Holy Boldness

wanting to do. Preparing to receive the harvest, stretching out my tent pegs, meant dying to myself and opening my heart wider. Do we know what we are asking for when we ask God to bring the harvest? Are we aware of the price of a move of God? “ You cannot put new wine into old wineskins,” Jesus warned, for old mindsets will not accommodate all that God is purposing in His heart to do. For several years I have heard the Lord say, “Make room for Me.” Having made these statements about flexibility and movement, Jesus preceded to demonstrate His uncanny ability to move from one radical situation to another with grace and ease. The last section of Matthew 9 ends with a flurry of miracle stories including the interruption of one miracle with another. Here we see all kinds of people reacting in different ways to Jesus, some offended and others just trying to get in on the action. The healing of a woman with an “issue of blood” actually interrupts another story of a person needing a miracle who had requested Jesus’ help in healing his daughter. Mark’s Gospel has a fuller account of this same story. (See Mark 5:22-43). Jairus, a Jewish synagogue official, found Jesus and appealed to Him to come and heal his 12-year-old daughter who was sick and on the verge of death. As Jesus was on His way through the crowd to attend to the issue, He felt healing virtue flow out of His body. A woman who needed healing from a feminine disorder had thought she might remain inconspicuous and just reach out, grab the hem of Jesus’ garment and sneak away with healing. Remarkably, Jesus felt the draw upon His essence and He asked what seemed to be an odd question, “Who touched me?” His disciples were perplexed and asked what he could mean. Everyone was “touching him” in the huge crowd. But Jesus knew the difference between an incidental touch and a faith withdrawal . Someone had accessed his power and He stopped and turned around looking for the one who had really touched him. Terrified, trembling and perhaps ashamed a woman emerged from the crowd, fell before Jesus and told Him her story: that she had been sick, had deteriorated under the incom petent care of many doctors, had been bankrupted but thought if she could just touch the hem of Jesus’ garment, she might be healed. Jesus answered significantly, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace Miracles interrupting miracles!

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