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We live in a time where many professing believers in Jesus Christ are constantly wanting to experience the “miraculous” or the “supernatural.” And while we know that Jesus indeed can do miracles, what has happened among a segment of professing believers is this endless chase of wanting to see miracle after miracle, sign after sign. And by doing so, we forget about the most important miracle and most important sign of all--that Jesus has created a church through his death and resurrection.

When we read the Bible, we come to know of a miracle as something that takes place that has supernatural/divine influence and that is done beyond human efforts. Sometimes the word “sign” or “wonder” can be used in place of “miracle.” So when a miracle occurs, it occurs because God is directly doing it or because He is using a vessel (person) to work the miracle through.

Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee. But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
(Matthew 12:38-40 - KJV)

The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ “And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away.
(Matthew 16:1-4 - NASB)

What is the “sign of Jonah” brothers and sisters? It is the miracle of Jesus’ death and resurrection and that is the miracle we should be focused on in our lives. The 3 days that Jonah was in the belly of the whale parallels the 3 days that Jesus was in the tomb. Was Jesus’ death and resurrection considered a sign and a miracle? Yes, indeed it was just like Jesus bringing back Lazarus from the dead in the gospel of John was also a miracle. And the implications for believers is even more miraculous.

There are professing believers that claim they want to see supernatural upon supernatural and yet they don’t realize that a believer is the greatest miracle the Lord has ever done. Let that soak in for a second brothers and sisters. We are the greatest miracle that God has ever done. Pay attention to the implication of these verses.

And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister.
(Colossians 1:21-23 - NKJV)

As He says also in Hosea:

“ I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not beloved.”
“And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
‘ You are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
(Romans 9:25-27 - (NKJV)

What were we to God before we repented and believed in Jesus Christ? We were enemies of God destined for the same fate as the greatest enemy, Satan. But through the miracle of Jesus Christ, we have become a miracle in that we have gone from being God’s enemies to becoming the children of God by faith. Remember that it was by faith that the people in the gospels were healed by Jesus and it is by faith that we as believers are healed by the blood of Jesus. Is this not miraculous and far superior than any of the other miracles that the Lord did? Praise God for the sign of Jonah!

If we were to examine the actual physical miracles that Jesus did, we could find and learn a spiritual lesson from that miracle as well and have that functioning in our lives. For instance, Jesus healed people of their physical diseases, yet we know from the scriptures that Jesus is also a spiritual Healer and Physician:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.
(Isaiah 53:5 - KJV)

When Jesus heard [it], he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
(Mark 2:17 - KJV)

So we see that sickness was paralleled to sinning and the salvation that Jesus provides is the cure. What about people who didn’t necessarily have a sickness but were blind or deaf? Jesus healed those people as well and look at what the Bible says regarding blindness and the inability to hear:

And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them. They shall be turned back, they shall be greatly ashamed, that trust in graven images, that say to the molten images, Ye are our gods. Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger that I sent? who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the LORD'S servant? Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not. The LORD is well pleased for his righteousness' sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable. But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore. Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.
(Isaiah 42:16-24 - KJV)

Do we see the picture that the blindness and deafness that the scriptures speak about here are referring to those who sin? And Jesus taking away our spiritual blindness and spiritual deafness through having faith in his sign of Jonah then allows us to be spiritually healed of our blindness and deafness.

Shall we think on how Jesus cast out demons from people? Do we understand that before we repented and believed in Jesus Christ, that we were simply Satan’s puppets and he could do with us as he pleased as long as God allowed it? Before we willingly became Jesus’ possession, we were once the possession of Satan and we were enslaved to the desires of our flesh instead being willfully submitted unto the desires of God:

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
(Titus 3:3-7 - NIV)


CLICK FOR PART II
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