One week before I left for Covenant College in 2018, my grandfather told me that he had a lump in his throat that had been causing him pain for two years. The pain had become so severe that he could barely speak above a whisper and had to stop teaching classes at church. After I heard this, I gathered my family around to pray. I said, “Be healed in the name of Jesus! God, I thank you in advance for his healing.” On the way home that night, for the first time in two years, he felt no pain.
I told this to one of my hallmates, Nathan Dollan (class of 2022), who later told me that he did not believe my story at first. He had to see it first-hand. During prayer and praise on our hall, one of our hallmates requested prayer for his mom who had recently had a kidney transplant. The complication was that her medical test results were not what they needed to be. When the time came to pray, I said the same prayer I said when I was praying for my grandfather to be healed, “Be healed in the name of Jesus! God, I thank you in advance for her healing.” The next week, her test results were perfect. After this happened, Nathan told me that when he heard about her healing he thought, “Oh my goodness, this stuff still happens.”
I could tell you countless stories just like these; stage four pancreatic cancer being healed completely, legs growing out, and even people being raised from the dead. Although I could go on, in this essay I would like to show you in scripture that God still works miracles and that he has given us power to work them.
John 14:26 says, “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…” I would like to take you through this verse step by step.
First of all, Jesus says that “whoever” believes in him will do His works. This is not just the apostles, but anyone who calls on the name of the Lord. Second, Jesus says that we will do the same works that He did. Jesus went about healing the sick, casting out demons, causing the lame to walk, giving the blind sight, opening ears of the deaf, and raising the dead. This scripture tells us that we are to do the same works that Jesus did!
Third, we will do greater works than Jesus! That one is really difficult to wrap our minds around. You might wonder “How will we do greater works than Jesus? I mean, He’s God!”, but when you say that, you are actually answering your own question. Jesus is God, therefore, everything He says is true and will happen, so we should believe Him when He says, “greater works than these will he do.”
I would like to end this article with a concept that all believers need to understand: with the name of Jesus we have all the authority that He has. This doesn’t mean that we have any authority of our own. In fact, on our own we are nothing, but since we have received Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit we have become ambassadors of Christ. We have authority by bearing His name “... as He is, so are we in this world.” (I John 4:17). Jesus tells His disciples “Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy” (John 10:19). Jesus gives us authority over all the power of the enemy. At that time, the Holy Spirit had not even come yet. How much more power do those who have received the Holy Spirit have? As you contemplate this, I’d encourage you to look at these verses: Mark 9:23, Mark 11:24, Matthew 17:20, James 5:14-15, and Luke 10:9.