Now many miraculous signs and wonders came about among the people through the hands of the apostles. By common consent they were all meeting together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared to join them, but the people held them in high honor. More and more believers in the Lord were added to their number, crowds of both men and women. Thus they even carried the sick out into the streets, and put them on cots and pallets, so that when Peter came by at least his shadow would fall on some of them. A crowd of people from the towns around Jerusalem also came together, bringing the sick and those troubled by unclean spirits. They were all being healed. (Acts 5:12-16 NET)
The other day I prayed for a man with cancer and then told him that he was healed and that he would give his testimony very soon. He answered, “If it’s God’s will.” That immediately rubbed me the wrong way, and I replied, “It is! Grab a hold of what I’m telling you and run with it. Your healing is clearly God’s will!”
At this point in the book of Acts, Jesus had already been taken back into heaven, and the church had existed for less than a year, and as you can see, the new group of Christians (though they were not yet called Christians) were meeting in a part of the temple complex called Solomon’s Portico. At that time many signs and wonders were happening through the faith and prayers of the apostles. A sign is a warning, or points to something, and a wonder causes people to be amazed. Both signs and wonders gave credibility to the new Church, proving that the apostles’ words were not from themselves, but from the mouth of God. Amazingly, one of the signs and wonders was that Peter’s shadow healed people as he walked by! …both the sick and the demon possessed.
We should never question whether or not God still does miracles today. We believe in the same God as the One that worked in the book of Acts, and because He is God, He doesn’t change. If we are not seeing great things today, we need to decide that we will from now on, and insist on God’s power working through us. Signs and wonders cannot be separated from our faith—when a sick person is healed, he is healed because of his own faith, not the faith of the pastor that prayed for him. The pastor needs to pray, and speak the truth, and have the boldness to declare the miracle a reality, but as Jesus said many times, “Your faith has healed you.”
Reread today’s passage. In fact, why don’t you print it out and put it on your mirror, fridge, desk, etc. …and read it at least once every day for the next month. Start to change your mindset and expectations about signs and wonders, because we can never see something until we have first conceived of it in our minds. Decide that you are going to start experiencing the signs and wonders of the first century church.
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