Pastor Tony’s Message: The Woman with the Issue of Blood

The “woman with the issue of blood” came to Jesus after she had exhausted all of her other options. Why can’t we come to Jesus before things get rough?

You have to come to the place that you seek God when there is a need, but our lives would be radically different if we would seek him just to know Him, before a need arises.

So Jesus went with him, and a large crowd was following and pressing against Him.

Mark 5:24

Jesus never caters to the “crowd” (the mob). The woman with an issue of blood was labeled unclean under the Law. The Law had no power to clean her; it only set her to the side and kept her in a place of rejection until she could be something other than “unclean,” but neither she nor the Law had any ability to provide cleansing.

At once Jesus realized in Himself that power had gone out from Him. He turned around in the crowd and said, “Who touched My robes?”

Mark 5:30

Why did Jesus ask, “Who touched my robes?” It’s my opinion that He asked “why” because He wanted to see how bad she wanted Him. He wanted her to see that her need for Him was greater than her desperation for healing.

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Pastor Tony’s Message: Seeing the Lord

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and His robe filled the temple.

http://bible.com/72/isa.6.1.hcsb

If you want to see the Lord, something has to die. Isaiah saw the Lord after King Uzziah died. But for the rest of us, most of the time the thing that has to dies is us. And when Isaiah saw the Lord, he didn’t see Him as he imagined him. He saw God as He is. The Lord’s train filled the temple. And He wants His train — his presence, his influence, his glory — to fill you, His temple.

1) See God for Who He really is

We need to lay down the passive, wimpy image of God that we have cultivated. God is jealous for you. He doesn’t want to share you with anything! He wants to see you become everything He intended. He loves you!

2) See yourself for who you really are without God

Isaiah was wholly dedicated to God. He was no heathen! And yet when he came face to face with God’s presence, his response was one of utter humility:

Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.

http://bible.com/72/isa.6.5.hcsb

3) See yourself for who you really are with God

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed and your sin is atoned for.”

http://bible.com/72/isa.6.6-7.hcsb

Once Isaiah’s sin was atoned, he received his assignment from God:

And He replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand;  keep looking, but do not perceive. Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.

http://bible.com/72/isa.6.9-10.hcsb

This was no easy task. But God would go with him and strengthen him.

When we see the Lord, we’re never really the same. Like Isaiah, when we see the Lord, we can expect to be awestruck, transformed, and empowered to fulfill God’s purposes for our lives.

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God bless,

FWC Media Team

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