Miracles of Love

Jesus Christ is a God of miracles. He created this earth, with all its features and creatures from matter not yet organized. With His Father, He provided physical bodies for spirits to live on the earth.

During His time living physically on earth, Christ  miraculously healed, fed, taught and inspired individuals and multitudes. These were not merely happenings he brought about. They were miracles of love.

Christ’s Loving Miracles in Scriptures

Scanning our minds for miracles, many of us quickly recall the time Jesus calmed a violent tempest threatening those He loved. Accounts of this experience say that He was asleep as the storm became so intense. Perhaps he was waiting for  the ship’s passengers to experience the danger and fear as part of what they would learn  about miracles of nature. Perhaps they needed to come to Him requesting a miracle. They came, He rebuked the storm, and all was calm. Peter’s experience was part of this miracle of love. Christ personally reached out to Peter, whose attempt to walk on the water sank with inadequate faith. He raised Peter, and they rejoined the others together.

Christ’s constant healings were miracles of love. Some were in multitudes, as large numbers of people brought those with with illnesses, injuries, or disabilities and laid them where He could bless them with His miracles of healing.

Some of the individuals healed were blessed to see His loving face or feel His loving touch as they experienced His miracles of love. The woman whose very long intense suffering was miraculously healed when she touched His robe tried modestly to slip away. But she was drawn up to face Him and addressed as “daughter.” As He healed Jairus’ dying daughter, He sent away a curious crowd and performed the healing with just her grateful, joyful parents invited to share the sacred experience. Blind individuals could have received their sight with just a word spoken from a distance (and probably many did), but He actually touched the eyes of some so that their first sight would be His loving face.

Christ’s Understanding  Love

The greatest miracle of all time, of course, took place in Gethsemane and on Calvary, as Jesus took on Himself the sins, sicknesses, and suffering of all. That miracle continues constantly; He knows when we have need of miracles because He suffered what we suffer.

With His infinite knowledge as well as His infinite love and and mercy, He also knows what miracles are needed—when and how. We may need to experience the force of nature, like those on the ship in the storm; personal pain and immense frustration, like the woman who touched His robe; the agony of threat to loved ones, like Jairus and his wife; the feeling of helplessness in disability, like the blind individuals He healed.

Ronald A. Rasband explained,

Miracles are divine acts, manifestations and expressions of God’s limitless power, and an affirmation that He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever”[(Mosiah 3:19]. Jesus Christ, who created the seas, can calm them; He who gave sight to the blind can lift our sights to heaven; He who cleansed the lepers can mend our infirmities; He who healed the impotent man can call for us to rise up with “Come, follow me.”

Continuing miracles don’t expire; they just adapt. Miracles of changes in the “natural man” are among them.

In his final address to his people, King Benjamin warned of the  unconverted, unrepentant natural man.

The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord. (Mosiah 3:19)

King Benjamin mentioned characteristics of a man who is no longer natural: He must overcome pride to become meek and humble, develop patience; and submit to God’s will with the relationship of a child to a loving Father.

Changes of Heart

As Moroni assured us, if God sent miracles throughout Book of Mormon times, as an unchanging God He would not cease doing so. Moroni continued, “Whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth” (Mormon 9:19, 21).

Garret W. Gong advised us of miracles in which we can participate.

“Trust God and His miracles. We and our relationships can change. Through the Atonement of Christ the Lord, we can put off our selfish natural self and become a child of God, meek, humble, full of faith and appropriate trust.”

Elder Gong continued, “When we repent, when we confess and forsake our sins, the Lord says He remembers them no more. It is not that He forgets; rather, in a remarkable way, it seems He chooses not to remember them, nor need we.”

Receiving these opportunities and blessings requires a changed heart, a miracle Christ offers to us through His atonement. As we repent of weaknesses of our old heart, He increases the strength and effectiveness of our efforts.

Our Prophet has urged us to take our new heart to embark and stay on the covenant path: “Experience the joy of repenting daily. Learn about God and how He works. Seek and expect miracles.”

Heart miracles require intense spiritual work and patience, but President Nelson assures us that miracles of this kind can occur with our seemingly small efforts enhanced by Christ’s amazing grace. In an equally motivating talk, our Prophet promised us “the ability to move forward on the covenant path with increased momentum.”

In today’s cynical, materialistic, machine-obsessed, computer-driven world and its societies, many claim that there are no miracles beyond human ingenuity. They cannot see the ever-present miracles enabling all human existence.