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NOTE: An updated version of this post is available on my new website. Please visit it here: http://bornofspirit.net/how-jesus-did-miracles/
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Acts 10:38 - God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
I want to break this down into two parts.
PART 1: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power..."
Jesus is God. He was God throughout eternity past, and He is God throughout eternity in the future. Omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (everywhere at once), and omniscient (all wise and all knowing).
However, 2000 years ago He took on the limits of being a human, and He came to rescue fallen humanity. Part of this rescue mission involves Him subjecting Himself to the limitations of the human existence (Philippians 2:5-8).
For example, while He was on the earth in a human body...
- He had to walk from place to place. He was not exercising His omnipresence.
- He had to grow in wisdom (Luke 2:52). He was not exercising His omniscience.
- He got tired and hungry (John 4:6). He was not exercising His omnipotence.
Even though He is God, He put himself in our shoes and made Himself subject to our limitations. We actually don't know much of the first 30 years of His life, other than the fact that He worked as a carpenter, and He had a remarkable grasp of the scriptures.
Then, on the day He was baptized in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit fell on Him (Luke 3:21-22), and He began to do things that ordinary people can't do.
Before this day, there are zero miracles done by Jesus in the bible. After this day, there are multitudes of miracles done by Jesus in the bible.
Look at the way the people in His hometown reacted:
Mark 6:1-3 - Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. "Where did this man get these things?" they asked. "What's this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph,Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him.
Their reaction shows that something was VERY different now. They were not used to Him teaching and doing miracles.
We are told in Luke 4:14 and Luke 4:18 that Jesus is now walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, and that is the reason for the sudden change. When the Holy Spirit came on Him, Jesus went from living within the limits of a "regular person" (and I say that reverently) to living as a regular person who has the Spirit of God working through Him to demonstrate miraculous power.
This is exciting news for the rest of us, because it is the same Holy Spirit that lives in every believer. The Holy Spirit is God, and He wants to do the same things with us that He did with Jesus. He wants to use us to demonstrate the power of God.
PART 2: "...who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him."
Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, and that's what He wants us to do too. What would Jesus do? He would do good and heal all who are oppressed of the devil.
Jesus didn't go about telling the sick people that God made them sick to teach them patience or to deepen their piety.
He demonstrated the power of God with authority. He commanded sickness to leave. He commanded people's bodies to be healed. He commanded demons to go.
Jesus healed sick people, and he cast demons out of people that were under demonic influence. This is called "healing all who were oppressed by the devil."
Notice that sickness is not from God. Sickness is oppression from the devil. God made earth an mankind without sickness. There was no disease in the garden of Eden. Sickness became a part of our life on earth when Adam sinned and gave his dominion away to the devil. Sickness is not part of God's plan for your life. It is a part of the devil's plan for your life. God's plan is that we drive out sickness by the power of the same Holy Spirit that worked in Jesus....the same Holy Spirit that lives in each of us who believe.
Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, and he gave us the authority to do the same. He said that we would do the same works that he did, and even greater works because He was returning to His Father (John 14:12). When Jesus returned to heaven to sit at the right hand of the Father, He poured out the Holy Spirit on the church (Acts 2:33), and then they starting doing the same things Jesus had been doing.
Somewhere through history, it seems like a lot of the church has forgotten about this. May we all wake up and realize our inheritance. And not only realize it, but actually start taking advantage of it.
Ephesians 1:17-18 ...that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints...
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