(We were blessed to have Dr. B. J. Pruitt with us for the weekend. He is the Apostolic covering for our church and my pastor personally. I wanted to highlight a few things that were said over the weekend in this week’s blog. You will be able to download the messages from our website, www.livingwordgreene.com, shortly.)
Mark 5:25-30 ( NKJV )
Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, “If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well.” Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My clothes?”
This is one of the most human stories in the bible. Jesus is on his way to heal the child of a religious official and is stopped by this normal everyday woman who had been sick for many years. She had heard of Jesus. She believes that he can heal her. She says to herself, “All I need to do is get close enough to touch the hem of his garment and I will get better.”
This may seem a small thing until you understand the culture she lived in. In her state she was unclean. She could be stoned to death for being in the wrong place. She was particularly prohibited from being around anything considered “Holy.” The person Jesus was with was a ruler of the Synagogue. Jesus was considered a prophet. In both cases she was risking her life to come into there presence let alone actually touching one of them. However she had heard the Word of Jesus and she said in her heart, “If I can touch the hem of his garment……” Her faith caused her to press in to Jesus in spite of the risk. She knew that Jesus had the answer and she was willing to do whatever it took to receive what her faith knew she could have.
In the midst of this Jesus stops and asks, “Who touched me?” The disciples response was, “There are people all round you. Hundreds of people have touched you?” Jesus said, “No this is something different.” This woman had not just physically touched Jesus, but she had made a demand on him. Faith makes demands on God. By this I mean that it accesses the power of God on our behalf.
There are many things we may need from God. The bible is full of promises and all of them are “yes and Amen” in Christ Jesus. (2 Cor. 1:20) I have heard it said that God answers 3 ways, yes, no or wait. If you find a promise in the bible there is only one answer, yes. There may be things God will begin to do in you to put you in a place to receive the “yes.” In that case it will often take time for you to see the result. Most of the time the “yes” will not look like what you had in mind, but God will always keep his word. The question is do we have faith to receive.
I believe many of us need to be willing to take the risk the woman with the issue of blood took. She risked everything believing that Jesus would meet her need. We need to press in with our faith. We need to find a promise in the Word of God that speaks to what we need and hold onto it as tightly as the woman held on to the promise of her healing. We need to step out like she did and “touch the hem of his garment” so to speak.
There comes a place in every faith endeavor that requires action. God instructed me as the pastor of our church to build an addition. It took a long time for me to come to the place where I was willing to press through the difficulties and expense involved with such a project and actually begin, but the time came where I had to put action to my faith. When I did, God moved mightily and we are almost finished with no debt at all. This is a miracle. We are not a large church full of rich people and these are difficult economic times, but when I ‘made a demand” by acting on the Word, God did outstanding things so we could build without borrowing.
God is no respecter of persons. He is a respecter of His word. If an unclean woman can make a demand on Jesus and receive healing you can make a demand on Him according to the promises and see your need met. If our church could make a demand on the promise, acting in obedience to the direction of the Lord and see miracles so can you. Press in today. Find a promise, meditate on it until faith arises and then declare, “If I but touch the hem of his garment I will receive what God has promised.”
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