Did you ever wonder why our God does not do any spectacular miracles to prove his existence and power? I do not know about you, but as a young Christian I often thought that it would be so much easier for God to overwhelm people with a miracle so that they will never doubt him again. Many of my agnostic friends use to challenge me and ask me “Why doesn’t your God prove himself?” “Ask him to perform a miracle and we will believe in him right away”. I knew that was not a good thing to ask God for but I never understood why God should restrain himself from doing something that will help people believe in him. After all isn’t that what God wants, for people to believe in Him?
Different people believe in God for different reasons. Some come to believe in God because of the philosophical reasons that point towards God’s existence, some believe in God because of answered prayers, some believe in God because of their family background and religious structures, and some believe in God because of some special experience in their own lives. There are several reasons why people believe in God, but I still felt that we would have had many more believers in God if he took the initiative to demonstrate some spectacular miracles that once for all seal the doubts of the skeptics. Even though such desire looks very noble, we should admit that this idea that ‘many people will believe in God if only God did more miracles to demonstrate his existence and power’ is very human and not the way God functions.
Did you ever wonder why our God does not do any spectacular miracles to prove his existence and power?
By the way we are not the first one’s who came up with such brilliant idea, in fact throughout the Bible we see several people insisting God to perform a miracle and on some occasions God did answer their request or prayer and performed a miracle so that people can see and believe, but obviously that is not the primary way God wants to convict people. If you have your Bible please turn with me to Matthew 12: 38, 39: Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you.” He (Jesus) answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” Jesus was talking about his death and resurrection when he referred to the sign of Jonah.
God’s primary method of bringing people to himself is not in the works of wonder, but in the words of the gospel that demonstrate Gods eternal love for people.
I often used to wonder why Jesus refrained from performing a miracle, wouldn’t it be a great opportunity to make them all believers with one spectacular miracle. Yah that sounds like a possibility, but the problem is that people focus more on the wonder and the amusement of a miracle and often do not pay attention to the wonder worker (God). That is why Jesus used these harsh words to the Pharisees who were insisting on a miraculous sign. This does not mean that God does not do wonders and miracles today, it only means that miracles are not God’s primary method of convicting people. In the story of Rich man and Lazarus Jesus said ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ Luke 16:31. God’s primary method of bringing people to himself is not in the works of wonder, but in the words of the gospel that demonstrate Gods eternal love for people.
Could Jesus perform a miracle? Yes, there is no doubt about that, but he chose not to perform miracles on people’s demand because he knew that people will be so carried away by the miracle that they may miss the essence of the Gospel, the truth about God’s love through his son Jesus Christ that brings the gift of eternal life. Jesus could have performed a number of breath-taking miracles that could easily force us to believe in him, but that is contrary to his own plan. God could very easily overwhelm us with his power, but he is not interested in scare tactics, he wants to win us with his love.
God wants us to love him, not because we have to, but because we choose to. God not only created us with free will, but he always upholds our free will and does not manipulate it. In a sense we can say by doing this God is ‘risking’ (for lack of a better word) the possibility of our rejection. But I think that is the point. He does not want us to believe or love him because we have to, but because we want to. Love will never be love if it is not voluntary. We cannot force others to love us. Even if we have all the riches and power in the world we can only force a person to pretend or behave as if he/she loves us, true love will always spring from a free choice and God desires nothing less than a genuine love from his creatures. A miracle may bring us to Christ, but what keeps us with him for life is his Love.
He does not want us to believe or love him because we have to, but because we want to. Love will never be love if it is not voluntary.
– – Author: Rev. Francis Burgula – –
