"She said to herself, 'If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.' Jesus turned and saw her. 'Take heart, daughter,' he said, 'your faith has healed you.' And the woman was healed at that moment." – Matthew 9:21-22

This woman’s faith is extraordinary. After suffering for 12 years and exhausting her resources, she dared to approach Jesus in the crowd, believing in His power to heal. Faith, even in desperation, moves the heart of Jesus. Below is a similar story of God’s power to heal from Wendy Nall, a member of C2.

In the spring of 1987, I woke up one morning to cloudy vision in my right eye and severe weakness in my left arm, hand and left leg. To the point I could barely walk and could not use my left arm and hand. I lost vision in my right eye during that time as well. Tests confirmed I had multiple sclerosis and was told to prepare for the worst. There were 5 plaques on my brain indicative of the neural scarring of MS.
I was a musician in a band and working in a shoe factory having walked away from a scholarship to play college football and had been married to a Donna for 2 short years. We were taken greatly aback, did not understand, but knew God was in control and our trust was in him only.
We prayed, the church prayed and the symptoms left in severity and the function returned to my arm, leg and eye. My sickness opened the door for me to go to college and acquire a degree in physical therapy without cost to me. A 32 on my ACT didn’t hurt either.
Eventually repeat testing was done and a subsequent MRI of my brain showed 0, that’s zero, presence of plaques or scarring. There is no weakness and I’m as active as I want to be.
The physician looking at the two scans of my brain said he saw no evidence I ever had MS even though it was clearly identified on MRI scans and in spinal fluid.
We have no doubt God miraculously healed me and opened the door for me to go to college and now minister to the injuries and illnesses of the patients I serve.
What the devil tried to use to destroy me, God took and said “Hold my Manna and watch this.”

Reflection:

• What area of your life needs healing—physically, emotionally, or spiritually?
• How can this woman’s faith encourage you to persist in seeking Jesus?
• Who in your life might need encouragement to approach Jesus for their healing?

• Art: The healing of a bleeding woman, Rome, Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, by Unknown author – Scan from Grabar, Die Kunst des frühen Christentums, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8080658
• Songs:
  • “More” – Red Rocks Worship
  • “The Anthem” – Planetshakers
  • “Sure Been Good” – Elevation Worship
  • “Miracles” – Jesus Culture

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." – Acts 1:8

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a transformative experience that empowers believers to live boldly for Christ. In Acts 1:8, Jesus promises the Holy Spirit’s power, not just for personal strength, but to make us effective witnesses of the gospel to the world. When the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples at Pentecost in Acts 2, they were empowered to speak boldly and carry out the mission God had set before them. This experience wasn’t just for the apostles—it’s available to every believer, equipping us for the work of the Kingdom and giving us the power to live and speak in ways we could never do on our own.

In 1906, the Azusa Street Revival broke out in Los Angeles, marking a major outpouring of the Holy Spirit that spread across the world. At this revival, many experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues, just as the disciples did at Pentecost. This movement brought a fresh wave of spiritual renewal and empowerment and birthed the global Pentecostal movement. Almost 100 years later, Missionary Jay Risner was ministering in the rural, tribal villages of Kenya. He was preaching with the help of a translator. At the end of the service, many people had come forward to pray, when, all of the sudden, Jay heard crystal clear English being spoken. The words were of praise to God. When he found the older lady worshipping Jesus in English, he asked the village chief, through a translator, where this lady had learned English. The chief quickly and emphatically told him that she had never left the village or learned English before. They all gave glory to God for this confirming sign of the Holy Spirit baptizing and empowering this woman, along with many others, to pray with the spiritual gift of tongues as God enabled them.

Reflection:

• Have you experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit? If not, how can you ask God to fill you with His power?
• How does the Holy Spirit empower you to be a bold witness for Christ?
• In what areas of your life do you need the Holy Spirit’s power to equip you for service and ministry?

• Art: Pentecost, with tongues of fire and a dove representing the Holy Spirit’s descent (c. 1600) By El Greco – [2], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14985625
• Songs:
  • “Fall Afresh” – Kari Jobe
  • “Spirit Break Out” – Kim Walker-Smith
  • “When Wind Meets Fire” – Elevation Worship

"Give us today our daily bread." – Matthew 6:11

Anxieties related to food, drink, shelter, and clothing might be some of the most common human emotional experiences in the history of mankind. It also doesn’t seem that human progress in the modern age has much changed the cold, hard facts on the ground–scarcity rules, and it’s better to be enslaved to something and eat, than live free and die of starvation. It’s the wisdom of this world, and the reason we struggle to get back to where we came from. And hasn’t this always been the case? As ethereal as they might appear, wisdom and its counterfeits have always been worked out in the flesh-and-bone world of food and fig leaf. Israel, like Adam, struggled to resist the serpentine twisting of the divine word: Did God really say that there would always be enough? What if tomorrow….

Only a few chapters previously in Matthew, Jesus is faced with the inversion of Israel’s test–he is tempted to do the miracle himself and prove that he is the son of God by miraculously creating bread in the wilderness (Matt. 4). His response was about as backwards as his command to not worry about food, drink, or clothing. Apparently, in Jesus’ opinion, humans don’t live by taking the food they think they need, but rather by listening to the word of YHWH. YHWH led Israel into the desert to teach them a garden lesson, and, like the original couple, it wasn’t exactly a passing grade. Jesus aced the same test, and then put our dependence on daily provision and divine direction at the heart of the daily prayer he trained his disciples to pray. The request acknowledges both our constant lack and the surpassing generosity of our Heavenly Father who delights to provide us with everything when we make Him our One Thing. Let’s do just that.

Reflection:

To hear the Lord’s Prayer put to song by various artists, check out the BibleProject page, “Sing The Prayer”

• How can you trust God to provide for your needs each day?
• Where in your life do you need to depend on God’s provision rather than your own efforts?
• How does the story of the manna in the wilderness and Kristi’s experience inspire you to trust in God’s faithfulness?

• Art: The Gathering of the Manna by James Tissot – https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/26365-the-gathering-of-the-manna, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8849141
• Songs:
  • “Our Father” – Bethel Music;
  • “The Lord’s Prayer” – Benjamin William Hastings & Hillsong Worship

"My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions." – Daniel 6:22

God’s favor is a funny thing. While He “adds no sorrow to it,” (Prov. 10:22), other people often do. Like Joseph, Daniel’s exceptional ability and excellence is attributed to the “excellent spirit” within him. His gift, like in the stories of Abel, Isaac, and Joseph before him, also attracts negative attention from the envious people surrounding him. It’s right before the king plans to “put him over the whole kingdom,” (6:3) that a plan is hatched to take care of the “exceptional” one for good. His enemies can’t catch him doing anything bad, so they will legally redefine “good” as “bad,” and catch him red-handed in the act. No one, not even Daniel’s friend, the king, sees it coming. Through the whole ordeal, Daniel is strangely quiet, “like a lamb led to slaughter,” (Is. 53:7). The only action of Daniel in the whole story is to simply do what he, and many faithful Israelites before and after him had always done: to face east, kneel, and pray the shema: “Hear O Israel, the LORD is our God, the LORD alone…”

The poet-king, David, claimed that the real lions weren’t the ones waiting in the pit, but those who reject peace and scheme against “those who are quiet in the land,” (Ps. 35:20). Daniel silently confronted both, not with words, but with action. He does what is right and quietly accepts the consequences, perhaps praying the words of Psalm 35 himself as he went down into death, only to be raised up to life. Consequently, the trap set for him snared the ones who set it (35:7-8). In the age of outrage, perhaps the miraculous remains hidden in the quiet place, where lambs find a table prepared for them in the presence of their jaw-dropped enemies (Ps. 23).

Reflection:

• How can you remain faithful in the face of challenges?
• Where do you need God’s protection in your life?
• How does this story inspire courage and trust?

• Art: Daniel’s Answer to the King by Briton Riviere – Manchester Art Gallery, https://web.archive.org/web/20200609161444/https://manchesterartgallery.org/media/200/270/GMIII_MCAG_1937_123.1200×1200.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136770729
• Songs:
  • “Breathe Miracles” – Red Rocks Worship
  • “Another in the Fire” – Hillsong UNITED

 "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him." – Luke 15:20

A lost son, rejecting His generous Father is a well-worn theme in the Old Testament, and Jesus’ brilliant repurposing of the trope was just as shocking, if not as explicit as Isaiah’s wake-up call. What is easily overlooked by us would have been excruciatingly obvious to the listener–Jesus told the parable of the prodigal son in response to criticism that he was welcoming, accepting, eating with, and thereby identifying with “sinners,” (15:2). The obvious “sinner” in Jesus’ story was the younger son, who blatantly rebelled and had no regard for his generous Father. However, the less obvious prodigal (the surprising punchline of Jesus’ story) was the older brother who, though geographically near to His Father, was a foreigner to His generosity. While indirectly true that God’s forgiveness extends even to the “worst” of us, Jesus’ story begs the question that lies at the heart of his parable: which is worse, the insolent abuse of God’s generosity that drives a person to rock-bottom, or the malignant cancer of self-righteousness that is impossible to self-diagnose and, if not generously and aggressively confronted, progresses to the terminal conclusion, “Away from me, I never knew you,” (Matthew 7:23)?

American rapper, Lecrae, grew up in South Houston, immersed in drugs and gang culture, until an encounter with Jesus. He walked away from dealing, partying, and identifying as “Crazy ‘Crae¹,” and began to embrace God’s call on his life, as well as his musical gift. Many years later, after starting a successful label and becoming an icon of “Christian rap,” Lecrae began to make waves in popular Christian and Christian music culture when he decided to begin releasing his albums under mainstream labels and collaborate with other artists, some of whom were not professing Christians. As he began to speak up about his own personal experiences with racism, the backlash increased, and he experienced increasingly vocal rejection by the same sub-culture that had previously made up a large segment of his support and fanbase. The volume would still intensify, as he would see videos of people burning his music, and even receive death threats from the most extreme.² Ultimately, the rejection would push him further up and into the arms of Jesus, the one who first welcomed him when he was an “outsider” to the family of God.

The irony of Jesus’ parable is that Israel was both prodigal sons simultaneously. They had squandered their inheritance from YHWH, the holy city had become a “prostitute” (Is. 1:21), and they were painting over their rebellion with pious “observance” of the law and festivals commanded by God. Jesus had arrived with his story to remove the make-up and invite both prodigal sons into the Father’s house. May we be given grace to miraculously accept his invitation, and offer that invitation to others who are just as undeserving as we are.

Reflection:

• Where do you need to return to God in your life?
• How can you reflect His grace to others?
• What does this story teach you about His love?

• Art: The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt, 1662–1669 (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) – 5QFIEhic3owZ-A — Google Arts & Culture, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22353933
• Songs:
  • “You Keep On Getting Better” – Maverick City;
  • “Jireh” – Maverick City;
  • “King of Kings” – Hillsong Worship

1. https://www.complex.com/music/a/complex/interview-lecrae ↩︎
2. https://goodgritmag.com/blogs/news/rejecting-labels-lecrae-goes-mainstream ↩︎