Being a minister does not give you a license to perform miracles.  This is contrary to what far too many television preachers tell you.  You would think every person with any problem receives automatic blessing just from brief contact.  Let me say yet again that you should not misunderstand me here.  God does indeed do miracles still.  You should not throw out the possibilities simply because some people find the way to a large salary with even bigger houses is to present self as a conduit for the miraculous.  It may even be possible that some individuals do experience unusual acts of God even through the peddlers of prosperity.  Just do not expect that this is somehow the norm in our world.  We call them miracles for a very good reason.  They are acts which defy explanation plus tend to be very rare. 

If miracles were the norm then you can be sure many of my headaches would vanish quickly.  It would be very easy for me to say the right words for every financial need to be met.  You can be absolutely sure that my friends who suffer from illness would receive my immediate attention to remove their sickness.  Being stingy with the power to do the miraculous seems to defeat the purpose of having that gift.  Why wait until there are crowds gathered under the bright lights of television cameras?  I always want to ask these guys how often they wander the halls of the hospital to pass out deliverance?  Not all of this is the fault of a few people.  Believers tend to be drawn into the latest exhibition of the extravagent.  Our hearts can be drawn away to acts of power more than we anchor them to acts of grace. 

Jesus was not immune to those human desires.  Did you ever stop to notice how many crowds gathered around Him during the miracles compared to when He spoke of being a disciple?  It may very well be that some of His actions never matched the response of those healed.  Keep in mind that sinful behavior includes using God for our selfish means.  His miracles were a display of the greater work of salvation.  Our more liberal friends wish to dismiss the stories as fictional.  The most they will credit the accounts is for them to be tales to illustrate something deeper or greater.  My view is that they forget what an incredible thing it is for one to be saved from evil, sickness or other limits.  I have zero problem accepting these amazing events as historical.  We see Jesus doing what we imagine God would do if in our world.  That in itself is beyond normal imagination.  God is indeed in Jesus doing His best even in our worst.

Easter is a miracle.  God raises Jesus from the dead.  Some will say that Jesus only passed out or some other medical condition short of death.  My best medical guess is that anyone who experiences those same injuries will also die.  So we see God doing the most incredible miracle ever.  I used to hear that the miracle of Easter is the empty tomb.  I read sometime later that an empty grave is pretty cool but the real point is Jesus alive by God's direct cause.  We are human beings at all levels of spiritual life.  Far too many would be defined being devoid of that life.  Those who believe will discover how we all are at various stages of maturity.  All of us depend on the miracle of grace.  We learn quickly that grace is no guarantee against life breaking down.  But what we discover is how grace transforms us from the inside out.  Growth like this is seldom easy, fast, or painless.  It is always a reality of the eternal above and beyond our condition.  Easter says nothing exists that cannot be changed by God's presence in our world.  Just always recall that this change usually begins with us so it can change all else about us. 

Bro. Trey