Jesus Heals in Response to Faith

The Woman suffering for 12 years hears of Jesus

There was a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. She spent all her money on doctors and at some point, their interventions had made the matters worse. But somehow she heard about Jesus. I’m not exactly sure what she had been told but whatever was witnessed to her it was enough for her to believe that He had healing power in his hand and she tested it, thinking ‘if I can just touch the hem of his garment I will be made whole” Mark 5:27-28 NLT. That if this man truly is the Christ, The Messiah, I can be made whole if I just believe and reach for even his robe that he’s wearing I can be healed.

I love the NLT version of this story where Jesus asked who touched him, he said “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out of me” Luke 8:47. He felt someone touch him who was looking to be healed. There were many people around him, the crowds wanting to see him. But he knew this touch was different. This was not someone who was just touching him to say I touched him. Many of us who believe, are near to him, but because we have become familiar with him due to time or hurt or have not brought our burdens to him very specifically we haven’t received healing. Just as we are to deal aggressively with our sin and ask him to help us with is we should also deal deliberately with the areas of our lives that need a healing touch from Jesus. I know that certain movements within the body of Christ has glorified healing through faith that almost seem transactional and fake but regardless of these things and teachings, God Is a high priest who sympathizes with our weakness, the word says “let us hold firmly to what we believe that this high priest of ours understands our weaknesses for he faced all the testing that we do, yet he did not sin” Hebrews 4:14-15.

Our pain changes us

If we are honest sometimes, in our pain looking for relief we sin, running to things that we are hoping we give relief from our trials. Maybe food, relationships, financial provision. While these things are gifts from God, they can not give us what our soul craves most, intimacy with the one who created us. We were made to be in union and fellowship with God. But the things we go through in life can hinder that union with God. The pain changes us and our hearts. We begin to protect ourselves with our own devices. Sometimes with sin in our hearts to figure things out in our own power. And sometimes with pain in our hearts that choke out our faith.

Hebrews 8:1-13 shows us that Christ is our mediator, our high priest, and that he has offered himself as the gift of sacrifice for our sin. Resting in Christ gives us hope that is better as we are confident that we can draw near to God through Him (Hebrews 7:19). Christ who experienced every kind of pain and suffering that we have did not sin in his suffering. Yet he ran to God and He prayed that the kingdom of God would come. God so full of mercy invites us to come to the throne of grace where we can find his mercy and grace where we need it most (Hebrews 4:16).

We see this woman with the issue of blood coming boldly to the throne of grace. Needing God’s mercy and healing power for her life, but she also needed Jesus. To be made new, to be given a new identity. God responded to her need for healing but gave her so much more, through identity in Christ as his daughter and peace as she could rest in his power knowing that he healed her (Luke 8:48 “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”)

He calls you daughter

The healing he gave her was the spark she needed to believe in not just his power but in Him. He responds like no one ever did. “daughter” your faith has made you whole. It was not customary for a teacher to respond in this way, especially not to a woman. The Lord wants to receive us. Yes, he wants us to receive healing but he also wants us to receive Him. The vehicle of her to receive Christ was coming to him with a need. She was desperate. A need for healing from an affliction she had suffered for 12 years. She got what she needed but she received something that she didn’t even ask for too. Faith, recognition by the Father, washing away her sin and her shame. The shame of having to be in isolation and being a 2nd class citizen just because she was a woman. He washed it away with just a simple word of calling her “Daughter”.

She received mediation on behalf of a high priest who was willing to sympathize with her weaknesses. Don’t become so familiar with God that you stop coming to the throne of grace seeking mercy and grace from him with your needs. He is willing to make us whole. He is our mediator, our high priest. When we struggle with something that means we are without rest, but it is clear that God wants us to find rest In him. There are so many scriptures about finding rest in him “come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest” in Matthew 11:28. But before we can bring our burdens to him we have to know that the Father has entrusted everything to Jesus. That we can not know God except through Jesus Christ. That they are one, Matthew 11:27. Put your faith in God by putting your faith In Jesus Christ our messiah and high priest. The book of Hebrews tells us about Jesus as God’s Son and how he’s the fulfillment of the promised rest for God’s people, allow the book of Hebrews to encourage you and share the good news of Christ as our High priest, our Rest, and our mediator. Hebrews 4:9- 13 “So there is special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God as the people of Israel did we will fall. For the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. it exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable”.

You may be hiding what’s in your heart from yourself, others, and even God. But the Word tells us that he knows all and nothing is hidden from him. Our faith is increased in God by the hearing of the Word. He sanctifies us by his blood and the refiners fire. These afflictions and pains in your heart that you may have hidden because it’s too painful or you don’t have the time or even strength to deal with, He already knows about them all. He’s not asking you to do anything but reach for the hem of His garment maybe in faith, maybe in desperation. It may feel like he’s cutting you as you run to Him but let the Word of God heal you and increase your faith. He is actually refining you and chiseling off the things that are hindering you. Things you bound yourself to in sin looking for relief. Things that you refuse to give up because you are seeking goodness according to the desires of your heart. His way is better. His way brings life and leads you into truth.

He wants you to heal you

If we are to be his witness and do the work of the kingdom and share the gospel why wouldn’t he want us to come to him first? For him to save us keep us and heal us? Will there be things that will be thorn in our side as Paul talked about in 2 Corinthians 13. Absolutely, these things God gives us to remind us that his power is sufficient for us. But knowing that he wants to heal our suffering, he wants to increase our faith, he wants to teach us how to walk in him and be his true disciples being witnesses throughout the world. It was the Holy Spirit that empowered them to go and tell the world about Jesus in Acts 1:8. We are completely in need of Him in every single way to even do the things that he has commissioned for us to do. Those weaknesses that he has allowed are to remind us that He is enough, to stay dependent on Him.

But we must keep watch that that same weakness God uses to build up our faith the enemy tries to use to tear down our faith. Ephesians 6 says that the adversary is roaring about seeking whom he may devour and if we are not careful those same things God has allowed to increase our faith as we come to him boldly the enemy wants to use to strike our faith saying “god isn’t faithful”, or “he’s forgotten about me”. Or we can focus so much on it that it actually becomes a distraction from the true goal and focus of staring at Jesus and just only glancing at our problems. These temptations and desires of our flesh to want what we want can hinder the ways that we believe and come to Jesus. That is the way that the enemy would use our trials and suffering. But God says that He works everything out for the good of those who believe and are called according to his purpose. That nothing can separate us from the Love of God (Romans 8).

That means that no affliction can separate you from him because he loved you first. He is fighting for you. Interceding for you and standing on the right hand of God praying for you that your faith would not fail. Keep fighting the good fight of faith. Whether you see healing on this side of heaven or on the other. The focus here is that you have God, a Messiah, a Father and the Holy spirit who’s fighting for you, leading you, guiding you and loving you till you are made well in Him.

The woman with the issue of blood didn’t just receive healing, she received the Love of the Father embodied through Christ the Son and healing through the Holy Spirit.

He says to her “Daughter your faith has made you well, your suffering is over” Mark 5:34 NLT

Draw near to the Lord in whatever your affliction is today. Your faith will make you whole daughter. He is drawing near to you, He loves you. Bring to him your pain and needs and fears and confess to him everything in your heart. Be desperate as she was to just reach for his garment today. Surrender all your heavy burdens, everything you are carrying. Have trust in Him as your Father, your mediator, and your God. To stand on the promises of God, to look back on his faithfulness and steadfast love shown through his grace and his mercy toward you. We serve a Holy and blameless God who is always interceding for his daughters. Trust him today. Bring your needs to him today. Be desperate for Jesus. He’s willing to heal, to save, and always to love you.

Father, I pray for every woman who has struggled with their pain whether it be a month or 12 years. That you would show us how to come to your throne of grace boldly asking for your mercy as we are in need of you but also in need of your intercession. I thank you that Your holy spirit is near and all we need to ask is for you to come into our hearts and change us so that the pain of the trials would not make us bitter or unbelieving. With our mustard seed of faith, we have heard of you and what you can do. Please help us to confess everything in our hearts and to draw near to you trusting that you are our high priest and mediator who cares for us. Who loves us and who is working on things together for our good. Amen.