Monday, August 5, 2013

Grace in Christ 16


What is our greatest need?  In Mark 5 a woman met Jesus as He was going on an urgent errand with a man whose daughter was dying.  To the man that was certainly the most urgent need.  To the woman it was not.  The woman had suffered at the hand of doctors for twelve years and had been impoverished by their failed efforts.  She felt her sickness was her greatest need and shyly approached the Savior to have it met.  She didn’t trip Him or block His way.  She merely reached out and touched the hymn of His garment.  And what happened?  She was completely healed.  What else happened?  Jesus stopped and talked with her and told her that it was her faith in Him that had made her whole. 

What is our greatest need?  The man in this story still had a daughter who was dying. But while Jesus paused to talk with the woman, a messenger came from the man’s house and told him it was too late; his daughter was dead.  Jesus, seeing the man’s despair, said, “Don’t be afraid.  Only believe.”  Believe is the verb form of the word faith.  What the woman had shown in her healing was what Christ now called on the man to show in his great need.  Jesus then went to the man’s house and raised his daughter from the dead. 

What is our greatest need?  Our greatest need is that the sickness of sin be washed away and that the death sentence of sin be pardoned against us.  After that our greatest need is to trust our Savior who has done both things for us. 

John Beebe wrote a hymn, “Made Whole”, that covers both the physical and spiritual aspects of this account in Mark.  His first stanza reads, “The press was great, the throng was wild, and I, a sinner all defiled, how could I reach my Savior? Reach Him I must, without delay, and in the press, with fear, dismay, I, trembling, sought my Savior.”  He sees first in this hymn that which is our greatest need - a Savior.  Then in His last stanza he concludes with the sense of double healing, spiritual and physical.  “Go thou in peace, O hear Him say; from all Thy plague be healed this day; Oh, what a blessed Savior! To heal the body, save the soul, the vilest of the vile make whole, Oh, how I love my Savior.” 

What is your greatest need today?  There is One who can meet it.  With grace He will take care of His children.  With grace He will receive the lost.  Look to Him today for the grace that you need and then love the Savior. 
 
 
 
Visit my website, www.davidccraig.net, for inspiring Christian books. 
 

1 comment:

  1. SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU
    Christians like to state that they are sinners saved by grace. Christians should say I was a sinner saved by grace. To proclaim, I am a sinner, suggests that no repentance has taken place. Christians are not supposed to maintain the same sinful lifestyle they had before they had their sins washed by the blood of Christ.

    THE APOSTLE PAUL SPEAKING TO CHRISTIANS

    1 Corinthians 6:1-11....9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived;
    neither fornicators
    nor idolaters
    nor effeminate
    nor homosexuals
    nor thieves
    not the covetous
    nor drunkards
    nor revilers
    nor swindlers
    will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

    Notice Paul said these Christians were sinners. Paul did not say they are sinners. Paul was not handing out sin permits to the Christians at Corinth. It was the exact opposite. Paul was saying that the Christians who continue to practice a sinful lifestyle would not enter into the kingdom of God.

    Yes, Christians do sin, however, Christians should not be sinners. Christians should have had all the, sin practice, they needed before they became Christians. Do you honestly believe Christians can live an entire life practicing fornication and still enter the kingdom of God?

    Ephesians 2:1-5.....3 Among them we too all formerly lived in lust of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.......

    Christians should be, formerly sinners, saved by grace. Christians should not be current sinners expecting to be saved by grace!

    OF COURSE CHRISTIANS WHO SIN CAN BE FORGIVEN. THE QUESTION IS CAN CHRISTIANS WHO LIVE AN UNREPENTANT SINFUL LIFESTYLE EXPECT TO SEE THEIR NAMES WRITTEN IN THE LAMBS BOOK OF LIFE?




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