Looking For Miracles?

THOUGH JOHN NEVER PERFORMED A MIRACULOUS SIGN, ALL THAT JOHN SAID ABOUT THIS MAN WAS TRUE. John 10.41.

We live in a day when the Christians are clamouring for the spectacular and miraculous! Jesus condemned the Jews for their unbelief because they wanted to see miracles before they could believe. If you are to wait for miracles to place your trust in Jesus, you would die unbelieving! The Lord Jesus Christ would condemn our attitude of hungering for the gift but not longing for the Giver!

The way many of God’s people and even their leaders clamour for the miracles and the miracle-workers is unbelievable! Any prophet can come and ‘prophesy’ anything, and God’s people will swallow it without discernment! He would prophesy over a hundred people and if one comes true, only that will you hear! No one ever cares to speak about the ninety-nine that didn’t come true. Sometime ago, a prophetess came and proclaimed that Malaysia would become a Christian nation in 2020 or even before! The word is going across the country like wild fire. But no nation on earth is going to be Christian unless we Christians conquer the people by the sword like some old Mogul emperors did, and convert them by force!

I have been claiming the promise of Psalm 2.8, “Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession”, for the past 15 years. But I know that the Church is not going to possess the nations or the earth, for the prophetic Word of God says that nations are kept for His final judgment. However, I am persuaded that the unprecedented growth of the Church by more than a hundred thousand per day across the world is in answer to all our prayers, claiming that promise of Psalm 2.8.

Great ‘healers’ come and we fill our stadiums with the sick, the lame, the paralysed and the dying by publicising ‘miracle crusades!’ Almost all who come, go away just as they came! No one is bothered and no one seems to be accountable to men or even to God! Even if one spectacular miracle of healing takes place, still it cannot justify our misrepresentation of the truth!

So, where does all this leave you and I, poor Christians with no miraculous gifts? The testimony of the people about John the Baptist should encourage us. They said, "Though John never performed a miraculous sign, all that John said about this man was true." Jesus said about John, “I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Mt 11.11).

All that John did was to use his simple gift – a lonely voice to shout in the wilderness of Judea, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him” (Lk 3.4). Do you want to be great in the kingdom of God? Don’t wait to see or perform miracles but use your simple gifts to serve God and men! It is something you can and must do. Miracles will follow!

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, I thank You for John the Baptist. Now I know that it is faithfulness in the little that You require and not doing the spectacular! Make me faithful in the little. Amen.