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Do you believe in miracles?
Results so far:
| Yes | 87% | 1125 votes | Total: 1296 votes | |
| No | 13% | 171 votes |
Yes
by Lokemun Magar
Created on: April 04, 2010 Last Updated: April 07, 2010
Miracles have been performed since the days the Biblical Israelites were in the Land of Egypt. God sent miracles upon miracles so that the ruler of Egypt would let the Israelites go, but instead of letting them go, the Egyptian king became more stubborn and in the end, even his magicians could no longer keep up with God in churning out miracles.
Why do I believe in miracles today? I am what you may say, a walking miracle. Instead of subjecting my thyroid glands to radioactive iodine treatment, I chose to undergo other forms of treatment, that is with medication, than with something that will prematurely take away a part of me. Last year, at a miracle rally, God started healing my thyroid glands until today, it has been a month since I last took a pill.
Miracles occur when medically there seems to be no other way out. Doctors would have told the patients the ultimate choice. Other doctors would have confirmed it. But God has the final say. Jesus is the miracle worker. What He did some two thousand years ago on Earth, and subsequently, when He was resurrected and went back to His Father, what His disciples and other believers evoked in His Name, go to show that there is hope in Jesus.
Even today, the same power is manifested because Jesus promised a Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would be with us until His return to send Satan to eternal Hell. The Holy Spirit goes around to evoke the same miracles that happened when Jesus was on Earth. Jesus commands the same healing over physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual realms today, as He did years ago. What He wills in Heaven will come to pass on Earth because the authority was returned to Him when He suffered and died for us on the Cross.
Illness and death are the works of the Devil. These rob us of the health and joy that human beings should enjoy but do not, for they have sinned and gone far from God. Miracles occur to show us that God still cares, and does not want us to suffer under the clutches of the Devil. Sometimes healing takes place in a matter of a second, at other times, it could be a few days. The result is always the same - miracles defy the words of condemnation. What is thought impossible becomes reality.
Miracle workers of today are quick to denounce the works of the Devil and announce the healing love of Jesus. True and faithful faith healers will accredit the healing to Jesus, and never to themselves. Great miracle workers would never want to steal the glory from God, for they know they have but a gift, and that the great healer himself is the Lord Jesus, not they themselves. When the hopeless come under the surgical knife of Jesus, they can never acclaim that a human preacher has healed them. Only Jesus has healed them.
Miracles not only bless the person receiving them. The people witnessing them realize that Jesus is instrumental in the healing, give all the glory to Him, and become saved as well. Not many can see a miracle and go away believing it to be the act of Satan. Miracles are life-giving, a hundred and eighty degree turn from the death threat that the sufferer is initially issued with.
Who experiences miracles? They are those who have nobody else to turn to but to God. They are those who have seen hopelessness in their lives and realizes that only Jesus can heal them. They are the poor in spirit, and often the same poor in material wealth as well. The proud and self-reliant, however, have no need for Jesus' healing touch, and thus have no need to see miracles as their hearts are usually hardened towards God and His grace. Even if God were to send a million angels to them, they would still deny God's work and grace.
When you have reached a point in your life when you know that not even the closest to you can help you, and you need that special touch from your maker, you are ready for a miracle in your life. A miracle need not be accompanied with bands announcing its beginning. When it is accomplished, however, you will see a remarkable change in your physical, spiritual, emotional and mental growth. You will be restored to the wholesome self that God created Adam and Eve to be, before they gave themselves to the Devil. You will not be alone anymore.
Do you believe in miracles? It is time that you do.
Learn more about this author, Lokemun Magar.
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No
by Dave Simmons
Created on: July 04, 2008
I don't believe in miracles, but I'd better be clear on what I consider a miracle. According to Mirriam-Webster, a miracle is defined as "an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs". And there's the problem right there, the D-word.
For something to be a bona-fide miracle, it would have to be divine in origin. Now, I'm no fan of religion, and don't believe in any kind of supreme being or deity. But let's, for the sake of argument, assume that there is. We'll focus on him being some kind of Judeo-Christian figure, being as they're the ones who focus on miracles, particularly the Catholic church.
Now, according to Christian doctrine, Man has free will. God does not interfere in our actions. This is usually a neat way of explaining why an omnipotent being would choose to allow suffering and evil in the world; it's not his choice, it's ours. By our own actions, we can put an end to such things. Alternatively, by our sins, we're the ones who cause the problems in the first place. But either way, it's up to us to sort them out.
Now, if that's the case, why do miracles occur? By the definition above, they have to be both extraordinary and divine; they're an example of God directly intervening in human affairs, in such an unambiguous way as to leave no other rational explanation for the occurrence. Why is it that this particular blind man who could suddenly see, or this child who survived a head on car crash suddenly warrants the very specific attentions of God? Some would argue 'God has plans for them later in life', or words to that affect. But again, free will; if our actions are decided only by us, we can't have any Fate or Destiny to fulfill.
And why act so specifically? Almost all recorded miracles are either paranormal displays (statues weeping and such), or amazing cures of diseases with no such cure. Why should they only happen to specific people? Are the people who remain blind, or die in car crashes somehow undeserving of the attention of God?
Finally, isn't it equally miraculous when something happens that's extraordinary but results in the deaths of people? Say a freak power surge shorts out a traffic control system and dozens of cars pile up, causing multiple fatalities. The manufacturers assure us such an occurrence couldn't have been forseen, that it was a million to one chance that it could happen. Does that qualify as a miracle? It's up there in the probability stakes. And what if this God had somehow prevented that from happening, and business went on as usual. That would certainly qualify as a miracle, but no-one would even know.
I believe it was Richard Fortey who used to have a little anecdote he opened his speeches with sometimes, along the lines of how, on the way to the auditorium or lecture hall, he'd happened to see a car with the licence plate 423DGC. "Imagine," he would say "the chances of me seeing that particular plate! How incredible!" The point is, if you look hard enough, you can find improbable coincidences in anything. It doesn't mean that they have any significance.
There are a lot of things that happen in the world that we don't have an explanation for. Some of them probably don't have an explanation to give, even if we could understand it. Some of them seem like the most impossible things. This doesn't mean we shouldn't ask how they happened, or ascribe them to some vague sky-spirit and leave it at that. A 'miracle' is a handy way of washing our hands of a situation, instead of asking questions.
Learn more about this author, Dave Simmons.
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