Some Pharisees, apparently a bit put off by this, asked some of the disciples why Jesus would waste time eating with such heathens. (11).
Jesus overheard them and answered their question directly: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick....I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” (12-13)
Later on in this very same chapter, we read “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” (35)
The next verse really gets next to me...”When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.”(36). If you are curious as to how the people ended up in this condition...’weary sheep who have been scattered’...you might read Jeremiah 23, Ezek. 34 and Lamentations 2:14 sometime soon. It talks directly of the ‘shepherds’ who neglected their duties and ended up feeding the people worthless words. As a former pastor, it is painful to read.
It is easy for the message and the mission of Jesus to get lost on us. He did not come to condemn us, rather, He came to seek and to save the lost. We are told explicitly in Acts 10:38 that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.”
I know this next statement is difficult for some to read/hear, but Jesus has never stopped doing that regardless of what some teach. How do I know? Because “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” (Heb. 13:8). And He is a God “who does not change”. (Mal. 3:6)
This is good news for anyone who is suffering; or so I would think?
My 95 year old father passed away back in February. As he grew older his senses began to fail him as happens to many of us as we age. His vision and hearing diminished greatly. Mom was always reminding us boys know how Dad could not hear her most of the time. I still chuckle every time when I think of that mischievous grin of his that would grow across his face when she’d accuse him of being deaf while he was sitting there in the same room. I think what he had was an acute case of ‘selective hearing’. :- )
I also think what many believers have today is an acute case of ‘selective reading/believing’. When we read our bibles, we tend to only see what ‘fits with our doctrines’. So many other verses we skim over, or explain away or flat out reject. Never a good idea to reject the word because when you do that, you are in effect rejecting Jesus who IS the ‘Word’. (John 1:1,14)
Case and point: What believer today would not wholeheartedly agree with the idea of God being a God who has abundant mercy, and is willing to ‘forgive anyone of any sin’? We are passionate in that belief...not only for others but for ourselves as well. And it’s a good thing for all those believers who claim to ‘sin regularly’ given they are ‘saints who sin’ because they ‘are not perfect, just forgiven’.
So what do we do with Psalm 103:2-3 where the writer is admonishing us to not ‘forget all of God’s benefits’...reminding us that He is a God who ‘forgives ALL your iniquities (sins), and heals ALL your diseases.”
Please go read that again aloud and s-l-o-w-l-y.
We will and often do passionately profess that first benefit. What about the second one uttered in the same breath? Meh...maybe not so much, right? Why is that you suppose? You need not answer that...I get it. Trust me, I really do.
But can we at least agree that we need not fear or shy away from God’s word...I mean after all...it is His word, is it not? Let’s stop with the ‘selective believing’ and either be all in or not in at all. How long will we “waiver between two opinions?” (1 Kings 18:21).
I know some of you may be getting a tad uneasy with where this is going today, but all I know to do is share what God is compelling me to share straight from His word. You may very well be one of those ‘not be in need of the Physician’ which is just fine...but there are plenty today all around me/us who are desperately in need of this God who claims to be who He is and STILL does what He claims He can do...and that is to relieve us of our suffering. And these promises are Good News to those of you who fall in that second category.
Have you ever read in the gospel of Luke (he was a physician himself if you did not know that) where he records the account of a “woman who had an issue/flow of blood for twelve years and had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any.” (8:43). Call me crazy...and maybe I’m wrong, but it would seem to me that when the insurance runs out and the doctors have no more answers...is it not a good thing that there is still One who may have a ‘cure’? I’m sure you have read this story of this woman and what happened when she pressed through the crowd and touched the hem of His garment.
Now if Jesus is no longer in this ‘business’, then someone please explain to me why James would close out his letter to us believers asking “Is there anyone among you sick? Let them call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise them up. And if they have committed sins, they will be forgiven. Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (5:14-16). (Is that passage highlighted in Your bible?)
It is in there, is it not? What are we doing to do with that one? I bet I know what you are thinking...and even asking. But for now, I’m just going to offer up this... I believe we’ve been asking the wrong question for a long time.”
Oh...let’s look at another account recorded by Dr. Luke – found in 13:10-17. He tells us that one day Jesus was teaching in a synagogue and “behold, there was a woman who had a ‘spirit of infirmity’ eighteen years and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up.”
What did Dr. Luke tell us she had...a What? _____________________________(I wonder how it got there?)
We then read where Jesus saw her, and called her to Him and said “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.” And He laid His hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God.” (12-13). Oh, in case you did not notice, Dr. Luke also noted in the incident with the woman with the blood flow problem was herself healed ‘immediately’.
One last one for today...take a look at Mark 9:17-27. A distressed father brought his young son to Jesus saying he had a ‘mute spirit’ that would ‘seize him, and throw him down and he would foam at the mouth, gnash his teach and become rigid’. Any parent can imagine why he was distressed. As soon as Jesus saw the boy, the ‘symptoms’ manifested just as the father described. Now read carefully what Jesus did/said in vs. 25- “He rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and enter him no more!” You know how that turned out? It came out. And Dad took a healthy and healed son home that day. Yeah...go ahead and ponder that one. Have a great day...maybe come back tomorrow again?
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