THE GOOD BREAK-IN
Opening Prayer
Holy Spirit, please guide me.
Read Mark 5:21–34
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
Jesus Raises a Dead Girl and Heals a Sick Woman
21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
Search today’s verses for reasons to love Jesus more dearly, believe Him more wholeheartedly, and follow Him more adventurously.So, as you’ve followed Jesus today, maybe even – once again – from the back of the crowd, peering over shoulders, what did He do for your faith?
Both Jairus (22, 23) and the sick woman (27, 28) take bold leaps of faith to get to Jesus with their needs, making themselves vulnerable, risking their reputations, possibly looking foolish if it doesn’t all turn out the way they hope. And then the pivotal moment for the woman, when Jesus calls attention to her and suddenly it’s a public drama (30–33). But somehow Jairus and the sick woman both “see” that, in Jesus, heaven is breaking in, and that life need never be the same again (34).
What have you risked to have faith in Jesus? What do you “see” but can’t prove?
“What then is faith? It is what gives assurance to our hopes; it is what gives us conviction about things we can’t see” (Hebrews 11:1, The Bible for Everyone).
Apply
Just as Jairus and the woman fall down at Jesus’ feet (22, 33), adopt a physical position of humility, if you can. Pour out your heart to Him, in faith that He can mend your brokenness.
Closing prayer
I am so thankful, my Jesus, that You see me. You hear my prayers and You love me so deeply.
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