Jesus is the God of miracles: nothing is at all impossible to Him, and His miracles reveal His authority over nature, sickness, sin, death, and every power that opposes God’s purposes. The Bible describes miracles as mighty works that inspire wonder and function as signs that God is present and active in the world.
Jesus is and will always be the God of miracles, able to do the impossible, able to take us successfully through any challenge that may come our way. His greatest miracle is that He gave His one and only Son to become a man who, through His sacrificial death on the cross, overcame the power of death through resurrection.
What It Means That Jesus Is the God of Miracles
God is a God of miracles: “You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples” (Psalm 77:14). Who can study the universe and doubt His power in creation? Who can study the history of Israel and fail to see His providential arrangement of events?
In contrast to the handiwork of the God of miracles, the work of man is puny and trifling. God does marvelous things, and He does them all with His own power, with no help from others.
The Bible uses three main words to refer to a miracle: sign, wonder, and power. These three words help us better understand what the phrase God of miracles means.
- Power reveals the source of the miracle: God.
- Wonder reveals the nature of the miracle: wonderful, awe-inspiring, worthy of attention.
- Sign reveals the purpose of the miracle: to confirm a message or convey a truth.
Basically, a miracle is an act of God beyond human understanding that displays God’s power, inspires wonder in humans, and acts as a sign that God is at work in the world. From a human perspective, a miracle of God is an extraordinary or unnatural event that reveals or confirms a specific message through a mighty work.
From the God of miracle’s vantage point, a miracle is nothing extraordinary or unnatural. It is simply a divine display of His might that attracts the attention of humans to His Word or His purposes.
The Greek word translated “miracle” is dunamis and means “power.” God’s miracles often defy or overpower the laws of nature, but not always. God can also work within nature to perform a miracle.
Why Jesus Performs Miracles
Jesus performed miracles for several reasons. Even when Jesus lived and ministered in the flesh, skeptics and naysayers refused to believe He was the Son of God. So Jesus performed miracles to reveal who He was.
Additionally, Jesus performed miracles to glorify God the Father. Last of all, He wanted to give us a preview of what eternal life with Him would be like.
The God of miracles uses supernatural power to reveal Himself to people on earth. He does not use miracles merely as a means of authenticating Himself to people, but to reveal Himself to people who have eyes of faith to see.
The God of miracles works extraordinary wonders to capture people’s attention. The unusual, unnatural dimension of God’s miracles commands our attention.
God works through miracles to reveal His glory, confirm His message, and convey His purposes and truths to those who see Him with eyes of faith.
Jesus’ Miracles Reveal the Coming Kingdom of God
Jesus does miracles out of compassion for those who are suffering. The miracles in the Synoptics do demonstrate that what Jesus says is true. But in these Gospels what he talks about is not his own divinity.
What he talks about is the coming kingdom of God. And the miracles show that it is almost here-or in the latest of the three Gospels, Luke, that it has already started to manifest itself.
His miracles declare His absolute control over nature, events, people, and powers. His miracles reveal who God is and awaken humans to His presence and the presence of His Kingdom.
Jesus Has Authority Over Nature
There are miracles of healing and deliverance, miracles in nature, miracles of restoration and the list goes on. God is able to supernaturally affect every sphere of life and with each miracle God seems to be reminding us that He is capable of showing up and showing out no matter how impossible the situation might be.
This gives us confidence in Jehovah God as we are reminded that He is not only capable of performing events that cannot be explained but that there is nothing that we will face or go through that He cannot handle.
Of the many stories of miracles in the Bible, two stand out-Jesus calming the storm (Mark 4:35-41) and Jesus walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33). Both stories remind us that at times, there will be forces coming against us that we cannot control.
Yet, what is bigger and more powerful than us, is not bigger or more powerful than our God. In both stories, once the disciples turned to the One who was in control, they did not need to be afraid because their God was the answer to what was coming against them.
Jesus Calms the Storm
In the first story, Jesus and His disciples are in a boat. By the time the storm arises, Jesus is asleep on a pillow. Jesus is not disturbed by what is happening around them and does not awake until the disciples wake Him up.
Imagine, the waves are crashing into the boat and filling it yet, Jesus is not awakened by all this disturbing activity around Him.
I believe that Jesus’ attitude in both situations simply meant that He knew exactly who was in charge … and it was not nature. It was Him.
He was not about to be moved or concerned by contrary situations that He was quite capable of controlling.
Jesus Walks on Water
In the next story, Jesus is on land praying while His disciples are in the boat. He is able to see them struggling against the contrary winds and proceeds to walk on water towards them.
Just like the first story, the winds are strong and the waters are rough, yet Jesus is calmly walking towards them as if nothing is happening.
We too need to be reminded that our God is the answer to whatever is coming against us. Whatever we face usually looks and feels bigger and more powerful than us, yet, the God we serve, the God living inside of us, is greater than what is coming against us.
It is also good to be reminded that our God has the final say-not whatever is coming against us. It may feel intimidating and look intimidating but it can never prevail against our God.
Jesus’ Miracles Demonstrate God’s Power
When God parted the Red Sea, He used a powerful wind: “Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided” (Exodus 14:21).
Jesus modeled a lifestyle of performing miracles when He was here, and God is still performing miracles today-through and for each of us.
When we choose to turn to and fix our eyes on the God of miracles, He is able to fix things in a way that just sometimes doesn’t make sense.
So be encouraged. As a child of God, you are not serving a dead God, you are not serving a weak God. You are serving a God who is able to do impossible things.
He is Jehovah Nissi-the Lord My Banner / the Lord My Miracle (Exodus 17:15). He can turn any situation around, He can make any wrong right, He can reverse any negative situation and work things out in your favour.
Jesus Heals the Sick and Delivers the Suffering
There are miracles of healing and deliverance throughout the pages of the Bible. God is able to supernaturally affect every sphere of life and with each miracle God seems to be reminding us that He is capable of showing up and showing out no matter how impossible the situation might be.
It does not matter how dire the doctor’s report, how bleak the financial outlook or how irreparable a relationship, God is able to resolve and turn any situation around.
God sometimes doesn’t perform the miracle we asked for. When that’s the case, we would do well to realize this: “While He didn’t perform the miracle we asked for, He performed many other miracles of grace and encouragement, inspiration and comfort, personal transformation and increased dependence on Jesus, worship and deepened relationships, faithfulness and perseverance, empowerment, and open doors of evangelism…and almost certainly many other miracles we don’t yet know of but one day will.”
And some-perhaps many-of those miracles happened because the miracle we prayed for didn’t.
God’s Empowering Grace in Suffering
I witnessed miracles in Nanci’s life and mine as we prayed for the miracle of God directly intervening to cure her colon cancer. God chose not to heal her this side of Heaven, but I can vouch firsthand for the miracle of God’s empowering grace in our lives.
As Nanci daily meditated on Scripture and read Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy and The Pursuit of God, and Packer’s Knowing God, and as we discussed what we were learning and prayed together, I saw in her and in me a profound “peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” that “will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
My point is that we don’t lack miracles in our lives. What we lack is the vision, the eternal perspective, that allows us to see and experience and marvel at these miracles.
We need to thank God daily for His miracles of grace in our lives and those we know, and a world full of people we don’t know but one day will live with in the presence of Jesus.
We should ask Him to open our eyes to His miracles, not limiting them to physical or medical miracles.
Forgiveness Is the Greatest Miracle
Every time Jesus forgives sin, He performs the greatest of miracles.
In Mark 2:1-12 Jesus performed an amazing miracle, the healing of the paralytic. But there’s much to be learned from this passage, because the first thing Jesus did was to say to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven” (v. 5).
Then the teachers were offended because they thought, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (v. 7).
Jesus then asked them, “Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?” (v. 9).
The answer is obvious. It is easier to say sins are forgiven, because there’s no way to prove that has actually happened. But if you say “Get up” to someone who’s paralyzed, a miracle won’t have occurred unless he actually gets up.
So everyone will either see the miracle or know that it hasn’t happened. Then Jesus said, “But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
So He said to the man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home” (v. 10-11). Then the man got up and “walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this!’” (v. 12).
Though the people were amazed at the physical healing, many may have missed the point that the greater miracle was Jesus forgiving the man’s sins.
It was to authenticate the greater miracle of forgiveness that Jesus performed the lesser miracle of physical healing.
The omnipotent God can heal physical problems with no effort or cost. But He could not heal spiritual problems nor forgive sins without going to the cross to die for us, which was neither easy nor costless even for the omnipotent Creator.
The Costly Miracle of a New Heart
When God drew me to faith in Christ, as a 15-year-old, my life changed radically. One of the hundreds of verses I memorized was this one: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
The only explanation of this was nothing less than miraculous. As the next verse says, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself…” (v. 18).
Miracles are things which God does that cannot be explained by natural processes or human actions. Hence every true conversion-which is not the same as every outward profession-is by definition a miracle.
It may seem that, compared to what we see in Scripture, visible miracles are very few and far between today. But greater invisible miracles are in fact are happening all the time around us as God regenerates hard human hearts. Hence, God is doing far more miracles than we realize.
Our Lord transforming human hearts, through stunning acts done daily around the globe, is every bit as miraculous as Jesus transforming water into wine.
In fact, these redemptive acts make the dividing of the Red Sea, the falling walls of Jericho, and the raising of Lazarus from the dead actually pale in comparison.
Is that an overstatement? No, because the greatest physical miracles cost our all-powerful God nothing, but the miracles of salvation, sanctification, and glorification cost the very life of God’s Son.
God gives us a new heart (Ezekiel 36:26), makes us new in Christ (Ephesians 4:24), and changes our destiny from death to life, from Hell to Heaven (John 5:24).
He takes drug-addicts, sex-addicts, pride-addicts, gossip-addicts, and every variety of sin-addict and works a transforming miracle in us.
As we yield our wills to Him daily, He provides yet another series of sanctifying miracles for us, so that cumulatively, if we have eyes to see, we’ll realize there have been thousands of intervening miracles of grace in just our own lives, and countless millions upon millions more in the lives of others.
Conversion and Sanctification Are Visible Miracles
For while we may say redemptive transformation is an invisible miracle, that’s not entirely true since its effects are visible. Jesus said, “Every tree is known by its own fruit” (Luke 6:44).
Consider 2 Corinthians 3:18: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
Isn’t this “invisible miracle,” which is really an ongoing daily series of miracles, ultimately visible? Doesn’t it result in a life once characterized by the sordid works of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) becoming a new life that bears the fruit-and fruit is visible-of the indwelling Holy Spirit?
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).
Can you think of a greater miracle, or ongoing series of thousands of miracles, in each redeemed life?
Salvation Is the Greatest Miracle in Everyday Life
Our greatest example of how the God of miracles acts in our everyday life is by the means of salvation. Salvation was only accomplished by the Lord Himself, who came down from Heaven to die the death we all deserved.
He took on human flesh and suffered for the sins we have done. He died on the cross, and three days later, He rose from the dead.
Now, for all who would place faith in Him by believing that He died for their sins, was buried, and rose again, they are given forgiveness of sins, redemption, and eternal life (John 3:16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:1-4).
Salvation is by far the greatest account of the miracles that God performs in our everyday lives today. Through salvation, a person is brought from death to life.
There is no other way to obtain salvation apart from placing faith in the Lord. While there are many things in the world that one can try to believe in, only Jesus truly saves a person from their sin and gives them the free gift of salvation.
Sadly, many of us overlook this everyday miracle. There are many people each day experiencing this miracle, and you, too, also experienced this miracle at one point in your life.
In fact, if you are a believer, you are still experiencing this miracle and will have the full realization of this miracle when you pass from this life to the next.
Jesus’ Resurrection and the Promise of Eternal Life
God changes our destiny from death to life, from Hell to Heaven (John 5:24). God is no respecter of persons, and that means He can use me to perform miracles-in Christ-too.
Jesus paid the ultimate price, the penalty for our sin, and accomplished the miracle of salvation.
God is the God of miracles in this way as He promises us a new life, a better life in a New Heaven and New Earth. People long ago wouldn't have even imagined such a wonderful place, yet God will create this New Heaven and New Earth in the future, and it will be our eternal home.
When He rose again, He gave me the greatest gift the world has ever known. Yes, I can be forgiven every time that I repent, And someday He will lift me up to live with Him again.
Miracles in Everyday Life
God is the God of miracles. We see God performing miracles not only in the Old Testament but also in the New Testament. We often think God is only limited to the miracles we see in the Bible; however, God is still performing miracles today.
Maybe God isn’t parting the Red Sea or raising people from the dead, but He is still performing miracles in our everyday life.
The earliest miracle my family experienced was before my birth. My older sister was a premature baby, weighing in at 2 pounds, 2 ounces. The chances of her survival were very small.
She had to stay in the premature ward for a long time; however, she was healthy enough to come home in a few months. I will never forget how many times my mom said how much of a miracle it was that my sister was still alive.
My sister is my best friend, and I'm so thankful God blessed my family with this miracle.
Recognizing Ordinary Blessings
It is easy to overlook all of the miraculous things God does every day. Recently there have been forest fires in Canada that have been affecting the air quality of a good majority of America.
My state has been impacted, and there have been many days when the air is so smoky that it is hazy. It wasn’t until these days that I became aware of the truth that I had taken clear skies and good air quality for granted.
I was able to recognize that it was a blessing for God to provide us with clear skies and clean air. Not everyone in the world has clean air, as many third-world countries have bad pollution, and working with coals, it causes them to have hazy skies and bad air quality.
Through this, we can see God working miracles because, despite the impact of the forest fires in Canada, our skies and air quality returned back to normal, unlike the skies and air quality in other countries.
While this is a small example, it is important not to overlook these blessings in our everyday lives and how they could be seen as a miracle by many who are not used to it.
The Miracle of Human Life
We can also see how the God of miracles acts in our everyday lives in the sense that we have the ability to think, reason, and communicate.
This very fact attests to intelligent design despite the opposing arguments of evolution. It is a true miracle every day just to simply live and to exist.
To be able to have the ability to think, reason, and communicate is an act of God in our lives each day.
At any point, God could end everything. With a snap of His fingers, the air from our lungs could be gone, our hearts would stop beating, and we would die.
Thankfully this is not how God works because He is a God of miracles. Being here right now is a miracle.
How our ears are wired and tuned prevents us from hearing these noises, which again attests to the miraculous work of the Lord.
This shows us how God is the God of miracles in our daily life because if we were created just slightly differently, we would not be immune to the high-pitched sounds that surround us.
Miracles of Grace and Personal Transformation
Many of us might not take miracles in the modern world as being real, but there are some real miracles that occur. Granted, much of what is seen on the news or social media is made up; however, there are miracles happening every day, even if they are not reported.
These miracles are done by God Himself because He is the God of miracles. From the woman deciding to not have an abortion to the man who chooses to not end his life are all miracles from God.
While these individuals may not even know Jesus as their Savior and Lord, He could be reaching out to them.
As we yield our wills to Him daily, He provides yet another series of sanctifying miracles for us. These miracles include personal transformation, increased dependence on Jesus, faithfulness, perseverance, empowerment, and open doors of evangelism.
How to Notice God’s Miracles
Try reflecting on your own everyday life and see if you can see how God is the God of miracles in your own everyday life. Notice the blessings and the beautiful things that accompany every day.
Maybe it's the oxygen you are breathing when you wake up or the beautiful sunshine coming through your window. It could be the sound of birds tweeting outside or the excitement of catching up with a loved one.
If we look closer, we are able to see how God is the God of miracles and how much this shows up in our everyday lives.
We don't need to overlook this beautiful truth because it will cause us to take many things for granted. Once we take things for granted, we might not be thankful for them until they are gone.
Loved ones can easily be taken for granted until they are out of our lives. As we can see, there are wonderful miracles each and every day, and they are only possible because of God.
Every good thing comes from God, and He is the God of miracles.