So with this tour being the ‘Miracle Tour’ of the ‘Miracle’ album, we have been using the word ‘miracle’ in our prayer times more than ever. Our heartfelt desire has been to see the Lord God Almighty who performed miracles throughout the Bible meet with his people in a miraculous way today.
Often times our pre-concert prayer has focused on the desperate needs of fans who may have passed us a note or sent us an email- children with cancer, husbands about to abandon their wives, families still grieving from the loss of a loved one. We may never know the results of all of our prayers, but nevertheless we have prayed consistently for miraculous intervention.
One of the most powerful moments in the concert is when Mac encourages the audience to raise their hand in the air if they need a miracle from the Lord. Most night I am sitting somewhere in that audience and am humbled as I see many, many hand go up. A few nights ago, sitting alongside Mac on our tour bus after the show, he leaned over to me and showed me a tweet he had received that simply said “In the concert last week you asked us to raise our hands if we needed a miracle-today I received my miracle.”
Equally powerful is the moment when Mac invites the audience to be willing to be used by the Lord as a miracle in someone else’s life. Hands shoot up all over the auditorium. In all my years of ministry I am still overcome when I see a life surrendered to God’s plans and purposes.
World Vision child sponsorships have been consistently high throughout the tour-if you have sponsored a child then on behalf of Third Day, World Vision, and the child, a big THANKYOU. You are being a miracle.
Similarly, our VIP reception silent auction for the Gateway School on the Come Together compound in India has raised plentiful finances- to all who bid successfully and to all whose bids were not successful- THANKYOU for your willingness to give generously. You too are being a miracle.
Of course, it’s one thing to talk about miracles, but it’s another thing to experience them. I’ve seen a young man raised from the dead in India, I’ve prayed and seen a young woman’s withered arm be restored, and both in India and in my home church in Cardiff, Wales I have seen other miraculous healings and have been used by the Lord even to cast out demons from troubled people.
Praying for the miraculous takes some faith! The gospels remind us that there were some towns and villages in which Jesus ability to perform miracles and signs and wonders was limited because of the lack of faith of the people. Praise God that his miraculous intervention doesn’t depend on how great our prayers our, or how positive our thinking is. It needs us to forget about any of our own inadequacies, uncertainties, fears, and simply focus our faith on the Lord Jesus. Even then we can’t expect God to turn up and simply ‘perform’ at our request. Time and again, Jesus was moved to the miraculous because of his love and compassion for people who were hurting, broken, sick, mentally tormented or in bondage. So our main motivations to see the miraculous must be firstly for the glory of God and secondly out of love and compassion for people.
Will God always do the miraculous? Not necessarily! I remember leading a mission team to India exactly one year after I had prayed and seen a young man come back to life. The team had heard this story and were ready to see more of the miraculous. One night we prayed for a blind man-our prayers were heartfelt, powerful, fervent, and went on for sometime. The man didn’t get his sight back, and the team were devastated; in fact they asked me if the problem was their own lack of faith. So I know what it’s like to pray and see the miraculous and I know what it’s like to pray and not see any evidence of a miracle. That’s fine-it reminds me of God’s sovereignty. This reminds me of the friends of Daniel when they are about to be thrown into the fiery furnace:
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
This is exactly my thinking! I pray and believe that God can do and will do miracles, but even if he doesn’t I’m not going to stop loving Him and worshipping Him! So I encourage you to be bold in your prayers and to raise your levels of faith-but never get to the place where you think you can get on-demand signs and wonders from God.
By the way, if you have a story of a miracle at one of our recent concerts then we’d love to be encouraged by hearing about it!
