About Jesus  -  Steve Sweetman

Where Are The Miracle Workers?

It was 1971 when I found myself involved in what was called "the Charismatic Movement."   In traditional Pentecostal terminology this movement was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on people from all ethnicities and denominational persuasions.  It was not that I was unfamiliar with the Holy Spirit and the miraculous that I saw in the movement because I was familiar with it.  At the age of six I was pulled from the doorstep of death.  After being in and out of a coma-like state, Jesus healed me of Juvenile Diabetes, something the doctors at Sick Children's Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with no reluctance, confirmed to be a miracle. 

I saw the miracles and healings in the Charismatic Movement.  In 1973 my friend was given a few weeks to live.  She looked eight months pregnant; not with child but with cancer.  After much prayer she was raised to life and lives to this day.

While walking to work one day in 1972 my nose began to bleed.  That was no time for a nose bleed.  I ask Jesus to stop the bleeding.  Immediately I felt the blood flowing back up my nose. 

Movements of the Holy Spirit are exciting to live through but history tells us that they often die because of excessive human interference, which I observed at times in the 1970's.  I saw exaggerated claims of healing that could not be verified, prophetic predictions that never came true, legs being lengthened by manipulative means, and people copying other people's gift of tongues.     

There was definitely lots of excitement in the Charismatic Movement, some of which should have been tempered by Biblical knowledge.  It was sometimes suggested that all Christians in the first generation church performed the miraculous, and therefore, so should we.  Was that really the case?  Acts 5:12 and 13 says this:

"The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people.  And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon’s Colonnade.  No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people."

Acts 2:43 says this:

"Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles."

It seems to me from the above verses that it was the apostles who performed the miracles and healed the sick, not the general Christian public.  The Apostle Paul explained why this was so in 1 Corinthians 12:8 through 10.  The text says: 

"To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues."

Notice the words "to one is given" and "to another is given."  One person receives one gift of the Spirit while another person receives another gift.  No one person possesses all the gifts and not all have the gifts of healing and miracles.  The Holy Spirit determines who gets what gifts and when.  1 Corinthians 12:11 says this:

"All these [gifts of the Spirit] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines."

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14 addressed the issue of the individual's place and ministry in the Body of Christ.  As each part of your physical body has its specific function, each one of us in the Body of Christ has his specific function.  We all have different responsibilities based on the gifts we have receive from God the Father, from Jesus, and from the Holy Spirit.  As each one of us discovers our place and function in Christ's earthly body, the life of the Holy Spirit will be displayed in us in the way He wants.  It might well be then that we see where the miracle workers among us are.