as a little bit of background info, i decided at the beginning of the year that i was really going to concentrate on the Gospels for my devotions this year. i know it seems like a long time to park it on 4 books (and i do read from other places from time to time), but i just really wanted to concentrate on the life and person of Christ… and figured there was no better way to do that then to concentrate on where we see Him, His decisions, His reactions… His life.

one of my favorite stories that i read a few weeks ago in mark is the account of the woman with the issue of blood that is healed by touching His garment… and i LOVE his response to her. it’s just one of those moments where you just see desperation reach out in one last attempt to find hope and answers… and Christ doesn’t disappoint. He heals her. He forgives her. He makes her clean. He gives her hope. He is her answer. i LOVE that. i’ve read the story who-knows-how-many times, and for whatever reason, it just grabs me and won’t let me go.

anyhoo, i’ve finished mark and moved on to luke. read chapter 6 this morning, and there is SO MUCH there: the man with the withered hand, the beatitudes, the comments about loving enemies and not judging others, bearing fruit, and building your house on a rock (i.e., building your faith on Christ). but tucked in the middle of the chapter is this paragraph:

“and he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. and all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.”

right away, it made me think about what Christ did for that unnamed woman. and it just made me stop to think about this characteristic of Christ that, i don’t know about you, but i don’t think about too often. Christ had so much power, that it just came out from Him. it almost gives the impression that power literally seeped from his pores.

and to think… that power that they saw… that power they touched to tap into…

was just a fraction, a minutiae, a drop-in-the-proverbial-bucket, a glimpse of the total, infinite power of God.

that is the God we serve.

and that God somehow finds delight in us when we attempt to worship Him.

that is incredible.

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