I T SEEMS that almost everyone looks for a method — for healing, church growth, success in business, repairing broken relationships and so on.
Many will travel to the ends of the earth to attend a conference that will show them step-by-step how to be successful in one area or another.
“I need a miracle, and I want to be able to put my finger on exactly how to make it happen for me.”
I suppose it would be much easier to reduce everything
to formulas, but that’s not how it works with God. That’s not how it works in life either. Methods and formulas enable us to calculate long-term strategies and manage risk. But they also offer the hope of results without the trouble of a relationship with God.
Good ideas, methods and even the examples of others’ successes by themselves are like a fine-tuned engine without any gasoline. It is God who fuels our efforts and turns our dreams into reality. This is the most important part of the making of miracles — it is God who is the miracle maker.
There are two more stories of miracles in the house that I want to talk about. The first took place at a wedding.
And on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there;
2 and Jesus also was invited, and His disciples, to the wedding.
3 And when the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”
4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
6 Now there were six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification, containing twenty or thirty gallons each.
7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.
8 And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the headwaiter.” And they took it to him.
9 And when the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn
the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom,
10 and said to him, “Every man serves the good wine first, and when men have drunk freely, then that which is poorer; you have kept the good wine until now.”
John 2:1-10
As the years went by, no matter how many times they refilled those waterpots, the water would never again be turned to wine. No matter how many times the widow would try to reproduce the circumstance that led up to her miracle, she just couldn’t get the oil to multiply in her little bottle.
It wasn’t the type of waterpots they refilled or the arrangement of the borrowed vessels or time of day she poured the oil. In each case what caused the miracle to occur is that the people did what the Lord said. If there is any formula here at all, it is that obedience to the Lord is the essential ingredient for the making of miracles.
The angel Gabriel, after telling Mary she would conceive a child by the Holy Spirit, said to her, “For nothing will be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). Literally, the verse reads, “No word shall be impossible with God.” The Greek word rhema which is used in this verse refers to the spoken word. Whatever God speaks to you is possible.
There’s always a miracle in the house somewhere, but it’s not always in the same place, and it often does not occur in the same way twice. We must be careful how we presume upon God’s directions.
On one occasion, Moses was commanded to take the staff in his hand and strike the rock. He did so, and water came out (Ex. 17:6). Later he was told to speak to the rock, but he just went ahead and struck it as he had done before. When Moses used his staff in disobedience, it cost
him his trip to the promised land (Num. 20:7-13).
We can’t operate on someone else’s vision or methods. We have to get a firsthand revelation from God ourselves. At our conference each year over five thousand pastors and church leaders listen for days to us talk about our 180 different ministries, special event days and hundreds of other ideas that have worked for us in Phoenix. But in the final session I tell them to go and get God’s plan for themselves. They have to have a firsthand revelation of what God wants them to do.
On the last night we all go out to the mountain on the backside of our property, where we make a large cross out of hundreds of candles. The mountainside is filled with people singing and crying out to God for their own direction. You can hear it all night for miles.
To do it just the way I’ve done it, I tell them, might be like young David putting on Saul’s armor. It just didn’t fit. God was wanting to do something miraculous through David but in a totally different way.
Victory is not in methods but in miracles. Mary gave the best advice of all: Whatever He says to you, do it!
THERE IS ONE FINAL story in the Bible about miracles we need to consider. This time the miracle was in the boat.
The multitude pressed hard around Jesus to hear His every word. Seeing two boats at the edge of the lake of Gennesaret, He asked the fishermen who were washing their nets to put out a little way from the land so that He could preach from the boat. The boat belonged to Simon, who was also called Peter.
AND when He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”
6 And Simon answered and said, “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at
Your bidding I will let down the nets.’
6 And when they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish; and their nets began to break.
Luke 5:4-6
In the making of every miracle are faith, obedience and the willingness to take a risk. These represent for you the three hurdles that you must overcome: doubt, fear and thinking you know it all.
It would have been much easier to ignore Jesus’ suggestion, rather than to load the nets up again into the boat. Fishing all night tends to wear you out. Simon and his coworkers had no reason to believe they would catch anything — except that Jesus said to do it.
What did Jesus know about fishing anyway? They were the experts. Sometimes we become prisoners of our knowledge and expertise. I have heard so many people, church growth authorities included, tell me at every juncture that what I was attempting to do wouldn’t work. The miracle happened anyway — but not because I was so smart. I had no reason to believe it would work either. I had nothing on which to base my faith except that I felt God said to do it.
Some people are addicted to impossibility thinking. For them nothing is going to work — ever! All they can see are the problems, the obstacles and every possible thing that could go wrong. Oftentimes such a negative, cynical perspective is rooted in a failure or a series of past failures.
Cynics are disillusioned idealists. Somewhere along the line something didn’t work out for them. They became disillusioned and have been rehearsing their disappointment ever since. They have become shipwrecked with regard to their faith. Every promise of God and every hope and expectation for miracles are qualified or even discounted by the memory of their past disappointments.
It is as if they had fished all night and caught nothing. So why should they try anymore?
PAUL, AT THE END of his ministry, said to his friends in Philippi:
Brethren, i do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14
Paul said that forgetting what lies behind was the one thing he did. We need to see how important forgetting really is.
If you ponder the past, your life will be shaped by it. What you hold in your memory, you will see in your experience. But if you are going to start walking in victory and newness of life, you have to forget how you have lived a life of limitation, failure and futility.
How do you know what it is you haven’t forgotten? Tell me what you think about all the time, and I’ll show you what you haven’t forgotten. If it’s constantly on your mind, it will constantly be in your experience.
Let me tell you something. Attitude is everything. The world is full of people with wounded faith, and if you happen to be one of them, today is the day to stop living in the past. You need to forget your failure and go on.
Remembering the past is a habit. Habits take time to form and discipline to break. One of the best ways you can change is to cultivate new thoughts. You can’t think about two things at once. So get a new thought to crowd out the old.
Paul was reaching for the ultimate, so he had to forget what lay behind and press on. God has a great purpose for your life, so don’t sit back nursing your memories. Be
like Simon Peter who said, “We worked hard all night and caught nothing, but at Your bidding I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:5, italics added).
Launch Out Into Deep Water
Jesus said to Peter, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). Though the depth of the water presented no danger at the time for the fishermen in the boat, remember that it was this same Simon Peter who later took a dangerous step out of the boat in the midst of a storm to walk on the water.
For us, deep water can be symbolic of taking a substantial risk. The greatest hindrance to walking by faith is trying to be fail-safe. Methods and formulas are for people who want to calculate their risk. But following God is totally unpredictable. Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees without a plan or a road map. He was just obeying the voice.
People are longing for God to work in their lives or perform miracles in their situations. The problem for many is that if He speaks, they won’t do anything. If He challenges them, they will not take the risk.
When the challenge comes, they say, I just need one more sign and one more confirmation. Some have hundreds of words and confirmations. There’s no sense talking about asking God for a miracle if you’re not going to do anything when you hear from Him.
Every time I’ve found a miracle in the house, it’s because I took the risk and obeyed the leading. Every time I’ve released people to take charge, it’s a big risk. What if they fail? What if they are unfaithful? What if the water’s too deep, and they’re in over their heads? Well, we’ll be in trouble. But I’ll never know and they’ll never know until they take the plunge. So many times as a pastor I just pray, lead the cheers and hold on for the ride. Every time we plan a big event, try a new idea or reach out to a new
group of people, we take a risk. What if the miracles stop?
I believe in people, and I believe in miracles. As long as we have kept pouring, the fresh oil has kept multiplying. God will do that for you, too.
It’s not just that God wants to give you a miracle; He wants to make you a miracle in someone else’s life, too. That’s where the greatest joy of all comes from. Remember: the more you’re spilled, the more you are filled.
So make the decision to be a giver and a pourer. You may just discover that the miracle’s in the house.
Forget what lies behind.
Step out into the deep.
Find some empty vessels and start pouring.
And whatever He says to you, do it.
Questions for Discussion or Reflection
Chapter 1
Down and Out in Davenport
Focus: Identify the Need
Read Mark 4:30-32.
There's a Miracle in Your House! introduces principles to show believers how to trust God for a miracle that will solve a problem or meet a challenge.
We can apply these principles to the problems and challenges we have experienced, or will experience, thus turning them into opportunities for a miracle to take place. But we cannot do so without trusting God for the outcome.
1. For many believers, learning to trust God in difficult situations, rather than coming up with our own solutions, is not easy to do. Can you recall a time when you took your hands off a problem and trusted God to solve it? How was His solution better than any you could have chosen?
2. What is one of the greatest spiritual challenges you’ve ever faced? (Witnessing to a family member? Standing up for what you believe? Exercising spiritual gifts? etc.)
3. Have you ever felt that God was testing or challenging you to spiritual growth through a problem or crisis? If so, what was being tested?
4. Tommy Barnett states, “God’s miracles are found behind some uninviting doors.” What life situation led you through an “uninviting door” ultimately to experience one of your greatest spiritual victories?
5. Is there some area of your life where you’re “down and out”? What is it? As you continue studying this book, imagine yourself placing that area in your hand, lifting it up to God and trusting Him to work a miracle in your life.
“In the midst of impossible situations I have just kept saying,
‘There’s got to be a miracle in the house!’
And God comes through — sometimes in ways I could never have imagined.”
Chapter 2