Signs And Wonders, I Wonder...
Does God still work miracles today? Some people, Benny Hinn for example - they think that it's good to "help God along" by manufacturing their own miracles and then saying, "Glory be to Gawd!" That drives me nuts. We as Christians are all about the TRUTH! What good is the message we bring if what we bring is a lie? If we say God heals when He didn't, it would be better to say "I don't know why sometimes God doesn't heal" than to lie about it. Jesus said that He healed physical diseases so that people would know that the spiritual healing He brought was real also. But that works both ways: if the physical "healings" that people see in churches and at revivals is fake or exaggerated, why would they think anything different of the spiritual healing, or God Himself?
On the other hand, why would we think that God doesn't work miracles anymore? I don't find anything in the bible saying that there will be miracles in the Old Testament times, and miracles in the New Testament times, but then sometime later the miracles will drop off, and kinda fade away, and then we'll eventually just sing songs about the marvelous things that God used to do. Our pastor (Dave Johnson, Church of the Open Door) recently was talking about how he grew up believing that charismatics preached their experience instead of the Word, with all their talk about healings and tongues and miracles. Then one day it dawned on him that his church was doing the same thing- preaching their experience (no healings, no tongues, no miracles) instead of preaching the Word. Remember when Jesus hit His hometown? He didn't perform many miracles there "Because of their unbelief". It's about faith.
I think the truth, as it so often does, lies somewhere in the middle. When miracles don't happen, some like to pretend they did. When miracles do happen, some like to pretend they didn't. I believe God does still do amazing things, and not all spiritual as some would say. Physical, visible healings and giftings and other miracles still happen. Not as often as some say it does, but more than others say it does. I'm guessing it happens exactly as often as God thinks it should. As much attention as miracles receive, it's important to remember that they are not the goal. They are signs and wonders. Signs that point to God and cause people to wonder about how much more there is than we know.
posted by DErifter @ 8/28/2005 10:48:00 PM
6 Comments:
Clint,
Don't people like Benny Hinn kinda make you hope there really IS some kind of higher justice waiting for them? I always thought that *maybe* Copelands and their crowd believe what they preach but I haven't paid much attention to them in years. What they preach always sounded a lot like your "bible study" to me. Benny Hinn is just over the edge. Your family won't listen, huh? That's a drag.
I don't mean to get too personal, but when you talk to them about it do you tell them Benny Hinn is the fake? Or Word of Faith, Christianity as a whole, or God? I don't know you, but I'm curious if it would make a difference to you whether they saw Benny as a fraud and went to a different strain of Christianity. Would you see that as better, or would that just be a sideways move from the fire into the frying pan? An improvement or just a change? If that's too personal to put here, you can either e-mail me, or just ignore it altogether. Whatever you like.
Don't sweat the length of your comment. As you can see, I'm working my out from under a mountain of like, 4 comments in the past month! HA!
Welcome back, TE! Haven't heard from you in a few days, I thought you were mad at me or something! Not really. I think that when I start paying people to visit my blog, I'm only gunna have to write 2 checks, to you and Clint. Unless Google picks up on the words "PAYING PEOPLE TO VISIT MY BLOG".
I'm not sure how you'd define "irrefutable evidence of a healing" but I know what you're saying. A severed limb growing back, the dead raised, that kind of thing. I suppose even those could be explained away somehow. My latest witness of well, I'm not sure if it would be divine healing or answered prayer or if there needs to be a distinction there, but anyway:
Yesterday we got an e-mail from an aquaintence asking for prayer on behalf of his daughter's friend Brian, who was in a coma caused by a bicycle accident, and it didn't look good for him. That's all the details we got so I don't know what if anything else was wrong with him. Today, we got another e-mail from the same elated aquaintence saying that Brian had come out of his coma and although a bit confused, he's able to speak and I suppose the next few days will tell a lot.
Divine healing? I suppose. Answered prayer? Yes! Irrefutable evidence of a healing? Well, maybe. Maybe the kid would have come out of the coma anyway, but how do you know? I see it like this: We asked God to heal him, and now we've seen healing. It's either coincidence or answered prayer and I have no reason to believe it's not answered prayer, so I'm giving thanks!
You're right in saying that we can grow in character through hard times, but it's important to note that we as Christians don't exactly have a monopoly on character. Lots of us treat people like dirt. And lots of non-Christians treat people like gold. Still, I can see how hard times can rattle your cage a bit and cause you to look deeper to see what's there. Some find God, and some realize He's not there.
I'd like to see more miracles myself, and more dramatic ones, because sometimes our words just aren't enough. Don't you ever just want Him to put "I AM GOD!" in the sky so everyone would know He's real? I suppose that if miracles happened every day they would lose their lustre and soon nobody would pay any attention. But if they don't happen enough, we begin to wonder if they've ever happened.
If I make my own (pretend) miracles though, and say "Hey everybody, look what God did!" I turn the truth into a lie. I'd rather keep asking and waiting on the real thing.
Oh and TE. Don't worry about the e-mail thing. If Clint ever e-mails me something that was too personal to put in a comment, I'll just post it in my blog the next day and ask for everyone to pray for him. (Boy, I sure hope you know I'm kidding!)
Thanks again for your insights, TE.
Clint,
Man that's tough, what's going on with you and your family. You (plural) have a tough road ahead. I hope you were just blowing off some steam when you talked of not speaking to them anymore. It sucks that there are such problems but I hope that none of you see the current situation as acceptable. Family is good. Or it's supposed to be. I don't know what other issues are involved besides religion but it seems like there must be a way to get it together, considering that you have Christian friends you get along with, and I assume your family has non-Christian friends or maybe even other family who are not Christians, who they get along with.
Hearing your side of the story, it sounds like they need to swallow some pride and "love the sinner" regardless of what you believe. For your part, you mentioned earlier that you went about it wrong. Keeping in mind that they're not ready to hear what you have to say, can I suggest that you might have to swallow some pride too, and maybe bite your tongue sometimes? I'm not saying screw your position, but in the interest of reconciliation maybe letting Mr Christian make a cameo from time to time might build a bridge. Probably doesn't sound good to you, but there must be a way. If you went about it the wrong way before, maybe it's not too late to go about it the right way, whatever that is. It has to be worth it for all of you to do whatever it takes.
Just a few thoughts, you can take them for what they're worth.
TE,
I agree completely. The fake healings we see on TV and in many churches do nothing to build the church, in fact they work against the true church by giving the rest of the world the impression that all Christians are a bunch of buffoons. Sadly, people line up to line the pockets of those who pretend to do God's work. It's also sad that many of the people who fall for that do so because they're so desperate for ______. Whether you fill the blank with love, security, community, healing, or whatever. The Benny Hinns of the world offer these and more, but when it turns out to be a sham, they leave people devastated, thinking these things are not to be had.
But I'm not ready to say that because some people pretend to heal, there must be no such thing as real healing. I don't see that in the bible, any time limit on miracles. If our struggle is with powers and principalities, against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (per Ephesians 6) then we need more than a well-thought argument, because my arguments aren't that good! There's nothing wrong with knowing your stuff, I just think we need more. But it has to be real. A few years back in a moment of clarity it occured to me that "Believing something that's false, no matter how much you believe it, doesn't make it true. But believing something that's true brings the benefit of that truth into your reach."
Sudan- Definitely, we're wimps. If American Christians are seen praying before a meal, we're suffering for the Lord. How brave of us to face the possible ridicule of the family sitting next to us at Denny's. And most aren't even grateful for the freedom we have!
Blessings to you, TE.
Wow, we should talk about things that are less important. That would rock because then, who cares if you're wrong?
Matthew 23:23 says, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former."
Jesus is cool. He's like my idol. (?)
I hear Him say, "You guys are sooo religious aren't you? But your families are falling apart. You're missing the point!"
If Christians lived their lives like what He said in that verse, would anyone have problems with their families? His message of truth gets so distorted. Love your neighbor as yourself, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, speak the truth in love, be angry but do not sin.
And look at what it's become.
I almost went off on a tangent just now about getting a person like Clint saved. I've sort of painted myself into a corner on that topic, but I'm not going to go into it here.
TE, you're absolutely making sense. If more people had even a sliver of your willingness to sacrifice for others, what a different world this would be!
About the only sport I follow is pro football. A few years back I got so fed up with Culpepper fumbling and throwing interceptions and the nonexistant Vikings defense that I became a Packer fan out of spite.(oooooo!) I'm glad I'm not shallow like you, TE :) Minnesota's expected to take the NFC North this year not because they're so good but because the rest of the division is so weak. We'll see how I'm feeling Sunday. I've been moving back towards the Vikes because they've been more respectable lately. For now I have two teams.
TE,
When you said,
"He wants people, who want a relationship with him for who he is. He demonstrated who he is, when he gave himself for us on the cross."
I couldn't agree more. It's why I bent MY knee to Him and why I submit to Him in every way. But I have to admit I can see Clint's point, too. We say He demonstrated who He is by the cross, but non-Christians are wondering why we don't say He demonstrated who He is when He was wiping out cities of old.
If I understand what you're getting at, Jesus's death and ressurrection are the demonstration of who He is, so for that reason we don't need miracles anymore today. Is that close, or am I putting words in your mouth? Or are you just saying that it's just not His normal way?
Clint,
Whatever you need to do, buddy. I'm honored that you've spent so much time here and expressed yourself so freely. Thanks for helping to keep me from getting too sloppy in my beliefs! I'll be checking in on your (not blog, but, "site?") too. You're welcome here anytime.
Best to you and your family also.
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