SpringCleaning! O Health No! March 19
SpringCleaning!
March 19, 2021
O Health No!
1 Corinthians 6:20, ‘You were God’s expensive purchase, paid for with tears and blood, so by all means, then use your body to bring glory to God (TPT).’
There was a woman in the crowd the day that Jesus came to town. Uncertainty plagued her. What was she doing in this public surrounding? Her disease had kept her anxious and hidden for at least a dozen years. ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ the voices in her head taunted. ‘Unwanted! Unwanted!’ the shrieks in her spirit mimicked. ‘Unlovely! Unlovely!’ the regret in her heart mourned. But on this particular day, the cries of her soul were far louder, and thus, able to drown out all other lamentations. And it was from those cries that she was summoned outside and swept into the crowd.
The thrill of His presence was palatable in the air. Like a magnet, the woman was drawn to Him; couldn’t help herself and her curiosity. Her imagination ran like a child, wild and breathless, and suddenly, hopeful for the first time in as long as she could remember. She could taste the tears on her face. If she could just see Him. And with that she crept forward, through the throngs of people, head buried in her shame, praying none would recognize her issue and need, nor remember her name. In fact, it had been so long since her name had even been used that she had almost forgotten it herself.
Insistent, like the disease of blood that coursed through her body and refused to be cleansed, she pushed forward now. She was almost where He was, and things like destiny and mingling and intersecting, came to her mind. And then at once there He was, and there He was going and she thought emphatically to herself, ‘If I could just touch Him…’ and she reached forward her hand and it grazed the hem of Him.
Immediate and sure, an electric shock, a jolt, rocked her, also stopping Him in His tracks. She had encountered Jesus, and all she was and everything she had been was withdrawn from her and deposited in Him. It only took an instant; she felt the release of all the tainted hopelessness that had been her life dissipate.
His eyes sought to find her as His friends heckled Him. ‘What do you mean, who touched You, Jesus?! Everyone is touching You, Sir. That’s funny, Jesus!’ they jested.
‘No!’ assuredly, He cried. ‘The one! The one who took some of me with her and left what she couldn’t bear anymore behind. That one! Who?’ He scanned the people.
The woman thought, ‘Oh no! Oh please no!’ For a fraction of a second, a trace of time, she had felt unimaginably seen and incredibly clean. She had experienced love like she had never felt, and she didn’t want to let any of it leave. She raised a trembling hand and in a tiny voice, she bravely whispered, ‘It was I, Jesus. I just needed…I just needed a touch of you…to fix all of me.’ His eyes beheld her, pierced all the way through the pain and panic, the loss and lonesomeness, the health and healing.
‘Daughter,’ He said, ‘Chosen, Known by Me, Seen by Me, Cherished One, your faith has healed and cleansed you. Go now in peace and be free.’
Proverbs 4:22, ‘Then, as you unwrap my words, they will impart true life and radiant health into the very core of your being (TPT).’ It is His desire that you and I be healed of everything that holds us back, unsure and in hiding, anxious and bound by a label we gave ourselves or someone else named us. Daughter, Beautiful You, go now in peace and be free.
Come with me in March and let’s clean house!
If you are anything like me, you have kept some things around far too long
and now they got to go! And with the Lord’s help, they can!