The Greatest Miracle of All
What is the biggest miracle one can hope for, healing from cancer, restoring a loved one back to life; an airplane exploding at 30 thousand feet and everybody escaping with their lives? What is the greatest supernatural deed do you want performed in your life? You want your wayward child returned to belief in God? What about a substance abusing relative kicking that habit? You may believe that your greatest miracle is in the future, but it may well be that your most profound miracle has already transpired.
How did you come to believe in miracles anyway? Is it possible that you have seen one, or could it be that you are one? I have seen the Holy Spirit do amazing things. I have seen people who were trapped in alcoholism or drug abuse for decades leave the habit instantly after turning their lives to Jesus.
However, the Greatest Miracle of all is a life that is turned around from desire to do evil to a motivation to do good. Just as it is impossible for the leopard to change its spots or for a black person to change the colour of his skin, it is improbable that a person would change his urge to sin or natural destructive behaviour. So, when your desire to do good outweighs compulsion for sin, the greatest work in your Christian journey has started.
The Greatest Miracle is Change of Desire
We have a natural inclination to do bad even when we want to be good. The bible says: … people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong (Ecc. 8:11). “The Apostle Paul says: So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind…. David said: I was born in sin and shaped in iniquity, in sin did my mother conceive me.
The hardest thing for any creature is to function outside of its nature. So, just as it is natural for humans to breathe, in like manner, it easy for us to do the wrong thing. Paul who wrote of that great struggle is one, who had met Jesus personally; one who wrote more than half of the New Testament. He was a man who committed his entire life to preaching the gospel. Yet, he had to struggle just as all others. But he thanked Jesus for his craving for righteousness over the impulse to sin.
The Most Important Question:
Who was I before God worked in me, and who am I now? The maximal work of the Holy Spirit is conversion (Zacharias). The Holy Spirit came to change man’s hearts and Jesus died for their salvation from sin. How could any other miracle be more significant than a man’s conversion?
Therefore, the more your mind and conscience wrestle with you to do the right thing, the bigger the grasp of the most impactful miracle in your life. Without victory over the dominance of an evil mind, what is the benefit of the Christian Journey anyway?
The Greatest Miracle is the Foundation for All Other Miracles.
Once you accept conversion as the biggest miracle of all, that becomes the linchpin for your trust in God for everything else. Because when every other request of yours fails, you know you still got the prize!
When your mind changes to a God first mode, then it connects all your plans, wishes, desires and behaviour to him. You understand:
· How to ask for spiritual help
· How the walk of salvation works
· When and how to ask for physical help when needed
There is a bible story of a man being let down from a roof for Jesus to heal. While everyone in the room prioritized healing his paralysis, Jesus focused on his spiritual challenge – his enslavement to immorality and sin. After dealing with that problem then he addressed his physical sickness. In the same way, we need to acknowledge the power of God’s transformation in us before asking for anything else.