebration Community Church
859 Blossom Hill Rd; San Jose, CA
Contact: info@freshfire.ca or 408-225-1000 or
www.celebratejesus.net
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