August 24 - The Redemptive Element of Jesus’ Impartial Healings #LifeOfChrist “‘Your faith has made you well’” (Matthew 9:22). In many instances in the gospels, the words translated “healed,” “made well,” or similar variations, are from the Greek word meaning salvation or saved from sin. For instance, when blind Bartimaeus came to Jesus to regain his sight, the Lord told him, “Go; your faith has made you well” (Mark 10:52). That Bartimaeus repeatedly called Jesus “Son of David,” a common messianic title, suggests that his physical healing included spiritual salvation. In the account of the ten lepers, Luke reports that all of them “were cleansed” (Luke 17:14), but this was from a word that means essentially physical cleansing. However, of the one who glorified God and returned to give thanks, Jesus used the same expression (see v. 19) as He did to Bartimaeus and the woman with the hemorrhage. Ten men received cleansing, but only one obtained salvation. This indicates that salvation and physical healing were sometimes linked, even if in the example of the ten lepers, only one man realized both. In addition to a strong redemptive element, Jesus’ healings were impartial. That Christ ministered equally to the leading synagogue elder and the outcast woman clearly proves this. The woman’s touching His garment with unclean hands did not offend Him. Nor did her presumption to obtain His help while He worked through the crowd to reach Jairus’s daughter bother Him. True needs never interfered with our Lord’s sovereign and impartial approach to ministry. “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). Ask Yourself Would you describe your feelings and interactions with others as being impartial? Are there people who (though you might never admit it aloud) are considered beneath you and unworthy of your notice and attention? Confess this as sin before the Father, and model Jesus’ brand of ministry.

August 23 - Jesus Touches an Untouchable #LifeOfChrist “A woman who had been suffering from a hemorrhage for twelve years, came up behind Him and touched the fringe of His cloak; for she was saying to herself, ‘If I only touch His garment, I will get well.’ But Jesus turning and seeing her said, ‘Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.’ At once the woman was made well” (Matthew 9:20–22). When the godly Sir James Simpson was on his deathbed, a friend said to him, “Well, James, soon you will be able to rest on the bosom of Jesus.” But Simpson replied, “I don’t know that I can quite do that, but I do think I can take hold of His garment.” In her shame at being ostracized from her family and being ceremonially unclean, the woman here wanted to be unnoticed. She merely desired to touch Jesus’ garment, confident that such contact was enough to receive healing. In keeping with such confidence, she received immediate healing from her defilement. Our Lord became aware of what had happened only as He realized that divine power had gone out from Him (Luke 8:46)—a realization that happened before He humanly knew of the woman specifically. His statement, “your faith has made you well,” simply assured her and the crowd that miraculous healing had occurred. Jesus did not care that her touching Him would make Him ceremonially unclean to the Jews. The Lord was touchable even by an untouchable. Even though the woman’s expectations were likely not fully informed by Scripture—she might have superstitiously thought Christ’s clothes had inherent healing powers—He spoke to her caringly and compassionately: “Daughter, take courage.” In spite of other factors, the woman’s faith was genuine and acceptable to the Lord. It was enough to make her well. Ask Yourself Part of the balance of Christian faith is realizing that we are unworthy to touch the hem of His garment, yet are welcomed into His full embrace as an adopted member of His family. How do these two seeming incongruities come together and balance out in your worship?

August 22 - Jesus’ Availability to Jairus #LifeOfChrist “Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did His disciples” (Matthew 9:19). Jesus was always willing to go out of His way to serve others in the Father’s name. This trait was certainly evident as Christ reached out to Jairus with accessibility and availability. There were certainly many other needy people in the region near Jairus, but the urgency of the synagogue leader’s circumstances demanded that Jesus go to Jairus’s home. From a distance the Lord could have sent the power to raise the man’s daughter from the dead. He chose, however, to manifest selfless love and compassion by following the grieving Jairus to his home. God is sensitive not only to the needs of the many but to the cry of individuals in need. The Holy Spirit’s work through Philip in Acts 8 illustrates this principle. In the midst of a highly profitable ministry in Samaria, an angel dispatched the evangelist to Gaza (v. 26). Right away Philip met the Ethiopian eunuch, the royal official who served the queen of Ethiopia. When the Holy Spirit prompted Philip to approach the man, the evangelist found an eager seeker about the things of God and was able to lead him to saving faith in Christ (vv. 35–37). God sometimes leads us, as He often led His own Son and the early disciples, to temporarily set aside a larger ministry to focus on the need of one person—and He wants us to be available. After all, Jesus did promise that every single individual who genuinely “comes to Me I will certainly not cast out” (John 6:37). Ask Yourself Who comes to mind when you think of someone God has called you to influence at this point in time? Avoid the temptation to withhold yourself from others, not wanting to get involved in the messiness of their needs and problems, when Jesus has called you to compassion.

August 16 - The Danger of Wrongly-Based Rituals #LifeOfChrist “Then the disciples of John came to Him, asking, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?’” (Matthew 9:14–15). Religious ritual and routine, if not handled appropriately, will always threaten true godliness. Some practices, such as praying to saints or lighting candles for the dead, are heretical. But even biblical practices, when their forms become the center of attention, can become barriers to true righteousness. Church attendance, Bible reading, saying grace before meals, and singing hymns can become lifeless habits that exclude true worship and praise. When we apply good things such as these the wrong way, they can keep us from faithful obedience . . . and keep unbelievers from trusting in God. Alms, prescribed prayer, and fasting were the three major expressions of piety the Jews performed in Jesus’ time. The leaders took these matters quite seriously and were meticulous to practice them publicly so as to impress others with their piety (cf. Matt. 6:2, 5, 16). Thus these practices became badges of pride and hypocrisy rather than marks of humble and genuine religion before God. Jesus’ point in mentioning the bridegroom and his attendants is to show how out of place it is for His followers (attendants) to mourn and fast while He (the Bridegroom) is with them in person. Pharisaical manners and rituals are always wrong for Christians, but even good practices (such as sincere fasting), if not done properly, can hinder what the Lord wants to accomplish in our midst. Ask Yourself Should our answer to this kind of hypocrisy be the removal of all forms, disciplines, and ritual practices from our worship? Or is there value in these kinds of expressions? What would go missing from our worship if it was all spur-of-the-moment, with no cherished repetitions?

August 14 - Jesus Urges Compassion #LifeOfChrist “‘But go and learn what this means: “I desire compassion, and not sacrifice”’” (Matthew 9:13). Jesus never shied away from speaking directly and bluntly if the situation demanded such talk. Here He pins the Jewish leaders to the wall by quoting from their own most honored scriptural authorities. Their own prophets rebuke them for their spiritual ignorance and their lack of obedience to God’s clear commands. Jesus paraphrases Hosea’s prophetic and divinely inspired words: “I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6). The perfect Word of God should have been the Pharisees’ supreme concern, as it should be ours, rather than the flawed words and ideas of humanity. Without true and godly compassion, all the Pharisees’ rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices were worth nothing to God. The person who is indifferent toward other people verifies that he or she is also indifferent toward God, no matter how correct their theology or impeccable their morality. Ritual separated from righteousness and a concern for the downtrodden and lost has always been an affront to God. Through the prophet Amos, the Lord declared, “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:23–24). Ask Yourself In what ways have you let duty and religious reputation become elevated in importance beyond genuine love and compassion for others? What is so empty about the former . . . and so rejuvenating about the latter?

August 13 - The Sick Need a Physician #LifeOfChrist “When Jesus heard this, He said, ‘It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick’” (Matthew 9:12). Basic human logic and common sense tells us that physically sick people need treatment from a doctor. Here Jesus simply answers the Pharisees’ cynical question with the plain statement that the spiritually sick also need treatment. It’s as if He said to the Jews, “If you’re really so spiritually healthy, you don’t need a spiritual physician. But if by their own confession, the sinners I’m eating with are the spiritually needy who must have the gospel presented, then that’s why I’m ministering to them. I’m the Great Physician who can bring spiritual healing—salvation—to those who recognize their desperate need.” By analogy, no credible physician would spend all his or her time among healthy people and refuse to be with the sick. By implication, Jesus was asking the Pharisees if they—the self-proclaimed theological and religious “experts” who had all the answers for the unenlightened—were refusing to give them that medicine. This was an incredible indictment of the self-righteous, hard-hearted religionists. The Pharisees were hypocrites who carefully fussed about the most minute matters of the law but neglected the bigger issues such as “justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23). They loved themselves but hated others and revealed themselves to be without the compassion and mercy God’s law requires. We have to ask, How could the Pharisees resent the healing of those sinners God Himself desired to heal? With such an attitude they proved themselves to be sickest of all—actually dead spiritually. Ask Yourself How are we guilty of spending an undue percentage of our time providing care and attention for the spiritually sound? What is this an indicator of? What can you do to avoid this imbalance in your church and personal ministry?

August 11 - Matthew’s Positive Response #LifeOfChrist “As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’ And he got up and followed Him” (Matthew 9:9). Matthew’s gospel has already established that Jesus offered His forgiveness to the least-loved outcasts of society. It seems evident from the context of this verse that one of those outcasts, Matthew the tax collector (this gospel’s author), had been under real conviction of sin and spiritual need. He would have been very aware of Jesus’ ministry in and around Capernaum, even though he might not have personally heard Him preach or had seen Him do a miracle. Matthew likely yearned for the forgiveness that was permanently denied to him by unbelieving Judaism, which viewed him as the worst kind of reprobate and traitor. So when Christ called him, Matthew without hesitation “got up and followed Him.” Luke’s account describes the moment this way: Matthew “left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him” (Luke 5:28). Our Lord’s simple but profoundly urgent call was sufficient reason for him to forsake everything he once was and owned. Matthew knew that once he left his tax collector’s position he could never return to it. Of all the Twelve, he no doubt sacrificed the most in wealth to follow Jesus. Like Paul later, he affirmed that “whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil. 3:7). Ask Yourself If it’s been too long since the significance and honor of Jesus’ call swept over you, see the excitement in Matthew’s reaction to Christ. Watch him lunge at the chance to be one of Jesus’ disciples. Remember again the thrill of being in your Master’s service.

August 10 - Reverential Fear #LifeOfChrist “But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men” (Matthew 9:8). The word rendered “awestruck,” although often translated “fear,” most commonly refers to reverential awe in the New Testament. It is how someone feels who is in the presence of another, infinitely superior person. “Awestruck” describes the reaction to numerous significant events we read about in the gospels and Acts: the shepherds hearing of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:9), the apostles when their Lord walked on water (Matt. 14:26), the guards at the tomb when the angels rolled away the stone (Matt. 28:2–4), the people in the early church right after Pentecost (Acts 2:43), and the reaction to the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:5, 11). Reverential awe of God is an essential part of the genuine Christian life (see 2 Cor. 7:1, 10–11; Phil. 2:12; 1 Peter 3:2). This attitude must undergird all important aspects of worship, ministry, love, respect, and even biblical church discipline (see 2 Cor. 5:11; Eph. 5:21; 1 Tim. 5:20). The awe-filled response by most of the people in the crowd as they witnessed what Jesus did for the paralytic was certainly the right one, especially since it resulted in their giving glory to God. Such an attitude should never be far from us as we strive to faithfully worship and serve the Lord (cf. Acts 9:31). Ask Yourself How magnificent of a revelation does it take for you to be “awestruck” at God’s splendor and glory? What simple, basic, everyday things are ready examples of His greatness, though disguised as something ordinary and insignificant?

July 26 - Not Counting the Cost #LifeOfChrist “Then a scribe came and said to Him, ‘Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.’ Jesus said to him, ‘The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head’” (Matthew 8:19–20). There is no record that the eager scribe ever counted the cost of discipleship. When considering various costs such as self-denial, homelessness, and maybe suffering, the man disappears. No doubt Christ’s words struck where he was most vulnerable, and he could not overcome loyalty to himself and his comfort. Jesus never watered down the gospel message as many evangelistic appeals do today. That only compromises God’s Word and does a severe disservice to those who hear such a message. The Lord, by contrast, did not mince words with the apostles: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves” (Matt. 10:16). And He continued that tone at the end of His ministry: “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God” (John 16:1–2). Neither did Paul waver from stern words of reminder that “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). Knowing and following Jesus Christ includes thrills and joys unlike any others, but they are not the kind the world can understand or appreciate (cf. John 14:27). Living the Christian life is not simply adding Jesus on to your own lifestyle, but it entails the renouncing of your ways for His and being ready to pay the price He may require (cf. Matt. 16:24). Ask Yourself What have been some of the major costs of discipleship in your own life? How have you responded to them? Have they ultimately drawn you closer to Christ, or have you often allowed them to drive a wedge between you and the Lord?

July 23 - Jesus Christ’s Amazing Ministry #LifeOfChrist “This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases’” (Matthew 8:17). Even excluding the miraculous healings, Jesus’ ministry was unprecedented and amazing. “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks” (John 7:46). The man born blind, whom Jesus healed, told the Jewish leaders, “Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man [Christ] were not from God, He could do nothing” (John 9:32–33). When Jesus healed the paralytic, the onlookers “were awestruck, and glorified God” (Matt. 9:8), and after He expelled a demon they said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel” (v. 33). When He stood before Pilate, Jesus did not say a word in His own defense, “so the governor was quite amazed” (Matt. 27:14). Everything about our Lord was astonishing, excellent, and humanly beyond explanation. It is hard to understand how anyone who witnessed His preaching and miracles, or has even just read about Him in the gospels, can still refuse to accept and obey Him. Some are drawn by His charisma and power, and they marvel at the things He taught and did, but they still take nothing to heart and don’t believe. Sometimes they are willing to call themselves Christians, but they need a commitment that is more than superficial—one that perseveres in faith to the end. Ask Yourself Think of all the things that are truly amazing about Christ. If you were asked what you love the most about Him, what would you say? You never want to be at a loss to share the specific ways He makes life distinctly abundant.