Scripture: Mark 5: 24-34
So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Scripture Commentary: “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”
The women in Mark Chapter 5 had a seemingly incurable condition which caused her to bleed constantly. This condition had kept her from most social contact. She desperately wanted Jesus to heal her. But she knew that her bleeding would cause Jesus to be unclean under Jewish law if she touched him. Still, the woman reached out by faith and was healed.
God is always ready to help you.
Sometimes we feel that our problems will keep us from God. But He is always ready to help. We should never allow our fear to keep us from approaching Him.
Jesus wasn’t angry with the woman for touching him. He knew she had touched him but he stopped and asked who did it in order to teach her something about faith.
Genuine faith causes action.
Although the woman was healed when she touched him, Jesus said her faith caused the cure. Genuine faith causes action. Faith that isn’t put into action is not faith at all.
Jesus’s words in the midst of crisis speak to us as well. “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” In Jesus’s mind, there was both hope and promise. The next time you feel helpless and afraid, look at your problem from Jesus’s point of view. He is the source of all hope and promise. We should never let our fears keep us from approaching him.
What are you looking for God to do?
Have you been suffering with something in your life? Whatever it is, give it to Jesus. He is the healer. If you trust him and have faith, he will bring you through.
If you are reading this message, then God has given you another day and time to come to him. Jesus accepts us the way we are. Have faith that He loves you. Jesus died for your sins, and he rose from the grave.
Thank you, Jesus, for your love!
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