Tag Archives: healed

Muzzled!

Christian Life, , , ,

MUZZLED!

Because of the crowd He told His disciples to have a small boat ready for Him, to keep the people from crowding Him. For He had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch Him. Whenever the impure spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, ‘You are the Son of God.’ But He gave them strict orders not to tell others about Him. (Mark 3:9-12).

Don’t you love Mark’s matter-of-fact way of telling the story? No frills; no fancy language; no flowery descriptions; just plain facts as it happened!

Jesus’ popularity had reached an all-time high. People flooded into the neighbourhood from far and wide. Mark says nothing about the practical implications of an influx of people into a small town. Where did they stay? Where did they get food? What about crowd control? His focus was on Jesus. He was the centre of the attention. How would He handle this hero-worshipping mob, all clamouring for a piece of the pie?

Their focus was on what He could do for them at that moment. Many were diseased; deformed, disabled, helplessly caught in the trap of infirmities for which there was no solution. They had to bear as best they could the terrible consequences of living in a fallen world. There was no skilled surgeon to fix what was broken or to treat what had gone wrong, no highly trained nurse who knew just what to do with a patient with a high fever, or a headache, no drugs to destroy the unseen organisms that silently invaded vulnerable bodies and wreaked havoc on the inside.

Jesus was the man of the moment. The only problem was that He stayed only for a little while and then went elsewhere. It was not easy to follow Him with sick and cripples people in tow. They had to grab the opportunity while they could before He was gone.

But He did not come on a healing campaign, urgent and necessary as that was. His purpose was to restore God’s image in the minds of His people. For too long they had been ruled by unscrupulous leaders who projected an image of a God who was not anything like His Father. He had to let them know that the God who had called Abraham into fellowship with Himself and, through him, built a nation which was to be His “bride”, living in such close union with Himself that they would resemble Him and reflect Him to a world that did not know Him.

They had long since lost the plot. The god they now tried hard to serve was harsh and demanding, laying heavy burdens of rules and rigmarole on them that they could not carry. Jesus had an urgent task – to undo the damage that ignorance had done and to re-introduce them to the real God whom they had lost in the blur of religious performance.

There was one group in the crowd who knew who He was. The people may have seen Him only as a magical healer who had popped up from nowhere, but who could do what no one else had ever done – fix their problems and release them from suffering. This group was unseen, an unlikely witness to His true identity. Who were they? Not some religious mystics who spent hours in the presence of God and had spiritual insights denied the common people. Of all things, they were beings from the enemy camp. Demons! Spirit beings who hate Him and who worked for the devil.

How did they know who Jesus was when God’s people had no clue? They could not but be familiar with who He was since they had been at war with Him from the beginning. As much as they hated to admit it, He not the devil, was master over them and, though they did not serve Him, they were under His authority and would one day pay for their rebellion. Now, much to their chagrin, He had turned up in their domain, the earth, to challenge their mastery over humans and to evict them from their malicious control over individuals who had inadvertently given in to their evil influence.

Jesus refused to tolerate their testimony. They were not bearing witness to His saving grace. Their words were almost a taunt – like the words of the devil in the wilderness. “If you are the Son of God, prove it.” People would have to come to their own conclusions and to faith in Him, not based on words from the mouths of the demon-possessed but from those who had become convinced that He was, indeed, the Son of God through His words and actions.

There was only one treatment for them – “Shut up and get out!” They were there under false pretences and with a word from Him whether they liked it or not, they had to obey As much as His message of the kingdom was great news, even greater was the demonstration of His authority. If they only realised it, He really was God since His most powerful enemy, the devil and his minions had to give way to Him.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or kindle version or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my Blog site – www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

 

 

 

Hope In Their Hopelessness

Bible Study, , ,

HOPE IN THEIR HOPELESSNESS!

That evening after sunset, the people brought to Jesus all the sick and demon-possessed. The whole town gathered at the door, and Jesus healed many who had various diseases. He also drove out many demons, but He would not let the demons speak because they knew who He was (Mark 1: 32-34).

What a window of opportunity for the sick and demon-possessed people of Capernaum! There was someone in town who could heal and deliver.

The town was buzzing with the news that a man had been in the synagogue that morning who had sent a harassing demon packing. Many of them had seen it happen. One minute the man was a raving lunatic and the next he was as sane as the next man. This rabbi seemed to have appeared from nowhere. He was making His mark on society from the day He was baptised by the wild prophet from the wilderness! Saying things like, “God’s kingdom is here,” and “It’s time to return to God’s way.”

Hadn’t they always been walking in God’s way? Didn’t they try to follow their religious leaders as meticulously as they could? What was this new teaching all about? And then He went and healed a sick woman without even saying anything! Never had they heard of this kind of thing before – not in their lifetime, anyhow! So what did it all mean?

One thing was for sure. He could heal, he could! That was enough for them for the moment. Strange teaching aside, there were sick people in their homes who needed healing and they cashed in on the moment. Before He could disappear out of town again, they took advantage of the few hours after sunset on the Sabbath to mob Him with their loved ones.

Nothing fazed Him. He reversed the ravages of disease and deformity with a touch or a word. And as for the demons! These guys had had a field day with God’s people – taking up residence whenever and wherever they could. The people were not aware of how dangerous it was to dabble in sin. Given half a chance, where they left the door open by allowing evil deeds or even hatred, bitterness, jealousy, promiscuousness, lust or greed to get a hold of them, the demons were in and that was it. It was far easier to let them in than to get them out.

Jesus was the man of the moment, for sure! He was mobbed by helpless, hopeless people wanting a fragment of His time to free them from their pain, their suffering and their bondage. Loved ones pushed and shoved to get near him with a wheezing baby; a suffering child, a shrunken, crippled brother, sister, mother, father; a son, a daughter burning up with fever, screaming in pain.

And He didn’t disappoint them. Didn’t He announce to them that God was back to set things right again? The devil had run the affairs of men for too long, and look at the mess he had made. God’s people had tasted what he could do. Now it was time to see what God could do.

But, best of all, the demons knew who was boss! They tried to blurt out who He was but Jesus would not allow the enemy to put in a good word for Him. It was not their place to tell the world that He was the Son of God. The people had to make up their own minds from what they saw and heard from Him, not from them. They dared not resist His eviction order. They were in enough trouble as it was, trying to make out that their boss was in charge. It worked as long as the real boss wasn’t in their faces for occupying what belonged to Him.

What a stir Jesus caused! That night, when everything had settled down again, there were many happy people in Capernaum; well people who were sick when the sun had risen; crippled, blind, deaf people who went to bed whole; crazy people who were perfectly sane; mothers and fathers who went to bed ecstatic because their baby, their child was healthy and happy again. Amazing! And all because Jesus came to town!

You sigh and wish that He would appear in your town, What if He turned up in your church on Sunday – in person? But, wait a minute. Didn’t He say that He would be with us to the end of the age? So where is He, then?

He is here, with us, nearer to us than our breath. He has never left. We are immersed in His presence like fish in water. Don’t beg Him to come. Change your awareness. Marinate in His presence because He is here with everything He is, Immanuel – God with us.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

 

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

 

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

The Outcomes Of Discipline

Bible Study, , , ,

THE OUTCOMES OF DISCIPLINE

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen you feeble arms and weak knees. “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12: 11-14).

We hate discipline, don’t we? As children, we needed it because, left to ourselves we would have become monsters. In whatever way our parents disciplined us, as much as we did not enjoy the pain, we reaped the benefit of being saved from our self-destructive behaviour.

We don’t always recognise God’s discipline. When we suffer, we think He is being unfair or uncaring, or that He is punishing us for some or other wrong we have done. The hardships and suffering we endure have puzzled God’s saints for as long as sin has been in the world.  There is no chapter in the Bible that sets out the answer for us but, as we read, we can glean answers from the way God dealt with His people in the past.

The Israelites were a wayward bunch. If ever there was a group of rebels, the Bible points to them. Their history is peppered with the evidences of their stubborn resistance to God’s ways which He lovingly revealed to them in His covenant. No other nation on earth had the pledge of His presence and favour on them as they had, and yet they threw it away and persisted in their senseless idolatry because they wanted to.

Time and again, when God’s patience with them ran out, He handed them over to their enemies to be overrun and destroyed. He always had a few who were faithful to Him and yet, who suffered with the guilty ones. Unlike the wicked people on earth who were destroyed in the global flood, God never wiped Israel out because of His promise to Abraham. Although they were eventually scattered across the earth after the Romans overran their land in 70 AD, they remained a people until God called them back in 1948.

But what about us? Why do we have to go through trials and suffering? We don’t worship idols like they did. Really? Think of the many things we have in our lives that replace God. Why does God hate idols? For two reasons, I believe.

Firstly, because He is jealous for us. He is the source of everything good. When we replace Him in our lives with anything less than He is, we lose out. When we follow the devil’s lies we are robbed of the unity He wants us to have with Him so that we can know, enjoy and glorify Him. He is passionate about us and, only in union with Him can we experience everything He made us to be and everything He promised us.

Secondly, God knows that we will become like the thing we worship. Whatever replaces Him in our affections will pull us towards it. In Israel’s day, the idols they worshipped represented the worst of human wickedness, and they practised every form of ungodliness in the name of their gods.

Hardships drive us back to God. We know, instinctively, that whatever we hold on to in place of God cannot help us in our time of need. We forget Him when life is easy; we cling to Him when we are in trouble. God does not send trouble – He allows it to call us back to Him.

But, unlike the Israelites, we shouldn’t wait for trouble to pull us back to God. Instead, “strengthen you feeble arms and weak knees.” Let’s allow our hardships to teach us the lesson of faithfulness and trust. Children who have learned to submit and obey their parents no longer need discipline. Only the stubborn ones do.

When we submit to God’s discipline by living with Him in the centre of our lives and trusting Him in everything instead of whining and moaning about every little discomfort, we learn to hate what He hates and love what He loves. That’s what holiness is. Sin is everything that contradicts who He is. Holiness is everything that affirms His character as the true and perfect God. That’s who we are already in His sight, perfect in Christ, but it’s also what we are moving towards if we desire to live with Him forever.

Through Jesus the writer affirmed that we have already been made perfect. Now God is making us holy – and discipline through hardships and suffering is His method. Submit, and you will live. Resist and you will die because, without holiness, no one with see the Lord.

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my new book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (copyright 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

Available on www.amazon.com or www.kalahari.com in paperback, e-book or kindle format, or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

Check out my blogsite at www.learningtobeason.wordpress.com

 

And Now I See

Bible Study, , ,

AND NOW I SEE 

“How, then, were your eyes opened?’ they asked. He replied, ‘The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see.’

“‘Where is the man?’ they asked him. ‘I don’t know,” he said.” John 9:10-12 NIV.

This sounds like a far-fetched story! “A man put mud on my eyes, told me to go and wash it off, and then I could see.” That is not only unbelievable; it’s also un-believable. Whoever heard of that! It could have been a fabricated story except for one thing — the blind man was no longer blind and there was no explanation for the miracle.

The poor guy was in for a grilling and he didn’t even know who the man was who had healed him except that His name was Jesus.

“They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath.  Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. ‘He put mud on my eyes,’ he replied, ‘and I washed, and now I see.’

“Some of the Pharisees said, ‘This man is not from God, for He does not keep the Sabbath.’

But others asked, ‘How can a sinner do such miraculous signs?’ So they were divided.” John 9:13-16 NIV.

At least there were some people who had the good sense to look at the evidence! The Pharisees were at it again — Jesus was an evil-doer because He did not adhere to their Sabbath rules. But they missed the spirit of the Sabbath — for them it was about not doing the wrong things. It was not about doing the right things.

This is exactly where Jesus and the religious Jews parted company. They were sticklers for keeping the rules. Jesus focussed on meeting people’s needs. They accused Him of being a rule-breaker because He “worked” on the Sabbath according to their definition of “work”. For Him is was the right thing to do to set a blind man free from his prison on the Sabbath.

How tragic that so much of the church’s understanding of “righteousness” has become like the Pharisees’ rule-keeping ritual! We have our evangelical Ten Commandments or the equivalent. We are righteous as long as we do certain things and avoid doing other things. Unfortunately we also tend to judge other believers according to our standards of right and wrong.

Interesting, isn’t it, that Jesus had much more to say to people who failed to meet the needs of others than He did to the “sinners” He hobnobbed with to the disgust of the religious ones.  He had no word of condemnation for the Samaritan woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery. Quite the opposite! He was gentle and merciful towards them, but He had a lot to say to the religious hypocrites who covered up their greedy and wicked hearts with religious performance.

“‘The multitude of your sacrifices — what are they to me?’ says the Lord. ‘I have had more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats…

“‘When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if your offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood; wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight!  Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.'” Isaiah 1:11; 15-17 NIV.

Perhaps the church would once again make an impact on the world as it did in the first century if it set aside its religious performances and went back to the simplicity of Jesus’ invitation, ‘Follow me.’

Don’t Interfere With Me!

Bible Study, , ,

DON’T INTERFERE WITH ME

“Some time later Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals.

“Now there was in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie — the blind, the lame, the paralysed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, He asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?'” John 5:1-6 (NIV).

What a question! Thirty-eight years lying paralysed and helpless on a mat and Jesus asks a question like that!

But Jesus knew the inner workings of this man better that we give Him credit for. Thirty eight years is a long enough time in which to get used to a certain way of life and to develop an attitude. To this man it was normal for him to lie there, day after day, to feel sorry for himself and to watch the world go by and not be a part of it. He had his “spot”, no doubt; he was probably give food by his family and, since he had long given up hope of a miraculous cure in the pool, he just lay there….and even stopped thinking.

Then a strange man came along and asked him an even stranger question, ‘Do you want to get well?’ On the surface it seems like a foolish and unnecessary question but wait a minute, to whom was Jesus talking? Not to someone who has ‘flu or even pneumonia but to a man who had been useless and helpless for a very long time. He had no dreams, no ambitions, nothing to look forward to, and nothing to plan. He just was.

What would it take for this man to have to start thinking and living again? He was used to his condition which required no effort at all. Who did this man think He was, coming here and trying to shake him out of his comfortable nothingness? What was the point of even trying to raise his hopes when it was all hopeless anyway?

“‘Sir,’ the invalid replied, ‘I have no-one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.’” John 5:7 (NIV).

The man’s spontaneous response was to retreat into self-pity mode. ‘Sir, don’t you understand that I am useless, helpless and alone? No one cares enough about me to help me into the pool.’ He was so locked into his situation and mind-set that he did not hear Jesus’ question. He had a pat answer that played in his mind like a stuck record.

What would it take to rekindle hope in the heart of this man? Without hope, healing could never happen. Somehow Jesus had to get beyond his wall of despair and begin to help him to dream again.

A simple command changed everything for the paralysed man. “The Jesus said to him, ‘Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.’ At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.” John 5:8, 9a (NIV).

There was no need for Jesus to enter into a counselling session with him. Having gauged his state of mind, He spoke a word and the man responded. There was authority in His command. Healing flowed through the man’s body as he acted.

Is that not the key that opens the door of hope for us too? When Jesus speaks a word to us it requires an act of faith to respond to His command before the miracle happens. Whatever miracle we are needing takes more than a passive “believing”; it needs the active “responding” to activate the power of God.

What is your state of mind? Have you lost hope? Has despair clouded your spiritual hearing and sight? Jesus is asking you, ‘Do you want to be healed?’ That’s the real issue. Do you want to be alive again or are you so comfortable in your misery that it has become the normal for you?

Jesus is saying to you today, ‘Get up!’