Miracles are extraordinary and marvelous occurrences which defy rational explanation, and are not under clever manipulation. Magic, on the other hand, are artificially manipulated actions which are meant to deceive or mislead, for a tendentious purpose. The miraculous is that which has every appearance of a miracle, although open to doubt or speculation. All three are capable of occurring within the context of Christian worship.

In miracles and the miraculous, the natural order is suspended, and the abnormal becomes the norm. Water is normally expected to flow downhill, and rain falls from the sky and down to the earth, not the other way round. When the sun begins to compete with the moon over the ownership of the evening sky, then something unusual is happening or about to happen. The other point to note is that miracles are caused to happen, but the miraculous usually happens by chance, by sheer serendipity, although they may also be made to occur.

Miracles are deliberate; the miraculous happens off the cuff. A coincidence may be miraculous, but it is not a miracle. Miracles and the miraculous are of God, not of man. Miracles involve the suspension of the laws of Nature; it is only the person who created Nature that can suspend it or reverse it. Man did not create Nature; therefore, man has no power over Nature. If a man tells you he can perform a miracle, he is a suspect, and you must instantly be on your guard, because he is arrogating to himself the power that does not belong to him. Only God, (whether as the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost) can cause miracles to happen. When miracles do occur in the name of a man, it is God performing the miracles through the individuals concerned. Such a person becomes a candidate for beatification or canonization. Saints are ordinary men through whom God has performed extraordinary actions.

While miracles and the miraculous are of God, magic and the magical are of man.  Magic is sometimes manipulated to look like a miracle; the magical and the miraculous are poles apart. This is where it begins to get interesting; magic is made to look like a miracle to secure a religious advantage in a world where religion has evolved into a lucrative business. When fake prophets profess to start a Church, they look for one form of magic to attract undiscerning membership. We are in the era of fake pastors and hypocritical prophets who depend solely on magic and the magical to sustain their business. A literary example is Prophet Jero in Wole Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero.  There are many Brother Jeros lurking around the corner. The incidence of fake prophecy is on the increase, and the faithful must be wary.

The person who jumps from Church to Church looking for miracles or the miraculous will end up being a victim of false prophets and can pay dearly for it. To avoid stories that touch the hearts, it is advisable to stay permanently with the Church of Christ.

Jesus Christ performed uncountable miracles during his earthly ministry, and only a few are recorded in the Bible. These include Jesus turning water into wine, healing an infirm woman, cleansing the leper, healing the paralytic, calming the storm, walking on water, casting out evil spirits, cursing the fig tree, raising the dead, and many more. An Internet Source lists as many as 37 miracles, without exhausting the list, which is inexhaustible. “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did which, if each of these were written down, the world itself, I suppose, would not be able to contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). This may sound hyperbolical; but it is a paradoxical truth. The Bible is merely an abbreviated version of the gospel truth, which the Church is meant to teach.

In the Old Testament, the staff of Moses turned out to be a powerful rod through which God performed many incredible miracles. When Pharaoh led the Egyptians to chase after the fleeing Israelites, Moses stretched his rod, and the Red Sea parted into two, with walls of water on either side, to enable the Israelites free passage, but closing up to drown the entire Egyptian fleet chasing after them. That was a remarkable thing to happen, and that has never occurred again since then.

At God’s instruction, Moses, although a bit skeptical, struck the rock twice, and water gushed out for people and cattle to drink their fill. But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, his elder brother: “Because you did not believe me, so as to sanctify me before the sons of Israel, you shall not lead this people into the land which I will give to them” (Numbers 20:12). God also fed the wandering Israelites with manna and quails directly from heaven to sustain them in the wilderness. The journey of the Israelites itself was miraculous: spending forty years to achieve a journey that should not have lasted more than two weeks. How did that come to be? 

We should not be looking for the big miracles to convince ourselves of the reality of God’s existence. Little miracles occur daily in our lives and all around us to sustain us, physically and spiritually. That fragile heart that beats ceaselessly every second to keep us alive for several years on end is miraculous. Unlike the clock, it cannot be revived once it stops; but stop it must one day when our time is up. The fact that we go to bed every night and wake up every morning is not by our power; it is a daily miracle for which we should be ever thankful to God. Sleep is the closest thing to death; we love to sleep, but we are afraid to die, yet sleep is temporary death. So, the human being is a living miracle of God, and we should live a worthy life to honour and glorify His name.

Our faith should be anchored on Jesus Christ himself, not on miracles and the miraculous which are simply signs of his limitless grace and capacity.