Miraculous Meaning

By Pastor Dan Hickling

“The whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen.”—Luke 19:37 (NKJV)

Miracles play a pivotal role in God’s purposes. From Abraham and Sarah conceiving a child after a long time of barrenness to the improbable freeing of His descendants from their Egyptian enslavement; from the indelible impact of Elijah and Elisha on Israel’s history to Jerusalem’s deliverance from the Assyrian army in the days of Isaiah; from the deliverance of Daniel in the lions’ den to the preservation of Paul in his pioneering of the gospel . . . miracles have an important place.

But are miracles just amazing stories relegated to the past, or does God want us to understand something else about them, something more that relates to each and every one of us? The answer is a definitive “Yes!” And over the course of the next month, we’re going to unpack many of the miracles we witness during the earthly ministry of Jesus. By the time we finish our focus on Christ’s miracles, we’re going to see them as more than historical happenings. In order to do so; however, we need to land on an accurate definition of what miracles are.

The English word, “miracle,” derives from the Latin word, “miraculum,” which literally means “object of wonder.” Webster’s dictionary defines the word as, “an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.” And the eminent Christian thinker C.S. Lewis described a miracle as, “an interference with nature by supernatural power.” 

Although these definitions help to narrow our focus, for our purposes, let’s understand a miracle as an obvious demonstration of something that only God can do. It represents the fact that God is unique and different from us; that He is able in ways that we aren’t, and beyond this, He is who we aren’t!

Here’s what we need to understand going forward about miracles: They point to something, something even greater than ourselves. They aren’t isolated events. They’re linked and connected to truths about their Author, who is eternal and transcends time. Consequently, they not only relate to us, but are essential to us . . . as essential as our very relationship with Him!

As with the disciples in the passage above, we’re going to rejoice over the miraculous things Jesus is going to do. But as a part of this, we’re going to see the greater reality that each one points to.

DIG: What’s a good working definition of the word miracle?

DISCOVER: What do we need to understand about miracles as we see them in Scripture?

DO: Ask God to give you a fresh perspective on the miracles we’ll look at this month.