YOU Can Do Miracles
“I can’t heal you, only Jesus can,” said the healing evangelist. “I couldn’t heal the broken wing on a fly.” The people were impressed by the preacher’s humility. He was trying to minimize himself and glorify Jesus. “Don’t look at me – look at Jesus!” he continued. “Only Jesus can work the miracle you need! I can’t do anything for you myself. I can only point you to Jesus.” Wasn’t this the right thing to do – to point people away from himself and toward Jesus? As you are about to see, everything he said was wrong from a truly biblical perspective!
Acts 28:8:
And it came to pass, that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.
“No, Lord,” you may be thinking, “You must have meant that Paul prayed and YOU healed him.” I remember saying that to the Lord once when I read that verse! But that’s not what God said. Paul healed Publius’s father. God did not say that Jesus healed him; He said that Paul healed him. Paul was using his delegated authority.
But this runs counter to what most people think they know. They probably have never read that verse carefully before. It does not say, “Paul prayed for him and God healed him.” It doesn’t even say that Paul prayed for Publius’s father; it just says that Paul prayed. Then Paul laid his hands on him and healed him. This is consistent with Mark 16:18: “…they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Paul did what Jesus said; he laid hands on the sick person. Now we can be sure that Paul did it in the name of Jesus, that is, by His authority. But this verse makes it sound as if Paul had the authority to heal the man. And that’s exactly the case. Paul had authority as a believer to lay hands on that man for his recovery and he used his authority in Christ. Paul did not ask God or Jesus to heal the man. He knew that he was an authorized distributor of God’s healing power because of Jesus.
Once you see this principle, you will start to see it in other verses too. It is never sensible to build a doctrine on one verse of Scripture. You want at least two or three witnesses. So look at the following verse:
Acts 6:8:
And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people.
Because I go by my middle name (Stephen), I’ve always liked this verse! But again, it says that Stephen, not Jesus, did wonders and miracles. Of course, we understand that Stephen could not have done miracles without Jesus, because Jesus said in John 15:5, “Without Me you can do nothing.” However, it’s obvious that Paul and Stephen were not “without Jesus” because they were believers. It seems that God gave Stephen credit for doing the wonders and miracles. Wasn’t that robbing Jesus of His glory? Apparently, God didn’t think so.
Now consider this similar verse:
Acts 8:6:
And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
The pattern is becoming obvious. The verse above says that Philip did miracles. It doesn’t even say that Jesus did miracles through Philip, though we understand that Philip certainly couldn’t do them apart from Jesus. But Philip wasn’t apart from Jesus either.
Then we see a couple things Peter and John said in Acts 3 that would almost provoke a riot among modern believers. The trouble would start with verse 4: “And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.” This flies in the face of tradition, which says, “Don’t look at us; only look at Jesus, because only He can do anything for you. Remember, we can’t heal the broken wing on a fly.” While it was Jesus working through them, they still told the man to look at THEM, as if THEY had something. And they did! Peter continued in verse 6, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” Peter and John were giving that man what they had. They had the authority to use the name of Jesus for his healing, and they did it!
The religious council that tried the apostles recognized that THEY had done the miracle. They did not say that it was done by GOD, but rather by the apostles. I’ve underlined the key words for emphasis.
Acts 4:16:
Saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; and we cannot deny it.
What we keep seeing is this: God has given man the authority to work miracles. We perform them by exercising Jesus’ delegated authority. Religious man has always thought, “Only God has power. We can only pray that God will exercise that power. Only Jesus can initiate healing.” But God has actually given the authority to heal and work miracles to MAN, as stated in Matthew 9:8: “But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.” WE are the ones who initiate healing with our delegated authority.
Note that the word “men” is plural. Matthew didn’t say that God only gave the power to Jesus. Jesus operated as a Man Himself (even though He was God), so the way He ministered is how we can minister also. Remember that He commissioned the twelve and then the seventy to go out and do miracles too. And lest we start to think that it is prideful to think WE could do the things Jesus did, consider what He said about the matter:
John 14:12:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do he shall do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
He said that YOU would do the works that He did. He didn’t say that you would pray and ask God to do them. Just like Paul, just like Stephen, just like Philip, just like Peter and John, YOU would do the works. You have His authority to go do them.
In fact, He commanded His disciples to do His works, too. If you read carefully, you’ll see that He never commissioned His disciples to pray for the sick! He commanded them to HEAL the sick (Matthew 10:7-8, Luke 9:1-2, Luke 10:8-9), not pray for the sick. Now, we can “pray for the sick” by praying that they get a revelation of the healing that already belongs to them because of what Jesus did, and we can pray for laborers to reach them with the good news that Jesus paid for their healing and that they can simply believe that they receive it when they pray (Mark 11:24). But Jesus never suggested the modern form of ministering to the sick, which is asking God to do something to heal them. Today that is unnecessary because God did something when Christ went to the whipping post and the cross; He does not need to do anything new. Jesus gave His followers authority over ALL the works of the enemy (including, but not limited to, disease), as we see in Luke 10:19. Jesus didn’t say that we’d pray for the sick and they’d recover. He said that we would lay our hands on them and they’d recover – He didn’t even mention prayer as being a direct part of the process!
Luke 9:6 records that the disciples went out healing everywhere. They did the healing using the authority to heal that Jesus had given them.
Mark 6:13 also says that the disciples anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.
Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 13:2 involved HIM moving mountains, not praying to God to move mountains.
Mark 16:17 is a good example of how things are supposed to work. In Jesus’ name – by His delegated authority – THEY (believers, which includes you if you’re born again) shall cast out demons. Jesus did not say that believers would pray to God to do something about demons. He did not say that GOD would cast out demons in response to their actions or prayers. Prayer is not even mentioned in this verse! He said that THEY would cast out demons, showing that He has delegated authority to believers to act on His behalf. GOD does not cast out demons in the church age – BELIEVERS do! Jesus has given you the authority to go ahead and do it right now; there is no reason to wait.
Jesus never sent any preachers out without commissioning them to heal the sick and demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit. In fact, He ordered His disciples NOT to go out until they were filled with power from on high!
Luke 24:49:
And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
When Jesus sent out the original twelve apostles, He gave them power to cast out unclean spirits and to heal all kinds of sickness and disease (Matthew 10:1). He told them, “And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:7-8). Do you see it now? He did not tell them to pray to God about the sick, to “lift up” the sick in prayer, “remember” the sick, think “unspoken prayer requests” at God or any other modern church invention. He told them to heal the sick.
Consider also that in Mark 9:38-39 and Luke 9:49-50, we learn of someone who was not among the apostles but still cast out demons in Jesus’ name. Jesus said that someone who did a miracle in His name could not afterward lightly speak evil of Him. Again, He said that someone (not God) did a miracle in His name.
Consider that everything today has to bow at the NAME Of Jesus. God didn’t say that everything bows to Jesus, but rather to His Name (see Philippians 2:9-11 and Notes on Philippians 2:9-11). Jesus doesn’t run around the earth using His name! Believers are the ones who use the name of Jesus. For example, in Acts 3:16, Peter said that Jesus’ NAME, through faith in His NAME, had healed the crippled beggar. He didn’t say that JESUS Himself had done it, although there is a sense in which that is true, given that Jesus Himself backs His name (John 14:13-14).
The main problem with the falsely humble assertion that you couldn’t heal the broken wing on a fly is that you will inspire no confidence in the sick people whom you are trying to help. Rather than saying, “Look at us – we can give you what we have, namely healing, which we have the authority to command in the name of Jesus,” we essentially tell the sick that it’s all up to God because we don’t have the authority to do anything about it. Then God, who has given such power unto men, doesn’t do anything in response to our “God, please heal this person” prayers because He has delegated that authority to us and He won’t do for us the thing He told US to do. Most Christians think it is GOD’S responsibility to do something when in fact it is MAN’S responsibility to do something that God has given man the authority to do. It is up to MAN to determine what happens on the earth (Psalm 115:16). People moan at what God “allows” when the truth is that what WE allow is allowed and what WE forbid is forbidden (Matthew 16:19).
In the silly 1968 Monkees movie, a rock band sat in the presence of someone who spouted a lot of spiritual-sounding nonsense and then said, “But then, why should I speak, since I know nothing?” Davy Jones (the Monkees’ front man) said, “Nothing? You know nothing?” The man said, “That’s right.” Then Davy said, “You mean to tell me we’ve been sitting here listening to you and you know nothing?” So Davy wouldn’t listen to him anymore. If you keep asserting that you can’t help someone or heal someone, he is likely to think, “You mean to tell me that I’ve been sitting here listening to you and you have nothing?” That would be very different from the situation with the crippled beggar when Peter told him that he DID have something to give him. You have something to give people, too!
If you like the idea of telling people that you can’t help them and then not helping them, but rather pointing them to God, I have an idea for you. The next time your church does an outreach to the hungry, don’t take any food with you. Tell the hungry people, “But why should we speak, since we have nothing? But we’re here to point you to God, who is the Provider. If you will trust Him, He will provide food for you to eat. If you get in line with His financial program by tithing and giving, you can have abundance so that you won’t starve.” You can find out how many people will come back next time. Probably, they will say, “You mean to tell us that we’ve been sitting here listening to you and you have nothing?”
A famous faith teacher used to tell everyone whenever he did a healing line that Jesus had put His fingers on his hands, which then burned like hot coals. He said that Jesus had given him a special anointing to minister to the sick. In fact, he said that the special anointing wouldn’t flow if he didn’t talk about it. He wasn’t trying to brag; he needed to instill hope in the people that he HAD something that they could receive. If they didn’t know that he had it, they would not have expected to receive from it.
Now I’m not recommending that you simply announce, “I can heal you!” That isn’t what Peter did. Peter said that he HAD something – and we know it was from God. What he did was explicitly done in the NAME of Jesus Christ. After the man’s healing, Peter was quick to point out that it was not by their OWN power or godliness that the man was healed (Acts 3:12). Rather it was done in the name of Jesus, through faith in His name (Acts 3:16). What Peter HAD was the delegated authority to minister in the name of Jesus. So we aren’t leaving Jesus out of the picture and taking glory for ourselves, which would actually be dangerous; it didn’t work out well for Herod when he let people worship him as a god (Acts 12:21-23)!
But saying “I can do nothing” does more harm than good because the truth is that God has delegated the authority to heal to YOU as a Christian. He is not going to do it Himself without your involvement. So if people look ONLY to God, they will be disappointed when He doesn’t do anything apart from you. God doesn’t do things that He delegates to others, such as resisting the devil and sharing the good news with the lost. If WE don’t do it, it just doesn’t get done.
As people grow, they’ll learn that they can receive healing the best ways – by taking it themselves in prayer or by commanding sickness to leave in the name of Jesus. But if they’re still at the point of needing laying on of hands, Jesus isn’t going to leave His seat at the right hand of the Father to lay hands on them. Either a believer will exercise his faith in the name of Jesus or it won’t get done.
So don’t get into false humility with broken fly speeches. Paul warned us that we could get cheated out of our reward through false (“voluntary”) humility (Colossians 2:18). People need to know that YOU have delegated authority, and that YOU can do something about their illnesses. It will be a constant source of joy to you when you realize that you have that authority and you use it and see wonderful miracles!
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