Curiosity Or Commitment?

I was reading my morning devotional today and was struck by a couple of things I want to share with you. The Scripture is Mark 5:21-24, 35-43. It is about the synagogue ruler named Jairus who came to Jesus for the healing of his sick daughter.

The first thing that struck me was the same thing that usually does in similar stories of Jesus' healing. The person desiring the healing come to Jesus expectantly and falls at His feet, exercises his or her faith and receives what was asked for.

That is exactly what happened with Jairus in verses 21 and 22. He pushed through the crowds of people, fell at the feet of Jesus, asked for the healing of his daughter and made his statement of faith. This guy was a big-wig, one of the rulers of the synagogue. My devotional states that this position was similar to being a mayor. He didn’t care what people thought.

If we would only be like Jairus more often...

The other thing I want to mention is about the crowd of people that had gathered right before Jairus showed up. Verse 21 says that Jesus arrived by boat and was met by a thron of people. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of this word is, "A large group of people gathered or crowded closely together; a multitude."

What were all these other people doing? Jairus knew what he was doing. He came for his daughter, but it seems as though the multitude was there only to watch. Maybe they were curious? They had obviously heard of Jesus and His great works. Maybe they came for a show? It seems that Jesus attracted crowds of people all over the place, but, relatively speaking, only a few received anything from Him.

Let's not be one of the crowd, looking to Jesus out of curiosity or for entertainment. Let us be like Jairus. Let us fall at the feet of Jesus, exercise our faith and make our requests known to Him!

In Christ,
Clint Herman

God’s Will?

A while back I got home from work and was relaxing. Actually, I didn't relax long because after about 5 minutes I began thinking about a young man who passed away when I was in college. He was about 21 years old. While I was thinking about him I starting thinking about another young man who passed on a few years before the first. He was also around 21 years old. It was kind of a shocker because this was between 10 and 12 years ago.

It was also a little depressing, to say the least. I was wondering what their lives would have been like had they lived. All the things they could have done for the Lord on this earth... I was wondering why they had passed on so young. I even remembered that one of them had broken up with his girlfriend a couple months before and that other people were saying this happened because God was preparing them for the tragedy.

And that was when the Lord spoke to me. He put it in my spirit that although He did prepare them for what was to come, it did not mean it was His will for this man to die. In fact, I was overcome with a deep sense that neither of these two men had to pass away when they did. God was simply saying to me that they passed on too soon.

The question that naturally followed for me was why they died if they did not have to. This is the question that has invaded my heart and mind several times since that day. Since I did not really know either of them, I cannot speak of their faith; I cannot speak of their walk with God, their dependence on God, their knowledge of the Scriptures or anything else.

Maybe it was a lack of prayer in the church for them or maybe it was an unwillingness of them to grasp certain promises in the Bible. If faith in what the Word of God says and the simple act of prayer can move mountains, then a lack of prayer or a lack of faith can have the reverse effect. So many things happen for Christians from day to day that never have to happen.

Far be it from me to speak bad of these two young men. That is certainly not my intention. I believe God is calling us to a deeper relationship with Him through Christ, to be utterly dependent on Him, to meditate on His Word day and night, to believe Him for what He promises to us, to be in prayer for both those who believe and those who do not and to be ready and willing to do whatever He asks whenever He asks.

This is a tough one for me, and I will wrestle with it until I know for sure what God wants me to learn.

In Christ,
Clint Herman