Matthew 9: 20 – 22
And behold, a woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak; for she was saying to herself, “If I only touch His garment, I shall get well.” But Jesus turning and seeing her said, “Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.” And at once the woman was made well.
I believe this is an important recounting of one person’s encounter with Jesus. This event was also recorded by Mark (chapter 5) and by Luke (chapter 8). We see in this encounter that it wasn’t actually Jesus that healed this woman. Jesus said that it was her faith that made her whole. That is a very important lesson. But there is more here than we may at first see.
We learn from Psalm 107: 20 that God sent His word and that the word had the power to heal. We now know from our post-Messiah perspective that Jesus was the Word that God sent (John 1: 1) and that he is our great physician and wonderful healer. None the less, most of us are not walking in perfect health. Many of us have prayed for people who have not manifested their healing or been prayed for ourselves without evidencing the healing truth of Jesus in our bodies. So what is going on here? Why did the woman in this account receive her healing and so many of us fail in receiving ours?
I was praying for someone’s healing this week and something occurred to me as I opened my mouth to pray. It is best framed in this question. What was the faith that the woman in the story demonstrated? Jesus said that it was her faith that made her well so what was that faith? When we pray for others or receive prayer for ourselves we often become very focused on ourselves. We begin focused on the sickness or injury. Then we shift our focus to our faith because we want healing. Then we focus on receiving the blessing, and on and on. The point is that unwittingly we have deviated far from the example of the woman whose faith healed her. I believe the key in her healing is that she had faith in Jesus himself. She said to herself, “If I can but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be made well.” The key here is that her eyes were on Jesus. She was fixed on him and his glory. I believe we are spending so much time thinking and worrying about our faith and our receiving that we have actually taken our eyes off of the healer.
I picture this woman of faith on the ground below Jesus looking up at him. She had faith in him. She believed in him. I don’t think she thought that highly of herself. Moreover, I don’t think she had herself on her mind. I believe the crucial point here is that she was absolutely fixated on this man Jesus. She believed there was healing issuing from him such that if she could just touch even the fringe of his garment she would be made well by that anointing emanating from him.
Receiving your healing really ought not to be about anything you have to do. It isn’t as much about your faith and your ability to receive as it is about the glory of the Lord Jesus. When you invited him to make his abode inside of you, he took healing with him. He had no choice, it is part of him. We have separated ourselves so much from the majesty and glory of the Lord Jesus that his power is deactivated within us. It is exactly like when he went home to Galilee and could do no miracles there (Matthew 13: 57). He is the same Jesus, the same Christ with the same power. He was able to perform miracles everywhere he went except in his hometown where they did not revere him, where their eyes were not full of the awe and wonder of him. The text in Matthew 13 says that he was without “honor” in his hometown. I believe many of us are experiencing the same thing. We have become a bit complacent in our regard of him. He has, perhaps, become too familiar. He should be your best friend but at the same time we should never lose sight of his majesty and magnificence.
Secondly, our attention and concern with the quantity and quality of our faith has caused us to take our eyes off of Jesus and put them on ourselves. We constantly check our hearts and minds looking for evidence of world changing faith. Jesus said we only needed mustard seed faith which is the smallest of all seeds. All we need is just a bit. When we sow that little bit of faith in him and put our eyes on him and stop worrying whether we have enough faith or we have strong enough faith, then there is fullness of faith. It is then that we can see him in his glory and when you really see Jesus for who he is, you have no trouble believing that he can do all things. You won’t even see yourself as a roadblock to his greatness. You will know that he can do all things, even in you. We just have to get a bigger picture of Jesus. We don’t need to worry about who we are or who we are not, what we have or what we don’t have. It really is not about us, our qualifications or knowledge. It is all about him. He is the Lord of glory. He is the Word that our father sent with healing in his hands.
Everything we need for healing, for life, for success in every area of our lives is with us right now. God sent his best and he sent his all. There is nothing that has been withheld. What great news! Now, just let your mind and spirit be filled with Jesus. Look upon him and see the radiance of his visage. The more you fill up on the vastness and greatness of our Father God and our Lord Jesus, the less the damaging effects of this world can impact you. Fix your eyes on Jesus. Fill your mouth with his praises. There are great things for you in his heart. He is the breath you breathe, he is health to your whole body; he truly is all in all. He is the Lord God Almighty to whom no thing is impossible. Selah.
Psalm 94: 19
When my anxious thoughts multiply within me, thy consolations delight my soul.
Have you ever had one of those days when your thoughts are anxious and wearisome? Sure, everyone has. In my Bible the word multiply has a footnote beside it which reveals that the writer of this Psalm is intending to convey to us that many are his anxious thoughts. Worry can eat you up. It is a very unpleasant companion. When anxious thoughts are multiplying within you even your physiology reacts. Really, this is the cause of many sicknesses. I know I used to tense my muscles in response to that stress so that my back, neck and shoulders were a mess. But the psalmist teaches us that we do not have to live with and tolerate anxiety and worry. We have a father who can dispel that anxiety and replace it with joy and delight. Is that hard to imagine? Think of one of your worse days. Do you remember how intense the worry and stress were? See yourself in your mind’s eye. Can you see the stress in your face and reflected in your body? Now change that image. See an angel of the Lord enter the room and watch your countenance change. Watch as all of your worry dissipates and you are left with the precious peace of Jesus. What does your face look like now? Has your body relaxed?
This is the way you are meant to live. When Jesus was about to leave earth he told his followers that he was going to leave his peace here. He gave us his own peace. We, much more than the psalmist, have every reason to live in peace and comfort. God’s consolations are with us at all times in the person of Jesus Christ. Even in the old days, though, before Jesus came, God consoled His people. He was the great comforter and He has not changed. Now you have God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit to comfort and console you so that you never have to live with another anxious thought the rest of your life. Grab hold of this truth and do not let it escape you. Keep it before your eyes and in the midst of your heart because as sure as the sun comes up tomorrow there will be another opportunity for you to entertain anxious thoughts. When they come just speak right out loud to the Father of Glory and tell Him that you are giving all your anxiety and care to Him and you receive in its place the peace of Jesus. Really, God’s shoulders are a lot broader than yours and mine. He can handle our tense and worrisome situations. Rest in the peace of Jesus. Claim it and make it your own.
1 John 4: 8
The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
God is love, not thought. That means that He is not in our brains. This is a heart thing. I don’t like it any more than you do. I wish I could be very academic about this whole “God” thing but it is fruitless and Jesus told us to go and bear fruit. We need to have an experiential knowledge of God’s love. What does that mean? We must know this love in our hearts. We must experience it. You can study love with your vast intellect until you turn blue but you will never understand it until you allow it to penetrate your heart and you finally experience the fullness of love. God is love so the only way you can ever experience Him is to let love reign supreme in your life. In order to do that, you have to let your heart play the leading role. It does not matter how smart we are. You may have a Mensa IQ but when it comes down to the bottom line that great intellect just won’t cut it. You don’t comprehend love with your mind. You can only have a true understanding of love when you let your heart take the lead. So if we are going to know God, if we are ever going to understand His unfathomable riches we are going to have to learn to hear Him with our hearts. We must learn to seek Him with our hearts rather than our minds and we must allow His Word to penetrate, not our thinking, but rather our feelings and our believing. Honestly, in order to be a true Christian we must engage our hearts.
I want you to know that I cannot think of any more uncomfortable news to have to receive personally but I have heard so much about the heart lately that if Balaam’s donkey came up to me and brayed, “Heart,” I don’t think I would even be surprised. There is a reason that God has filled the environment with heart language. He is trying to reach us on the level where He can change our lives.
Since God is love the only way we will ever come to know Him is to engage our hearts. Love is not of the mind and cannot be comprehended by the gray matter. It takes a beating heart pumping warm, red blood to receive love. Everything God says is love. Every answer you need is love. Therefore, in order for us to receive God, the love of God, blessings and answers we must allow our hearts to become places of openness and conversation. How do you do that? I don’t know yet. I am still working it out myself but I know that the more I allow my heart to live and to be free from the shackles of my mind, the more life and love God is able to pump into me. God is love. Love is a condition of the heart. If we want to know God then we are going to have to let Him speak to our hearts. It may be uncomfortable for some of us but we really are going to be so glad we opened up and let Him in. Be blessed!
Joshua 9: 14
The men of Israel sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord. Then Joshua made a treaty with them to let them live, and the leaders of the assembly ratified it by oath.
Israel was a strong nation and feared by others because of their prowess in battle. The leaders of Gibeon devised a plan to trick the Israelites into making a treaty with them. Joshua and the other leaders of Israel looked at the evidence presented by the Gibeonites but they did ask the Lord for His wisdom and guidance.
I hate to see Joshua make this mistake because I like Joshua but in truth this is the same mistake I make frequently. There is no limit to the number of questions we can ask the Lord. There is no limit to the wisdom and instruction He will give us. So why don’t we ask God’s advice about everything we do? Is it that we are so self-reliant or do we just not think of it? Maybe we should tie a string around our finger.
God’s will is to level and pave the road before us. He makes our paths straight and level but when we do not inquire of the Lord we end up on the wrong road. Of course that road is rocky and hilly. Not only that but you will also find that God has placed plenty of provision along the road He has paved for you. There are rest areas and fuel stations, there is food and drink. Everything you need has already been staged on the path God has made for you.
We need to train ourselves to ask for God’s input on every single thing we do. Believe me, He even cares about the smallest details of our lives. In truth, there are no big things to God so He doesn’t see any of our issues or questions as small matters. He is just as happy to advise you on which shoes you should wear today as which job to choose. And I think we need to get ourselves in the habit of asking Him about the small things so that when a larger matter comes up we have already developed a habit of going to Him with it.
There is no charge for every question over three that you ask God so you may as well talk with Him constantly and you don’t want to end up making a pact with the wrong crew just because you did not get heavenly advice first. So, make it your habit to inquire of the Lord in everything. I think you will find much smoother travels when you do.
Psalm 85: 8
I will hear what God the Lord will say; for He will speak peace to His people, to His godly ones; but let them not turn back to folly.
God is speaking to His people. He is speaking peace and love. He is constantly conveying His thoughts and plans to you. He is a God of revelation and glory so those are necessarily some of the things that He is speaking to your heart. If we will stop and listen for that still, quiet voice within us we will find that He is speaking life and unfailing devotion to our hearts.
When I read this passage yesterday, I was particularly arrested by the phrase, “I will hear what God the Lord will say.” God is speaking but just as important is that we are hearing. This is a strong and declarative statement from the writers of this Psalm that they had predetermined in their own hearts that they would hear what the voice of the Lord was saying. We too should have this same bold confidence. God is not talking to Himself. All of His declarations are for our benefit so we must tune our hearts and ears to listening to Him and we must make up our minds that we will hear His voice speaking to us.
Set your mind today to hearing the voice of the Lord. Take some quiet time to be alone with the Lord and allow Him to speak His wonders and mysteries to you. God has sent a spirit of revelation into the world. For all who will listen this is a time when you can receive the unfolding mystery of God. He has stored up knowledge and wisdom for today. Let your heart receive this blessing of revealed knowledge.
Romans 4: 19 – 20
And without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.
Of course these verses are speaking of Abraham who is known as the father of faith. God made Abraham a huge promise. He told him that he would be the father of a multitude and that all the families of the earth would be blessed in him. Of course, this was a bit funny to Abraham and Sarah who were childless.
Abraham didn’t start out as the father of faith. He, like the rest of us, had to learn it. He had a promise from God but that promise was in the realm of impossibility. Sarah was barren from youth and now she and Abraham were old. They had a decision to make. Were they going to believe the facts, the evidence of the physical world or were they going to believe God, were they going to invest their belief in the realm of the spirit? This is the same dilemma with which we are all faced. The first verse lets us know that Abraham was well aware of their physical limitations. He was aware of the facts. But, what was he going to let influence him?
Even without the rest of the verse we know that he chose to believe God instead of “reality” because Isaac was born. Had Abraham and Sarah let the physical evidence be the last word then you wouldn’t even know their names today. Abraham would have never become the father of faith and Isaac would not have been born. You see, even though Abraham knew the facts regarding their bodies he did not let them persuade his thinking. Have we not learned yet that there is nothing real about reality? If “reality television” has taught us anything it is that reality is fungible. Someone once said that our perceptions mold our reality. If that is true, then change your perception. That is exactly what Abraham and Sarah did. They began to focus on the promise rather than the problem. Their eyes were glued to the vision of parenting a multitude. They began to disregard the physical limitations and meditate on the fulfilled promise. Then they opened up their mouths and spoke what they believed in their spirits rather than what they saw in the physical. If you back up two verses you see that Abraham learned from God to call those things into being which do not yet exist in the physical (v.17). Abraham lined up his thoughts, his meditations and his words with the promise of God.
Somewhere along the journey we must each make a decision about what we are going to believe, what we are going to allow our hearts to meditate upon and what we allow our mouths speak. There will always be worldly evidence which contradicts the promise that God has given you. If you believe it then that is what will continuously manifest in your life. If, instead, you choose to determinedly set your focus on the promise of God then you will receive the miracles you need and the blessings of God’s promises will overflow in your life. I wouldn’t suggest that staying steadfast on God’s Word is necessarily the easiest thing to do. If so then you would see many more Christians living in the fulfillment of the promise. We have not all been brought up learning how to let faith be our guide but if we can learn to set our will in accordance with God’s Word and waver not at the promise, then we too will walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And when we reach that stage, nothing shall by any means be impossible to us.