I Need to Get to Jesus

Do you remember the story about the woman who touched Jesus’ robe?  Do you remember the details?  Jesus was walking through a crowd, heading to a centurion’s house because his son was sick and dying.  Luke tells us that as He walked along, people were pressing in around Him.  But a woman, who had been bleeding for twelve years, needed to get to Him so she could touch His robe and find healing in it.  Her persistence is impressive!  Jesus was surrounded by a crowd of people who were pressing in on Him.  This wasn’t a matter of just walking up to Him on the street… she had serious faith and determination!

But there’s more to the story.  If you think back to the Old Testament and the Jewish ways, a woman was declared to be unclean when she was bleeding.  She was not allowed to fellowship until her cycle was over.  This wasn’t just a woman who was sick and needed healing.  This was a woman who had been declared unclean by her family and her church.  For twelve years, if the laws and rituals had been kept, she was banished by those closest to her.

We still mess up today.  As Christians, we are far from perfect.  I pray that we never, ever ostracize those who are hurting and in pain.  But I pray for the ones who get left behind… I pray that in our ignorance, they will still seek Jesus!

The Parable of the Sower

We’ve all heard the parable.  A sower was sowing his seed.  Some fell along the path and was trampled, some fell on the rock and withered away, and some fell on the thorns and was choked out.  But then some fell on good soil, and it was blessed and grew abundantly.

This parable used to scare me.  Growing up, I used to be afraid.  I remember praying, “God, I love you, and I want to know you, but I don’t know which kind of soil I’m in.”  Was this about salvation?  About election?  Rather than pursuing it and finding out, I just kind of ignored it.  But yesterday I read through it.  And then I read through it again.  And you know what?  I was blessed!  This parable is about our hearts!

The seed that has fallen along the path and then been trampled happens when our hearts hear God’s Word, maybe in a sermon or at a retreat, and we feel touched and moved.  But these people don’t really make room for God or His Word in their lives.  The devil comes along and tramples the little bit of truth that they have heard, and it is devoured.  The seed that has fallen on the rocks is interesting.  A seed cannot build roots among rocks.  So the people hear God’s truth, and they love it.  But without allowing it to root in their lives, the sun scorches any fruit that was able to come from it.  The last seed, the one that has fallen on the thorns, has the opposite problem.  This seed does grow roots.  But because of the thorns there is not fruit that develops.  These thorns can be the busyness of our lives.  We are quite capable of filling our lives with carpools and church functions and taking care of husbands and children, none of which are bad!  But these cannot take away from our number one purpose in life, which is to glorify God.  Another “thorn” that can choke us out is education when it comes to God’s Word.  We can study and study and study, and know all of the right answers.  But if we are too busy learning about God’s Word and not spending enough time living it out, that is a major thorn.

The parable of the sower… who would have thought that I could love that!

She Didn’t Ask

The gospels are full of people asking Jesus to heal them or their loved ones.  In the first seven chapters of Luke alone we see Peter’s family asking Him to heal his mother-in-law of a fever, a man with leprosy asking to be healed, the friends of a paralytic lowering him through the roof, and a centurion asking Him to heal his servant.

But then we come to the widow’s son.  Jesus “happened” upon the funeral procession as He was traveling to Nain.  Scriptures tell us that “…when the Lord saw her (the mother), He had compassion on her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’  Then He came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still.  And He said, ‘Young man, I say to you, arise.’  And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.”

Why didn’t the mother stop Jesus and ask Him to heal her son?  Everywhere else we see people asking Him for healing, but she did not.  I have a feeling that she thought that there was nothing to ask for!  It’s one thing to ask to be healed of a disease, but quite another to ask to bring someone back from the dead.  Death is the ultimate defeat in the eyes of the world.  But Jesus didn’t wait to be asked… He knew her… He loved her… He had compassion for her.  And then He graciously went to her and answered her unasked prayer.

I’m not saying we don’t need to pray!  But isn’t it sweet to know that we serve a Savior who loves us that much?