YOUR FAITH HAS HEALED YOU

Greetings in the name of Jesus:

In the later part of Luke 18: Jesus encountered a blind man who was calling out to Him to try to get His attention.  The purpose was clear; the man wanted to be healed!  This encounter also shows the general attitude of people when it comes to having compassion on someone who seeks Christ out for such things In verses 35-43 the encounter unfolds as Jesus passed by many people called out letting others know that Jesus was passing by.  People are like that a lot! It is because we can all give quick lip service to God by pointing out that God is near, and yet very few of us are looking to help anyone find actually find God or come to Christ to make any kind of personal contact.  In fact in this encounter the general census people had toward this man was to tell him to shut up and quite drawing attention to himself and his needs.

There are many cases when people are more geared toward hiding problems in their life than they are trying to get in a position to fix them.  We find that in this case people were excited about Jesus being there, but helping their fellow man find God was the last things on their mind.  The general idea is "How can God help me?"  It is unfortunate that we  still have that attitude even with sharing God with someone else we know who can be helped.  One of the things we so often miss out on in our churches is the desperate need to minister to those whom God draws into the church services.  It takes a long time for  some people to develop faith enough to trust God.  For the most part people need to see what happens when faith is actually put into practice by those around them.  I believe this passage of scripture points out the very thing in us as followers of Christ that Jesus pointed out about the Scribes and Pharisees in that we do not teach God's word to others in the right way.  We should mentor others in Christ rather than simply tell them that Jesus is passing by.  If they are blinded by this world we need to show them how to live in Christ by living in Him ourselves.

  It is our faith that does heal us through Jesus in the end, and we need to realize that anything less than the truth within our lives will be detected by those around us.  This world will not accept the truth most of the time , but men still can see the truth at work within us.  We have all heard that " WE CANNOT GIVE SOMETHING TO SOMEONE ELSE THAT WE DO NOT HAVE OURSELVES", and that becomes the most true when we claim to know and love God.  Our part in mentoring someone else begins with our own commitment to God in our life.  The part we play in the ministry of Christ deals with the amount of reflection we can give to others of what Christ has done within our own lives.  This does not have to do with what we have prepared for others to see about us, but simply what God is doing to change the person we are into the image of a new creation in our personal relationship with Christ. We cannot of ourselves make a huge difference in the lives of others, but the Spirit of God that dwells within us can I want for
r you to think about this as the days go by because  we can never be a messenger from God without the evidence of God being alive within us.  Jesus taught His disciples by giving them examples of what He meant through living it out in front of them.  It became a day to day; moment to moment  kind of mentoring that left Jesus no recourse but to be completely consumed by the power of God's Spirit Himself.

I feel that until we can live that life out in front of others we can never be used as a tool to show forth God's truth.  Each day we live it becomes a new and different challenge of how we can reflect Jesus back to this world.  We may end up looking haggard and old like I do but the reflection of God's Spirit will continue to draw others to Himself.  It is my prayer that those of you who take seriously the  word of God will heed this message.  May you richly bless God through your life in Him.


THE UNWORTHY SERVANT