Tonight in our series ‘The Miraculous & The Mundane’ we looked at the transition in the New Testament from Jesus doing miracles in the power of God in the gospels and how the lives of ordinary believers were transformed by the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. (Acts 2:1-21) We often expect Jesus to do miracles because He is the Son of God, but the truth is that He modelled for us what God intended man to be like and the book of Acts shows us God’s plan for His world: to work through ordinary people in extraordinary ways. Miracles are not simply historical records, but are ongoing today because God does not change.
Acts 2 shows us how ordinary followers of Jesus were transformed by the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Acts 1:4-5 gave them Jesus’ command to wait for the gift promised by His Father. It was only when the Holy Spirit came on them with tongues of fire and a sound like a rushing wind that they were transformed into fearless witnesses to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
Despite the miraculous signs of fire and wind, however, what actually happened was that the believers began to speak in other languages – which seems quite an ‘ordinary’ event in many ways. Edison once said, ‘Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.’ Miracles sometimes don’t look especially spectacular to us, but what happened here was that as people heard these ordinary Galileans telling the wonders of God in their own languages, they were startled and ready to listen to Peter’s preaching. God used this miracle to open people’s hearts and bring them to Himself.
For us to see miracles in our own lives, we need to earnestly desire the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in our lives. We need to ask God for this gift and wait patiently until He comes. Without the Holy Spirit, we cannot ‘fire on all cylinders’, as the saying goes; we need His power and help to live and witness for God.
