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July 7, 2006
Todd Bentley: "Why
Miracles Happen--The Fingerprints of God's Love"
 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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