Miracles are often thought to be this mysterious thing that rarely ever happen in life and are entirely dependent on God “sovereignly” doing something without our input at all. Fortunately, this is not entirely accurate and there are a number of things we can do to actively engage miracles. The first thing is to actually believe that we can perform miracles. The old pattern of belief said “if God wanted me to have miracles, He knows my address and knows where to send them. No miracles means it isn’t God sovereign will.” The old posture is one of helplessness and complete dependent on a God that may or may not actually want to pour out His power upon you. Instead of this viewpoint, I want to show you some keys on how to transform yourself to come to a point where you are able to regularly work miracles like Jesus did.
The old posture about miracles is supported by the common belief about sovereignty, but the problem is that sovereignty doesn’t mean what we think it means, and is rather a title for Gods positional authority, whether His will is always being done or not. This means that it is possible for God to be sovereign simultaneously to things not going His way. To break it down further, God’s sovereignty means that he is the highest authority, period. In spite of this undeniable fact, things in life do not always match up with His will–else Jesus wouldn’t have needed to pray for “your kingdom to come and your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven” if it was happening all the time already! Instead, Amos 3:7 says, “Surely the sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.” Even God, in his sovereignty as the highest authority in all creation, doesn’t do anything without first involving people so that people pray and His will manifests in the earth. This is a self-imposed limitation that God has created because he wants our interaction (I will not go into this further here but may in a future blog post). Thus, miracles are actually not just dependent on God, but dependent on our interaction.
Miracles don’t usually come about by random chance. Rather, when understanding the spirit realm and how things come from the invisible into the visible world we can be more consistent in making it happen. Hebrews 11:1-3 says, “Now faith is evidence of what we hope for and substance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.” Faith is a force–a substance that takes the invisible and makes it visible. God formed the universe out of this substance, and He has given each of us faith as well. We can extend that force in our lives and use it to work miracles. Faith is a key to miracles because miracles happen, in part, when we use the invisible force of faith to alter the invisible world.
If faith can create miracles, unbelief can suffocate them to death. The areas of unbelief in our lives will have a direct impact on the effectiveness of our faith. Working over time to alter our beliefs about God, ourselves, and the world around us will also help removed unbelief in our lives. Getting deliverance from demons will also help with this problem, as they constantly whisper lies that can feet it. When the demons aren’t present to feed the unbelief and we have dealt with our own beliefs on the subject, the two main sources of food for the doubt will be gone, and when the food is gone, the unbelief will wither and dry up. Healing from inner hurts also helps in this process as it can help remove access that demons use to influence us. Additionally, healed emotions can help us to have a right perspective about things and this affects our beliefs too!
Miracles usually begin with a seed. Like most things in life we start off with something small, and we use it to grow and learn. As we do so, it also grows within us. Music lessons are a perfect example of this. When I was first given a guitar I could barely play a single chord, and my strumming ability was nonexistent–I was a one-strum wonder. As I continued to practice and play the guitar, I began to learn a few more chords and my strumming ability also increased. Eventually I got to the point where I even began to memorize songs and write my own! What at first could not even have been considered a skill has now become a useful tool in my life, but it took practice over about ten years of time to reach where I am today, and even by worldly standards I am still a novice, but a novice that doesn’t sound horrible anymore. Likewise, miracles begin in seed form. We may not see a lot of fruit early on, but all plants have to take time to grow before the fruit is visible. First the seed breaks open and forms a stem, then leaves, and eventually the fruit will appear, but this happens last. If we don’t see any effects when we pray for and command miracles, we may simple be lacking in practice and maturity in this area! Instead of getting discouraged we need to take the opportunity to practice!
Scripture meditation can play a part in miracles as well. As we consider the things that God has done in the past and allow our understanding to be altered by pondering and focusing on those past-miracles, we can transform our faith and expectation and feed the seed of miracles within us. It is best to choose scriptures that demonstrate miracles to us or reveal an aspect of God’s character or our inherent rights as His children that plays a part in our ability to believe for miracles.
Experiences play a big part in our ability to work miracles. While it is possible to work miracles without ever experiencing them, even just one miracle experience is valuable. Having experienced a variety of miracles firsthand, I can say there is a transformation that can happen in our mind when we witness a miracle. I say “can happen” because whether our mind transforms from that experience is partly based on our heart. If our hearts are closed off to God or the miraculous, it is unlikely we will absorb the spiritual nutrients that are released in that miracle event. Conversely, if we are open and ready to experience and receive all that God has for us, witnessing miracles firsthand is a priceless event and will certainly help transform our minds! As a side note, unlike the original disciples, we didn’t have three years of watching someone perform miracles in front of us very day, so we may need to pray in and seek out opportunities to witness miracles firsthand.
Paired with scriptural meditation and experiences are visualization and imagery training. Ephesians 1:20-21 says, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” When we imagine and visualize the miracles we are expecting and believing for, we are able to shift our faith and release power. When we do this, this scripture says we will see even more than we were imagining in the first place! The key to this verse is that God is able to do more than we can think, imagine, ask, and visualize according to something–His power at work within us! If we want miracles, we have to put the faith within us into action. It’s not enough to just have it–we need to work it. Interestingly, our subconscious mind doesn’t actually differentiate between fact and imagination. In other words, if we can imagine it, our subconscious belief systems will process it as real data alongside our real life experiences. If we imagine doing miracles it is the same to our minds as if we actually just performed those miracles! Using visualization, we can actually reduce unbelief and increase faith and that without even having to witness a miracle. This is a tool that I believe God has given us so that even if we can’t experience miracles firsthand, we can get some of the same faith-benefits as if we had experienced miracles. Keep in mind here that one experience of an actual miracle is many times more valuable than that of visualization so if given a choice, go see the real deal. However, this is a fantastic tool to use either alongside experiences or instead of them if they are unavailable.
Regardless of whether we are talking about growing a leg out or healing cancer, causing rainclouds to form from nothingness or for a mountain to upend itself in the nearest body of water, or even stranger things such as turning our bodies completely to fire or translocating regularly from place to place, all of these things are miracles and we have a responsibility to this world to become proficient in the miraculous. Jesus himself said in John 14:11, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” Miracles are a form of evidence that proves the Kingdom of God is at hand. They destroy works of darkness and release the light of heaven into the world. God is into miracles and we need to be as well. With the above tools under your belt, go forth and do mighty works!
