Friends, I am so excited. My new book is about to be released and today’s blog post includes a chapter. It is a 30 Day Devotional from Mark’s Gospel entitled:
Ministering like Jesus
How to Grow in Healing, Deliverance and Miracles
DAY 15: MARK 5:22-34
Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 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.”
Jesus loves people. He loves healing people and bringing transformation to them. He loves addressing the real issue.
In today’s reading, we see two stories interwoven – two people from the extremes of society. The end of the first story about the synagogue leader and his daughter carries over into tomorrow’s devotion.
A synagogue leader well placed in society has a 12-year-old daughter (verse 42). He asks Jesus to come to heal his daughter, and Jesus immediately goes with him, no questions asked. We can only presume that doctors could not do anything to treat her.
We then see a woman with bleeding issues, who has been ostracized from society for twelve years. She is considered unclean and cannot touch anyone. No doctors could heal her either. She suffered physically and emotionally, and financially as she was now penniless from seeking healing.
The number twelve was significant for both people. Twelve represented faith, perfection, authority, power, completion.
Both this woman and Jairus exhibited faith in Jesus before they felt or saw the healing. They both fully knew and believed that Jesus was the answer. They did not question Jesus’ ability to heal them.
This woman comes up behind Jesus where He cannot see her and touches Him, making Him ‘unclean’ by doing this. She does not want attention. She wants to remain ‘invisible’. Maybe that was why she did not face Him and ask Him to heal her. Instead, choosing to extend her arm to touch His garment discretely. It seems like she was hoping He would not notice. Due to her bleeding condition, which made her an outcast, she was ‘invisible’ to society, and this was no different. She did not want anyone, even Jesus, to ‘notice’ her. Maybe she thought that she was not good enough, rich enough, significant enough, influential enough.
Nursing a critically ill lady in Coronary Care, we were on the brink of an emergency. Alarms were loudly beeping, her blood pressure plummeting, her heart rate severely dropping, and this lady knew she was in grave danger. The doctors were just outside the door, discussing her condition and how soon we could transfer her to another hospital. She needed more intensive care and access to new treatment methods before receiving a heart-lung transplant.
I had been sharing with this lady about Jesus. This lady recognized that Jesus could heal and was good at healing. But she did not believe that Jesus would heal her. She thought that she was not good enough; that she had not led a life worthy of being healed.
There was no time left. I frantically uttered, “Heart be healed in Jesus’ name.” That was it. She was deteriorating so rapidly I did not have time for anything else as I was juggling medication infusion lines.
The alarms frantically changed their sounds, and as I looked at all her heart and lung measurements from all the tubing we had in place, I realized things had stabilized.
The Doctors flung the door open and hurried in, expressing disbelief at all the measurements on the monitor.
“What’s happened?” they asked. “What did you do?”
What could I say? ‘I prayed for this lady, and God healed her.’
The Doctors preceded to take all the measurements to double-check. Yes. The monitor readings were accurate. The recordings were so good that this lady was able to be taken off the heart-lung transplant list as she no longer needed a new heart. Still on the lung transplant list (until her next admission when she was prayed for again and was totally healed.)
I was speechless. God could heal in an emergency like this. God could also heal people when they did not believe they were worthy enough. It is not about their relationship with God. It is all about God and the goodness and kindness of God.
The woman in the passage today knew the imbalance of societal value and feeling worthless. Here was Jesus, a powerful man, on the way to another powerful man’s house. Not only was she a woman, and a woman of a lower societal standing, but an outcast due to her bleeding.
Yet she persisted.
After everything she had overcome, she finally reached Jesus.
Immediately this woman knew in her body that she was healed. Instantaneously. Jesus also felt the difference as the power left Him. How often do we ‘feel’ the Holy Spirit as He connects with whom we are praying?
What I find extremely interesting is that Jesus could have just kept going about His business. People were crowding Him, jostling Him, pushing Him. But He still stopped and acknowledged this woman. He wanted to meet her face to face, to talk with her. To re-establish her standing in society by pronouncing her healed, thus cleansed, and blessing her with peace as she left.
This woman ends up telling Jesus the ‘whole truth’. Do we tell Jesus everything? The whole truth?
Jesus finishes the interaction by calling her ‘daughter’, a title that indicates intimacy, acceptance and position. All the things she was missing in society due to her illness.
Do we take that extra time to ‘finish’ what Jesus is doing? With this lady, the healing and transformation were miraculous, but it was the restoring her place in society that was the ‘icing on the cake’, the completion. Jesus was letting her know, face to face, that she was now completely healed in all areas.
Reflection:
- How desperate am I for my healing? To what lengths will I go to receive my healing?
- Do I tell Jesus the whole truth about myself, how I am feeling, my doubts?
- What is my understanding and experience of the goodness and kindness of God?
- Do I allow people to meet face to face with Jesus for themselves?
- Do I take the time to see what else Jesus wants to restore in a person’s life after they have received healing? Do I take that extra time to allow Jesus to ‘finish’ what He is doing?
Prayer:
Jesus, thank you for Your stunning example of how You treat people. How You are always willing and available to take the extra time with people, despite the apparent pressures around you.
Help me Lord to follow Your example.
Lord, may I be an accurate representation of Your kindness, goodness and love to others. I decree today that I will make time to show kindness to others.
Help me to have the faith of this lady and Jairus and fully believe that You are the answer to all my needs.
Lord, I commit to sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings with You. I desire to hold nothing back from You. To linger in Your presence and remain close. To spend time with You, no matter what. Lord, I declare that I will make us a priority today.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
The key for me today is:
Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:
Every week I list 5 prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy! Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3) and that it comes from a place of love.
1. Children / Families Activation: Put some favourite music on quietly and spend time as a family asking God to show or tell you what He thinks of you each. Then ask God who He would like you to encourage this week. Ask God how you could best encourage that person.
2. Group Activation: Compile a list of your group member’s birthdays. Allocate a different month, or a week, to different people within your group. Ask the group members to find a creative way of expressing how God views each person within their group. You may need to ask permission first to share contact details or arrange a zoom call for the group where members could share what they received from God for each person.
3. Beginner Activation: Spend time with God writing down everything you love about God. Then spend time listening to Him and writing down everything He loves about you.
4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you a creative way of expressing God’s love for the workers at your local supermarket. Then do it.
5. Advanced Activation: Spend time hearing from God about the organization and people in W.H.O. (World Health Organization) & the United Nations Secretariat. Hear God’s heart and His purpose for these people and ask God what He would like you to do in response to what He has shared with you.
