Acts
2: 43: Everyone was filled with awe, and
many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
There is
no doubt that most people are greatly interested in and really curious about signs
and wonders. Miracles always attract our
attention. When we read the verse above, especially as Christians with a ministry,
we wish to have our own divine signs that we are part of God’s growth priority.
We desire that God must somehow confirm our calling with wonders and the
supernatural.
In his
days the religious leaders asked Jesus to show them a sign! But Jesus refused to be manipulated by their
misguided requests. He did not do his miracles as a performance. His miracles
had a purpose. They were the signs that the Kingdom of God, his dominion
through the Messiah, had come into the world.
This is still God’s purpose with his signs and wonders he grants us
through his grace!
Does God
still do signs and wonders? Is there perhaps something wrong with us that we do
not see them as often and as impressively as the apostles and the first Church
did? Some say the reason for this is
that our faith is too small or too weak!
Run away
from anyone who blames YOU for God not granting a miracle in your life. They will
deceive and hurt you and therefore do not display the heart of God. The Lord distinctively did not give his
wonders according to the limited faith of those listening to the apostles. No,
he surprised and stunned those to whom the Gospel were preached by working
powerfully in the first Church. He gave
them what they did not believe was possible!
Signs
and wonders are not related to the power of our faith. It is related to the revelation of the might
of the resurrected Jesus and therefore is
intrinsically part of and related to the sovereignty of God’s grace and the
mercy of his Son!
Paul taught
that (2 Corinthians 12:12), "The things that mark an apostle—signs,
wonders and miracles—were done among you with great perseverance." God worked in a special and even unique way
through these first apostles. They truly had and will always have a special
place in the establishment of the Church of Christ and his dominion after the
ascension and after Pentecost. There was something unique about the grandeur of
the signs and wonders done through the first Church and the apostles.
But it
is not true that signs and wonders by themselves verify and confirm God’s work
and teaching as authentic or generate faith in the hearts of those who
experience them. The miracles given to the apostles were not the verifying
agent of them being used by God.
The experiences of salvation by the grace of
God received by those who believed the gospel preached, confirmed that the apostles
were doing God’s work and that they were authentic servants within his
dominion.
Yet the signs and wonders given by the Lord through the first Church served
a most important purpose. The purpose was to help those in need (a pastoral purpose), to grow the
faith of the apostles and the first Church (a ministry purpose) and most of all
to transform them into an awe-filled worshipping Church to exalt and glorify
the ascended Jesus (a doxological purpose).
There
are many examples from Scripture of how God’s people missed what God was doing
because of their limited understanding of God’s pastoral, ministry and
doxological purpose amongst his people! As
there is also no doubt that God does not give signs and wonders to thrill and
entertain us, God works and will always work his miracles to fulfil his purposes. This
is simply whom God is! And always was and will be.
God is
not limited by our inadequate understanding or faith!
The signs and wonders of God remain part of his
sovereign interventions to make his Church a great agent of his purpose!
And his purpose
for a great church, filled with his Spirit and enabled by the resurrection
power of his Son, remains to care for us pastorally, to minister to us
efficiently and to glorify and exalt his most holy Majesty!
Awe-filled,
miracle experiencing believers will fulfil God’s purpose with his Church!
Believe
it, and pray for it!
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