When God does a miracle, it is a wonderful thing, and no person of faith would deny that. A miracle is something that God causes to happen, that could not, and would not happen that way in the natural realm. Some people call things miracles that really aren’t miracles, at all, they are just very good things that happen to them.
I know a lady whose grandson came home from Iraq, safe and sound, and she said to me, “It’s a miracle!” Now, I didn’t argue with her about it, but it wasn’t really a miracle. I knew another lady who hadn’t heard from her son for a number of years. He was rebellious and inconsiderate, and he just drove off one day and years went by with her not really knowing if he was alive or dead. I visited this lady one day, in the fall of the year, and she said, “You know I always ask you to pray for Jimmy. God has told me in my heart that Jimmy’s coming home. He’ll be here for Christmas.” I saw her less than a week before Christmas, and the boy still hadn’t come home, but she told me, “Jimmy will be home for Christmas.” Now, I have to confess, I didn’t have the faith she had. Of course, God hadn’t told me that the boy was coming home, and I wasn’t sure that it was really God who had told her. But she was sure. About 8 a.m. on Christmas morning, I got a call from this dear lady, and the first thing she said was, “Guess who was knocking on my door about 10 o’clock last night?” Well, you guessed it, it was Jimmy. But, as wonderful as that was, it really wasn’t a miracle, it was the Lord giving that lady some divine insight as a result of her fervent prayers.
A miracle is when God causes something happens that defies logic. A preacher I know desperately needed two tires for his car and didn’t have the money to buy them. He prayed and said, “God, I’m Yours and everything in my possession is Yours, and You know that old car of Yours desperately needs two tires. What are You going to do?” He had started on a little 30 mile trip, a couple of days later, and he was going up an on-ramp onto a four lane highway, when a tire truck came by at a high rate of speed, and two tires fell off. He stopped and picked up the tires, put them in his trunk and drove to the tire store where that truck was from and told them of the incident. The man went and checked the truck and said, “We didn’t lose them.” He asked if there were another tire store of this same franchise in the area and was told the nearest one was 80 miles away, but that he doubted they were in this area. He said, “Well, what should I do about the tires?” The man said, “Consider them yours.” He went out and raised his trunk lid and looked at the tires, and they were the exact size he needed! Now, that’s a miracle!
I heard a testimony, just two weeks ago, about a man who was diagnosed with lung cancer, but then when he went back to see the doctor on his next visit, the doctor said, “I don’t understand it, but you don’t have cancer.” Now, that’s a miracle.
When I was a boy, I had completely lost the hearing in my left ear, and my ear drum was no longer functioning. On top of that, my right ear was in very bad shape, and my hearing was very limited. My mother got everybody she could think of to pray for me, and she pulled me up to her one day and said, “Do you believe God can heal your ears?” I said, “Yes ma’am,” and we prayed for God to heal me. I never felt anything special, but very shortly after that, I realized I could hear with both my ears, and now, more than 50 years later, my hearing is fine. That’s a miracle!
I’ve said all that to establish with you that I believe in miracles, and I myself am a product of God’s miracle working power. But, there is something better than miracles, and that’s to live under God’s divine favor, or as we often call it, God’s blessing. I want to give you three reasons God’s blessing is better than God’s miracle:
BLESSINGS ARE PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE
A miracle is what God uses to deliver people out of crises situations, but His blessing on your life will keep you from getting into those crises situations, in the first place.
You would be much better off to maintain your automobile with frequent oil changes and other periodic maintenance, than to drive until it quits, and then have to fix it. Your experience with that automobile will be much more pleasant. The abundant life, of which Jesus spoke in John 10:10 is a life of the finest possible quality.
It’s a miracle when tires fall off the tire truck, just before you start riding on the rims, but it is a blessing when you so live in God’s favor that, when you need new tires, you can just go to the tire store and buy them. It’s a miracle when you get healed from some sickness or disease, but it’s a blessing when you don’t get sick in the first place. So if you give me the choice between God’s miracle and God’s blessing, I’ll take His blessing. There are times when I’m in such crises, that I need and want His miracle, but I want to be able to so live in His divine favor, that I live under the umbrella of his blessing.
BLESSINGS ARE EVERYDAY
Miracles are just not all that common. I’ve experienced several in my life time, but I’ve gone great amounts of time between them. But, on the other hand, I have constantly lived under the divine favor of God’s blessing for many years.
The things in life that concern us most, are not big things to God, at all. But, we need to understand that there is a method to both miracles and blessings. The method to God’s miracles is our faith. Time and again, the Lord said to people, “Your faith has made you well,” or “Your faith has made you whole.” Jesus said that if you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you can move mountains, and that’s exactly what a miracle in our life does: it moves a mountain that’s blocking the progress of our life. The method to God’s blessing is your obedient faithfulness, that is, to live within the boundaries of God’s spiritual laws. If I will obey the word of God concerning eating, exercise, and rest, I can expect God’s blessing on my health. If I obey God’s word concerning tithing, giving, and money management, I can expect God’s blessing on my finances. If I obey God’s word concerning the treatment of my spouse and the training up of my children, I can expect God’s blessing on my family. If I decide to treat those things as not important, I will soon become a person who needs a miracle! Miracles are every now and then, but I’ll tell you God’s blessing is every day, in constant supply!
BLESSINGS ARE ENDURING
It may be that when God delivers a person out of a crises, through a miracle, it is not a permanent fix. If God heals you from a health crises, but then you continue to abuse your health, you will soon be back in a crises situation. Jesus told a man with a withered hand, whom he healed, to go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon him. Jesus talked about a demon being cast out of house, which represented someone’s life, and he said the house was swept clean, but nothing was put in there to fill up the space, so the demon came back and brought seven of his friends! The reason God will not deliver some people from their crises is because they do not have a heart to live in deliverance.
If you can live in God’s divine favor, through your faithful obedience, your life can be better than you ever imagined.
One of my uncles told me the other day, “This economy is really about to go down, and we are going to go into deep recession, and it’s really going to be bad.” I said, “That doesn’t scare me, because God is governed by the economy. He is able to make all grace about toward me in any economy.” I said that with all confidence, because I live in Deuteronomy 28:1-13. That doesn’t mean that I’m absent from troubles, but it does mean that I have a comforting, inner-knowledge that, because I love the Lord and want to honor Him, I am in His blessing. Because of that truth, I can give Him praise in the midst of my troubles, and when you give Him praise in the midst of your troubles, you will be amazed at how quickly you get out of your troubles!
The Lord is working in the lives of His people to use us for His purposes. His purpose is greatly focused on gathering His bride, in other words, bringing people into His kingdom. It is our job, as born again, Blood bought believers, to be shining lights to show people the way to Jesus and the way to live for Jesus. It is our job to become such a display for Jesus, that people would look at our live and want what they see us experiencing. That’s true even in times of persecution. Church history reveals that in the times of great persecution, the church has flourished. The reason for this is because people know that when folks are persecuted for their faith, yet they cannot be moved from it, in spite of the persecution, there must be something real about it. What can people see in your quality of life, your character, and your attitude, that creates a hunger and thirst in them for the things of God?
