Confusion of the Miraculous

Jesus answered them and said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled." (John 6:26)

Here I am again seeing one of the key words that shows up all throughout the book of John. John seems intent on getting across something very important through the use of this idea of signs. But I strongly suspect that if one is not very careful that it can be very easy to miss the real purpose of the signs in Jesus' life from our perspective just as much as it was in His day.

Given human nature, we are just as dazzled by supernatural manifestations and influenced by them as were people in any generation. But at the same time, it is extremely easy for Satan to mislead us through the use of such manifestations because of our natural bent to use such 'evidence' to ignore other more important elements about knowing what is true or who is a reliable leader to follow. In fact, the record of Jesus filled with more miracles than recorded anywhere else in Scripture is a testament to the fact that miracles and demonstrations of supernatural interventions do not constitute a conclusive way to convert people to the truth. All of the people who clamored for Jesus' death had seen or been close to many miracles worked by Jesus. Yet these miracles had failed to open their hearts enough to fully embrace the real truth about God that Jesus came to reveal to them.

What is it about signs and wonders that causes us to suddenly blank out our conscience selectively?

Why is it that both God and Satan at times employ very similar methods as a means of attracting followers?

Why is it that sometimes God seems ready and willing to work miracles on the behalf of His people and other times seems to remain silent? It seems at times that when God's children are threatened by false teachers able to perform amazing feats to attract the attention and loyalty of multitudes, God is sometimes not so eager to pit His power against the miracle-working power of evil spirits. But then other times He is willing to answer the prayers of His servants to clarify which side is true and which is false. What makes the difference?

I don't claim to have answers for all these questions. But I know that they are very real questions that many people have and that many of God's children have been troubled by for centuries. How is one to know if a miracle is a testimony of the authentic power of heaven or when it is a subtle means of deceiving people into greater darkness and rebellion against heaven? Obviously Jesus performed a lot of miracles openly and seemed to use them as a means of establishing His credibility as the Son of God and the true Messiah. And yet right here in this verse I see a definite shift in focus as Jesus sought to get people to think differently about the real purpose of the miraculous signs that He performed.

Since we are just as liable to being confused about miracles and signs as people were in Jesus' day, I think it would be very helpful and even important to explore this issue more thoroughly. Along with the idea of belief which is a central theme in the book of John and is actually very intimately related to this subject of signs, I want to know for myself what Jesus had in mind when He performed all of the signs we see recorded. There must be something much deeper intended by the use of true signs, something that makes them uniquely different than miracles performed by the enemy of God used to mislead millions to reject the truths about God.

The very next verse gives a strong clue as to what Jesus was trying to get across here.

"Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal." (John 6:27)

There is a great deal in these few verses that needs digesting, quite literally. The contrast that Jesus spoke of here between physical food and spiritual food is a very important concept to grasp if we are to benefit from reading about all the signs in Jesus' life that were given to encourage true belief.

It is true that Jesus miraculously provided very literal, physical food for people to eat that they could chew and digest and benefit from just the day before this conversation took place. Similarly, God is also ready and willing to provide for His trusting children in all ages the physical needs that living on this planet requires. But Jesus did not work this kind of miracle every time people got hungry around Him. The real purpose of Jesus' miracles was not to always provide for the physical needs of people but more importantly to get people to shift their priorities and begin to realize that there are far more important issues in life than whether we get enough to eat, have clothes to wear and a place to sleep.

The obsession with self-preservation that sin has implanted into our psyche and that gave rise to the whole idea of evolution is a motive that tends to make our own physical needs the highest priority in our life. As we watch the way animals fight to survive and feel similar instincts within our own hearts, we tend to view the reality of our existence as simply a period of time in which we fight as hard as possible to get all the benefits and pleasures we can out of life before it slips away from us at death.

If we are willing to be really honest about how we live life, we will have to admit that our natural drives cause us to look out for ourself first, many times at the expense of those around us. It is true that many engage in bonds of affection and live lives that include generosity, blessing others and pious acts of mercy and kindness. But what is clear is that apart from the promptings of the Spirit of God in our hearts, all of us have a natural and deep-seated bent toward self-preservation and resist any ideas that threaten our own safety or comfort.

This inherent selfishness that pervades the human heart and soul is the result of being mostly cut off from the atmosphere of heaven after Adam and Eve chose a life of rebellion against the ways of God. If it were not for the instant grace of God that intervened on their behalf, their existence would have immediately been terminated, not because God was angry with them for their disobedience but because the atmosphere of heaven is so highly charged with power that rebellion against it is like grounding one's self to the earth while trying to hold onto a high-power electrical conductor. Because of this inherent danger of immediate death God had to withdraw most of His intense presence (glory) from humans and communicate with them through much more insulated means.

But the result of this new arrangement, along with Satan's flood of lies about God and about reality that have permeated all of humanity's thinking ever since, is that we are now living in pretty much an opposite mode from that which motivates the rest of the unfallen universe. Instead of freely participating in the selfless circuit of joy, praise and giving that keeps the rest of creation humming in harmony and perfection, this fallen world is experimenting with the foundational motive of selfishness and self-preservation even at the expense of creation around us. As a result of this basic core of selfishness that governs our natural motives we find it nearly impossible to understand or grasp the way that heaven operates or even the way we were originally designed to function.

Because of this terrible distortion about how reality should function, we tend to view the miraculous more from a perspective of how it might benefit us personally or how we might be able to exploit it for our own preservation instead of perceiving it as a revelation of another reality which is starkly different than what we are accustomed to believing. Our first impulse, just as with these people around Jesus in this story, is to want to figure out how to access the supernatural power of God to further our own desires for self-preservation and comfort and even pleasure. But in doing so we miss the far more significant purpose of the true miracles of God which is to break us out of our typical mindset of selfishness and to begin to see that God is radically better than we ever imagined Him to be.

This brings me to a very important insight I believe. One of the surest ways to test whether some sign or miracle is of God or if it is designed to deceive is to place it in the light of the much larger context of the real controversy between God and His accuser. What does a miracle say about God? What is the nature of the feelings produced in our hearts when we view or even want to experience some miracle? Are we looking for miraculous interventions in our lives to satisfy some basic craving, for self-preservation, or are we living from a passion of vindicating the reputation of God that has been so terribly maligned and slandered?

I am starting to see more clearly that the signs that Jesus performed were all focused on changing our perceptions about what God is like and how He feels towards sinners. The very fact that many of the true miracles in the Bible were unexpected shows me that God is not likely to work His power in ways that reinforce our typical assumptions about Him. God is not to be restricted to the confines of our narrow views of what we think He is supposed to do or not do the way we usually view Him. But when we begin to experience life in the context of a larger perspective of the great war going on between truth and lies, evil and righteousness, love and fear, we will begin to have a better sense of when a miracle may be appropriate and effective for attracting the lost to embrace salvation. We will also be more aware of when a miracle is being used as a means of perpetuating the status quo of lies about reality and God or when miracles are being used to manipulate people to maintain deception while purporting to be reinforcing doctrines established by man-made religion.

This idea of God's intervention and working in my life is a very real issue at the moment. This is not just a theological exercise but has very real implications with very practical applications for me right now. I sense that there are many ideas about reality that are still in flux in my own mind that need direction or reinforcement or amending. At times God uses little subtle miracles or providences to guide me and other times when it seems He is more distant I feel compelled to reconsider the direction and the effect on me of the choices I have been making recently.

I do not want to base my life or belief system primarily on the presence or absence of miracles, but at the same time I feel it is important to grow in my perceptive ability to know when I am in sync with God's plans or when I am taking off on some tangent and need to realign myself closer to His heart. I want to learn to perceive the idea of success more from heaven's definition rather than whether things are easy and going well for me personally at any given time. I also want to understand better what Jesus was talking about when He said that I need to give much higher priority to receiving the food the Son of Man is ready to give me rather than obsessing with working for the food I am used to having that leaves me feeling hungry again later and lacking the peace that my heart needs to thrive.

This sounds very similar to the comments Jesus made in John 4 to the woman of Samaria when He offered her the kind of water that would turn into a living geyser inside of her life. Yes, I want this kind of food and water! Jesus, give me this provision today.

After the Thanks

There came other small boats from Tiberias near to the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. (John 6:23)

I am again reminded of something so powerful and yet so ignored in this verse that I have to take some time again to think about it more intently. I find it more than just interesting that the location where the 5,000 were fed is referred to here as the place where they ate the bread after the Lord had given thanks. It does not talk about the place where Jesus multiplied the bread and fish or where He worked an astounding miracle for a lot of hungry people. It focuses in almost exclusively on the act of Jesus giving thanks and following that the people ate the bread that was produced as a result of that action on the part of Jesus.

I am repeatedly convicted at various times of my need to intentionally give thanks far more than I have ever done. But unlike the forced gratitude that I was taught growing up that made me feel very resentful from being manipulated and controlled by my parents in order to make them look good, the thanks that heaven relates to is a spontaneous but also deliberate choice that has almost unlimited power to open up the windows of heaven in blessings that we so often need in our lives.

I see another aspect of this kind of thanks that is in stark contrast to most of the thanks we are used to dealing in. That is, the thanks referred to in the Bible very often occurs before the blessings are received, whereas the kind of gratitude I am used to seeing is almost always dependent on first experiencing the blessings we desire. Giving thanks while in extreme need with little idea of how God is going to meet my need requires a very different mindset than waiting until I know my needs are being met and then feeling grateful for the specific ways in which God has chosen to provide. The kind of thankfulness we are told about in the Bible is a faith-based gratitude that is more dependent on a trust in God's heart rather than just an acknowledgment of His provisions.

Even more than that, this kind of thanks seems to have tremendous power to actually unleash heaven's blessings. But at the same time it cannot have any element of manipulation in it. If we are trying to force God to do things for us by going through the motions of giving thanks while in our heart we have cherished doubts about His goodness and desire to bless us, this kind of thanks may not work for us very well. This kind of thanks is not a magic wand whereby we can get God to give us what we want, it is really an expression of our mutual love and trust that springs from an intimate relationship with our Father who we are confident always has our best interest at heart.

Our fallen nature always gravitates toward seeking a formula whereby we can secure for ourselves the things we feel we need and desire. We are selfish by nature and cannot avoid that. But when the divine nature of God begins to live and operate within our hearts we now have the option to live from motives for selfless acts of kindness and generosity in relation to those around us. We are then empowered through the use of genuine gratitude and public thanks to open the resources of heaven to demonstrate to others the real truth about our Father who cares for all of His children.

In a sense there really are some formulas that must be understood if we are to function effectively in the family of God. But they are not simply magic phrases that have power in themselves but instead are expressions of a kind of heart relationship we can have with a Father who wants His children to know Him more fully and more appreciatively. Gratitude tends to deepen the bonds of any healthy relationship and when we express thanks ahead of time with little to no evidence yet in place it displays the kind of deep trust that is also essential for us to experience true salvation.

I have noticed at times that when I am starting to feel discouraged or overwhelmed or depressed, that if I simply step back and deliberately chose to express gratitude and praise to God for who He is and specific attributes about His character, that no matter what is going on around me that choice and action in itself suddenly introduces a whole new element into my atmosphere. I then begin to feel new life and hope coming back into my spirit.

It is all too easy to forget this most important weapon against discouragement, but the Spirit of God reminds me at times and I find that if I am willing to take up this weapon and use it generously that it can be depended on to bring heaven closer to earth and dispel the fears that try to suffocate hope from my heart.