I was interviewed on a well-known television show and was asked by the host: “What is the secret to accessing the miraculous?” My first thought was, “I wish I had thirty minutes to talk about this, instead of thirty seconds!”
The reason is that I know that many people will dismiss my simple and un-convoluted answer as a corny spiritual cliché.
What is the secret?
“The secret”, I told him, “is that there is no secret.” Or at least, it shouldn’t be a secret. The key to accessing the miraculous power of God is the simplest and most basic belief of Christianity. It is what brings us into the Kingdom of God, justifies us before God and allows us to please God in the first place.
The key to accessing the miraculous is having faith in the finished work of the Cross. I know no other secret and I challenge anyone to point to anything in Scripture that gives us any other key to accessing the miraculous power of God besides faith.
Keep it simple
Remember when the lame man at the Beautiful Gate was healed? Peter said to the crowd of amazed spectators that gathered: “Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? By faith in the Name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ Name and the faith that comes through Him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.” Acts 3:12,16.
The greatest spiritual discoveries are really simple and basic truths. It is as if everyone were searching for a tip, a trick or a new revelation.
New books keep piling up, training centres are springing up everywhere, teachers are a two a penny. Yet it seems that the more we learn about the miraculous the less we experience it.
Faith versus fear
Years ago I asked Evangelist Bonnke that same question: “What if I pray for someone and nothing happens?” This was his answer: “If you have to pray for 100 people in a prayer line and the first 99 don’t get healed, pray for the 100th one as if everyone before him had been healed!” My friend, that is faith! It is unmoved by what the eyes see. It rests on the promises and power of God.
If you are always afraid of what will happen if you pray for someone and they are not healed, you will soon stop praying for people. Faith and fear are at opposite ends of the spectrum and fear is bondage (Hebrews 2:15). Fear enters in where there is a feeling of personal risk.
So if you are afraid of what will happen if you pray for someone and they are not healed, it is a good indication that you may have claimed personal ownership of something that does not belong to you in the first place: God’s glory.
Rest in the Cross
Until you are able to rest in the finished work of the Cross, you do not understand faith. Until you are able to be unmoved by what you see, you do not understand faith. Until you have unhitched your reputation from the train of God’s glory, you do not understand faith. It’s not about you!
It is God’s glory, not yours
I do not claim to know all there is to know about faith. In fact, the longer I am enrolled in the school of the Holy Spirit, the less I know. But there is one thing I am sure of – once I had unhitched my ego from the train of God’s glory, I experienced a freedom that I had never known before. Now I could pray for the sick without feeling any pressure or anxiety. If they were healed, it was not my doing and if they were not healed, it still was not my doing. I relinquished both the credit and the blame.
What was important for me to do was simply to obey and to believe and the rest was His responsibility. Do you know what I discovered? I discovered that faith is rest! That is a liberating truth!
Never stop praying, rest in the finished work of Christ
The more we try to make miracles happen, the less we will see them. The more afraid we are of what might not happen, the less we will pray, obey and believe. The more we rest in faith and move forward in obedience, the more we will experience the miraculous. Our job is not to be the saviour, the healer, the wonder worker or the deliverer. Our job is to lay our hands on the sick, to pray for them in Jesus’ Name and to believe God’s Word no matter what. The rest is up to God.
So, in answer to the question: “What if I pray and nothing happens?”, here is my advice: Keep praying!
DANIEL KOLENDA is the president and CEO of Christ for All Nations Ministries international. For more information or to purchase some of their resources, see www.cfan.org.za