Jesus is always healing people. Every time we read about Jesus in the gospels, He's healing somebody. Very often we place these situations, these stories, these parables apart from ourselves. We place them as separate from ourselves. We don't think of ourselves as being deaf. We don't think of ourselves as being blind. We don't think of ourselves as being in need of healing. But the reality is, we probably all need a little bit of healing every single day. But we don't look for healing. We don't ask for healing.
In this gospel story, we see a desperate father with a sick child who would do anything to help his little girl get better, get well, live? He comes, begging Jesus.
The synagogue official servants come and they say, "Stop bothering the man. Your daughter's died." Jesus says, "Don't listen to them." He says that to us all the time. He says, "Don't listen to them." Jesus is constantly telling us, "Don't listen to them. Who's them? Just about everybody else." He's saying, "Listen to me. Focus on me. Don't listen to them." God, I constantly make this decision. Are we going to listen to Jesus or are we going to listen to the world? Are we going to let the world guide us, or are we going to let Jesus guide us? Jesus says to the synagogue official, He says, "Don't listen to them. Stay with me. Let's go to your house. They go to the house. "She's dead. She's dead. She's dead." Everyone's crying and screaming and hysterical. Jesus is calm. He says to him, "She's not dead, she's asleep." He goes over and says, "Little girl, I say to you rise." Little girl gets up.
What area of your life do you need Jesus to do that in? Do you need Jesus to come over to you in your marriage and say, "Arise marriage." Do you need Jesus to come over to you in your career and say arise career? Do you need Jesus to come over to you in your personal finances and say arise personal finances? Do you need Jesus to come over to you in some aspect of your health and say arise health? Do you need Jesus to come over to you and say arise leaky pipes, broken chainsaw, dumb computer, faulty wiring, poor garden seeds, burnt relationships, empty pews, closed churches. We all need to be raised up by Jesus in some way today. How do you need God to raise you up today? And do you believe that he's capable of doing that? That he yearns to do that, that he wants to do that for you.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends that they have the faith and trust to ask Jesus to come into their life and say arise health, arise loneliness, arise depression, arise doubt, and know that God wants to do that for you today.
