Throughout the gospels, Jesus performed miracles. Because of those miracles, crowds gathered…sometimes massive crowds. No matter what he had done, however, the skeptics in the crowd kept asking for more.  Changing water to wine while healing the blind, the lame, the deaf, the leprous outcasts, and raising the dead was simply not sufficient proof in their minds. They kept asking for a more convincing sign or miracle. On several occasions, Jesus said that the only sign he would give them was the sign of his resurrection.  For the most part, they still did not believe.

I love miracles.  I like to go where people are being healed. I like to see demons driven out in the name of Jesus.  I want to see someone raised from the dead and I believe that is happening today in this world by the power of the Holy Spirit.  And yet, I am often reminded that we need to keep miracles in perspective.  Yes…they point people to God.  And yes, they are often a continuing expression of God’s grace and compassion in a totally fallen world. But they are not always the evangelistic tool we believe them to be.  

We may wonder how anyone could see the works of Jesus and not fully believe….and yet the majority of those who personally witnessed them did not become his followers.  We must acknowledge the axiom that faith produces miracles but miracles do not always produce faith. Certainly, the religious leaders of his day seemed to be inoculated against any faith that would arise from witnessing a miracle.  On the other hand, one thing I have discovered is that radically changed lives are the greater miracles and the greater testimony.  

I remember the story of a little boy who told his agnostic teacher at school that he believed in Jesus.  The teacher sarcastically asked the little boy if he actually believed that Jesus turned water into wine.  The boy replied, “I don’t know about that, but I know he changed beer into bread at my house.” Perhaps, that is a greater miracle than raising the dead.  Sometimes, a supernatural act of God creates faith to change lives, but more often it is the love and acceptance of the body of Christ toward those who have only known rejection that makes Jesus real to them.

I’m not against miracles.  I’m all for them.  But we can’t forget the words of Jesus who said that the world would recognize his followers by their love, not their miracles.  1 Corinthians 13, clearly announces the truth that we can have all the spiritual gifts, that we can speak in the tongues of men and angels, and that we can have faith to move mountains…but if all of that is not motivated by love, then they are of no value.  So as we pursue the gifts and the miraculous, let’s pray even harder for love than we do for the gifts.