To What Extent Are Prolific Miracles Limited to Those Called to the Ministry?

Some preachers obviously walk in a lot more anointing for miracles and healings than the rest of us do.  This is to be expected because 1 Corinthians 12:28 talks about those who have ministries along the lines of working of miracles and gifts of healings.  (See 1 Corinthians 12:28-30.)  Because the Spirit uses only some people in this spectacular way, it stands that the rest of us will not flow in that degree of power or anointing for healing.  If we all were equal when it comes to healings and miracles, Paul would not have mentioned some individuals with the comment, “Are all workers of miracles?  Have all the gifts of healings?”

This does not mean that you cannot lay hands on the sick – you can.  However, you cannot expect to be used like a minister who majors in this kind of ministry unless that is also your function in the Body of Christ.  You have authority to lay hands on the sick and expect them to recover.  However, you may not see as many instantaneous and/or spectacular miracles as someone called to be an evangelist.

One obvious reason that these ministers have more miracles to report than you do is that they encounter more needs every day than you do.  They are always ministering to the sick.  They have a heavy anointing because the anointing needs to be there to meet the needs of many sick people.  Many times, sick people healed in those meetings would never have been healed by their own faith.  If the ministers had a lesser degree of anointing on them, they would never have been able to minister to long lines of sick people in one night.  They need a greater special anointing for healing because God has called them to minister to more sick people.

Also, these kinds of anointings are usually, but not always, associated with the office of the evangelist.  Philip is our example of a New Testament evangelist.  He preached the gospel with signs following and turned many to Jesus.  The purpose of the signs is to advertise God’s goodness so that the goodness of God can draw men to repentance (Romans 2:4).  This doesn’t mean that only evangelists can flow in these gifts consistently.  I have seen people with prophetic ministries flow in these gifts, also.  Signs and wonders are also the calling card of the apostle (2 Corinthians 12:12).

ANY believer can lay hands on the sick in faith.  However, a God-appointed minister will flow more frequently in the gifts of the Spirit.  That is part of the equipment needed to stand in a ministry office.  It doesn’t mean that he has more faith than you do; it just means that he is used more in spiritual gifts.

Don’t sell yourself short if you don’t have a full-time healing and/or miracle ministry.  God may well use you in a spectacular way.  Stephen was a layperson who did great signs and wonders.  Philip had never been commissioned (that we know of) as an evangelist before he went to Samaria; he was a table waiter!  When he did the work of an evangelist by preaching the gospel to the lost, the signs followed.  (He was later called an evangelist.  He is the only New Testament person so labeled.)  Ananias, who prayed for Paul to receive the Holy Spirit, was used supernaturally in a way that still affects the entire world.  Yet he was an ordinary believer as far as we know.  We don’t know anything else that Ananias did.  There are plenty of good testimonies today of ordinary believers reading and believing Mark 16:18, laying hands on the sick in the name of Jesus and having them recover.

Inasmuch as you play the part of an evangelist to those around you, you should expect signs to follow the preaching of the Word out of your mouth, just as they would follow the preaching of an evangelist.  The more lost people you are reaching, the more signs and wonders you should see.  The evangelist will see more miracles than a typical believer because his very job involves reaching lost people, so he is doing it all the time.