Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the NET, netbible.org, all rights reserved)

As the sun was setting, all those who had any relatives sick with various diseases brought them to Jesus. He placed his hands on every one of them and healed them.
Luke 4:40 (emphasis added)

When you were a kid, did you ever get anything that you thought was really good? Could be a treat or a toy or something like a bicycle. Did you keep it to yourself? Or did you finding yourself sharing the joy of it with someone else? A parent, sibling, friend, or classmate? It’s pretty normal that when we get good things we want to share the news. Sometimes, we even want to share the good thing itself. These people wanted to share Jesus. He was the BEST thing in their lives.

Jesus healed a lot of people. In a couple of places, it mentions crowds. In this instance, Jesus placed His hands on each and every one. You can totally heal this way. I mean, Jesus did it so of COURSE you can do it. But Jesus also healed with words alone (Mark 7:24-30; Matthew 8:5-13; John 4:46-54). He didn’t HAVE to touch these people. People got healed by TOUCHING Him – He wasn’t necessarily consciously involved in the healing (Luke 8:43-48; Matthew 14:34-36). Jesus could heal many ways. But HERE, He touched them. By hand. Every one of them.

I don’t know all the reasons Jesus may have had, but I think it is clear that one reason He did it by hand is that He wanted to show them He had compassion for them. It’s hard to fake compassion. It can be done, but looking into someones eyes when you DON’T care about them and keeping it a secret is hard. This wouldn’t be a small group. Everyone in the area who knew Jesus, or knew of Jesus, or had been healed by Jesus was there. And they brought their ENTIRE families. Not just everyone, but everyone who was sick in any way. How about your family? Anything wrong with ANY of them? If they lived in that area, they were brought in. Jesus met personally with ALL of them. One at a time.

The compassion of Jesus is a special thing. It is a godly thing and OF God. Jesus WAS God. And God? He is LOVE. “And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him” (1 John 4:16). Jesus showed the Love of Adonai the most when He healed. When He lifted their bondage (Luke 13:16) or when He took their sickness and disease away (Matthew 8:16-17). He was able to do this because He was anointed with the GRACE of the Father.

“Now Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:16-19). Here Jesus claims one of the Messianic prophesies that He embodied. He was proving the scripture in His actions and lifestyle. Jesus was anointed with Spirit (Matthew 3:16, 4:1) and with power (Luke 3:14-15). He also had GRACE: to proclaim good news to the poor… to proclaim release to the captives… to set free those who are oppressed… the year of the Lord’s favor. These are all dripping with GRACE. Those He was proclaiming to didn’t deserve it. They weren’t unjust captives. They weren’t unjustly oppressed. They weren’t unjustly poor. They were all (like ourselves) sinners, separate from Yahweh, and deep in the territory of the kingdom of darkness and the effects of the curse. But Jesus had COMPASSION and was extending GRACE to them in His role as Messiah.

We too can extend that GRACE with the same COMPASSION. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to advise him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). We have Jesus’ MIND. The mind of MESSIAH is available to us. Not in our human intellect. Not in our actions or personalities. But in our spirit mind which we have access to through our hearts. By our RIGHTEOUS SPIRIT which we have access to IN JESUS (John 15). We need to get our spiritual minds over into our physical minds. Unfortunately, WE cannot do it. Fortunately – or rather GRACEFULLY – the LORD can. He does it through the Word. The Word RETRAINS us and RENEWS us into HIS ways, HIS thinking, and HIS perspective. It is the ONLY way to go.

This is one of the ministries of Holy Spirit. He came to dwell inside us. Not just to give us health (Romans 8:11), but to help us access SPIRITUAL health. The FRUIT of the SPIRIT is OURS. It isn’t something we have to earn. It isn’t something we have to find. It isn’t something we are rewarded with. It is something that is our RIGHT. These are things we can CHOOSE to operate in. But the switch that turns them ‘on’ is the Word. The Word we can read, think about, investigate, and choose to believe. Once we choose to believe it, we can put faith into it. We can eagerly expect it to come to pass. We can eagerly expect it to manifest when we call on it through the Word and our spirit – like choosing kindness and being able to be more kind as we stand on that, pray through it in total faith, and see it manifesting. This isn’t waving our hands and hoping for rainbows and puppies. This isn’t us working hard to make sure we are rewarded. This is us accepting the GIFT that He has ALREADY given us and using it.

It is being conscious of the BLOOD of JESUS that drips through us from our tops to our bottoms. It SATURATES us if we stop trying to mop it up with our theology or blow dry it with our ideas of what should be what. The Blood flows out of the anointing horn over our heads when we humbly submit. If we won’t submit to complete obedience, we won’t see the anointing flow. We can be saved, but operate in rebellion to Adonai’s will. We can be lukewarm. Hot on salvation, cold on submission, overall lukewarm and bile in the mouth of our Saviour (Revelation 3:15-16). Unbelief kills the efforts of our mind to strengthen our faith in the same way weedkiller harms the roots of plants in good soil.

Jesus was COMPASSIONATE, but not compromised. He stood on the Word and the values of Yahweh Almighty. Instead of trying to justify things or to keep from offending people, He wore compassion like a cloak and shared it with everyone He met. He walked this crowd and placed hands of LOVE on each and every one. He let the will of His Father flow through Him by the Holy Spirit and into these people. Jesus had FAITH that the healing would be accomplished. He didn’t let anything speak out of turn and ruin the moment He was having with whatever person He was smiling at. We can be the same way.

We can be so compassionate that people will be bringing their families to our doorstep to spend time. Just to soak in our presence and feel some PEACE for once in this world. What a great icebreaker that makes for our acquaintances and their whole families: ‘Why is it so peaceful here? Jesus, that’s why.’ They might deny that they want to hear, but they won’t be able to deny our witness: Where GRACE is, COMPASSION lives. The mind of Messiah is not something we’re going to get eventually in heaven. We ALREADY have it. We CAN access it. Start by showing compassion to everyone you meet. Let our compassion be the witness for this generation. Let our compassion be the light to this world, shining on the reality of Jesus. Let our compassion be the tool we use to lift their oppression and create living disciples following beside us as we submit, obey, and follow Messiah Jesus the Lord.

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Psalm 22:9-10

“Yes, you are the one who brought me out from the womb and made me feel secure on my mother’s breasts. I have been dependent on you since birth; from the time I came out of my mother’s womb you have been my God.” (Matthew 27:43). Jesus had an incredible birth. People have avoided it. People have lied about it. But people like that are wrong. Jesus was UNIQUE. So was His birth. “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). Jesus was born to Mary, a virgin at the time (miracle) and a virgin afterwards (miracle). Right from the beginning, the Father had provided warmth, food, and shelter for His Son. Jesus IS the Son of the Living God. Jesus IS the Messiah!

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Matthew 16:16b