(One of my IHOPU classes, Basic Christian Beliefs, is giving the assignment of blogging on certain questions from the lessons every week. This week, I’m choosing the question “Did Jesus perform any miracles before His public ministry?”)

There’s a tension in the Church related to how we envision Jesus during His time on Earth. Do we see Him as so completely ordinary that we confine Him to the context of history and miss the surging reality of His divinity? Or do we see Him as an ethereal, unreachable Being who is constantly gazing vaguely into the clouds with open palms while the Hallelujah chorus echoes around Him?

Both mindsets carry unique dangers and errors. However, for much of traditional church culture (although in emerging culture it’s somewhat the opposite), the latter seems to be more prevalent. We’ve put Jesus in a halo and told Him to stay there.

Part of the result of this over-sacredizing of Jesus is that we get this idea of Him practically sneezing out miracles like it’s nothing. I’ve heard people joke about Jesus as a kid multiplying food whenever he was hungry, or healing animals, etc… you know, just “Jesus being Jesus.” The trouble is that this is not what the Bible says. John 2:11 describes turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana as the “first of his signs.” That only happened after the Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism. (John 1:32-34)

When we get this idea of “Well, that’s just Jesus being Jesus. He’s God, so He just does stuff like that,” we miss the entire point of what Jesus was trying to demonstrate.

“So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise…. I can do nothing on my own.'”
(John 5: 19, 30)

Do you see the implications of this? All of Jesus’ miracles weren’t done by the power of His own divinity. They were done as a human in full submission to and partnership with the Holy Spirit.

So what does that mean for us? Jesus said it this way:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. …It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper [Holy Spirit] will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.”
(John 14:12; 16:7)

If Jesus was our example, and He actually did all that He did as a human empowered by the Holy Spirit, and He really has given me this same Holy Spirit, that means the exact same resources that were available to Jesus are available to me. I can heal the sick. I can raise the dead. I can cast out demons. All of it is my inheritance.

It’s not just “Jesus being Jesus.” The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead lives in me. (Romans 8:11)

Hallelujah. God, help me live in that.