MIRACLES – THE FINGERPRINT of GOD.

Christians today often fail to see Jesus 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.
It is vital that the church begins to emphasize the overcoming power of Christ!

The Kingdom of God is at hand, and miracles are His fingerprint. 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 (Gal 5:6). Thus, the number 1 reason miracles happen is:

1. GOD’S LOVE: (Gal 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” (Mat 14:14).
2. COVENANT: 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 Pet 2:24).
3. WILLS IT: The leprous man said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean” (Mat 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” (Mat 8:7).
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 (Jn 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 (Mat 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. DEMONSTRATIONS OF GOD: The healing power of God provides convincing proof of God’s deity–it proves that He is God. Remember when God told Moses in Exod 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” (Jn. 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” (Jn 14:11).
6. TO FULFILL THE PROPHETIC WORD: 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). The Gospel of Matthew (Mt 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. Ja 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 (Mk 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 Cor 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 (Mat 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 (Jn 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” (Lk 5:17). Read about Peter (Act 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 (Hab 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” (Act 2:22). What proved the ministry of Jesus? Miracles, signs, and wonders did.
10. TO KNOW HIM: “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” (Jn 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 Jn 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 THE SAME TODAY: We can also expect miracles because Jesus is risen and alive today. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 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” (Jam 1:17). God’s methods may change, but His nature never does. He is the God “who heals you” (Exod 15:26). If He doesn’t heal the sick today, then He has changed. But God cannot deny His own name and nature.
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 (Jn 14:12). He also gave us another healing commission in Mk 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” (Mat 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.” (Mat 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 (Jn 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” (Jn 20:30, 31). John was saying that Jesus performed signs to make people believe. And it is clear, from Mk 16:17, 18, that healing and miracles are some of the signs that provoke faith.
15. GOODNESS: 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 (Jn 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” (Jn 20:30, 31). John was saying that Jesus performed signs to make people believe. And it is clear, from Mk 16:17, 18, that healing and miracles are some of the signs that provoke faith.