On Sunday night at our weekly training worship service, I did a teaching on the miraculous and thought I would share some of the notes. (BTW, if you’d like to hear the audio of the teaching, you can listen to it here.)

These thoughts come from the healing of blind Bartimaeus found in Luke 18.

Perhaps one thing we can state at the beginning is this: These aren’t “rules” for receiving a miracle. There is no magic formula or way of bargaining or manipulating God. Think of these as observations for when see miracles happening. It’s how we can raise the sail of our hearts and watch as the wind of the Spirit blows. We can’t control when the wind comes. But we can control the sail.

If you want to see more miracles you will need a few things in place:

1. Be close enough to where Jesus is establishing a new frontier for the Kingdom of God (miracles appear to be the heavy artillery of the Kingdom). Jesus is the miracle worker -you need to be near where he is working!
2. To receive a miracle its much better to NEED a miracle than just WANT a miracle. Desperation is often the precursor to God moving in power. People who declare their desperation are ‘the poor’ in scripture. Miracles (ie wedding in Cana) do happen without desperation but the recipients often don’t realize they have happened!
3. Be prepared to set aside your dignity and even look desperate. The need for ‘dignity’ often indicative of idolatry of self. Sometimes we ‘work up’ desperation through emotionalism. It’s not the same thing as being truly desperate, which is to recognize your need of God before him.
4. Tell Jesus what you want him to do. Don’t demure, divert, or dissemble. Don’t procrastinate or prevaricate. Tell him what you want!
5. When you receive your miracle stay with Jesus -follow him- don’t allow your self centeredness or your self importance to return and cause you to follow your own path. You do not have the solutions to the big challenges of life -Jesus does.