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The book of Luke tells the story of the woman who had a blood issue for 12 years.  I’ve probably shared something with you about this scripture before.  But today I want to share more because it is more than a story about miracle healing. It is a story of restoration.

Here is what the scripture says in Luke 8:43-48.  “And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind Him, and touched the border of His garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. And Jesus said, ‘Who touched Me?’ When all denied, Peter and they that were with Him said, ‘Master, the multitude throng Thee and press Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me?’And Jesus said, ‘Somebody hath touched Me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me.’”

Twelve years is a long time.  Since this was a woman, we can know that there probably was a time she did not have this sickness.  She knew what it meant to be whole, and she knew what it meant to be sick.  With a blood issue, the woman was probably scorned by others.  She was probably ridiculed by others.  She was probably treated like she was unclean.  Others would not have wanted to be around her, nor would they have wanted her to be around them.  Doctors probably treated her from a distance.

So, after twelve years, she had tried all she could.  She came to Jesus because she knew a pill could not do what she needed to have done.  She wanted to be restored to who she was before her sickness began.  She wanted to belong again.  She wanted to be accepted again.  She wanted to be whole and clean again.  She wanted to be a child again among people again.  She wanted to be restored.

Man had done her more harm than good.  We’ve probably all lived through a time where someone has made a bad situation worse for us.  When we need them to help us with encouragement, they hinder us with criticism.  When we need them to encourage us with support, they discourage us with guilt.  You know what I mean.

I decided to use the King James Version of scripture for this message because of the deep meaning of the words it uses.  Jesus’ Words makes it clear that He knew full well what she had been going through.  In one simple act of Love, He tells everyone around Him that He perceived virtue had gone out from Him.

Jesus didn’t rub her eyes with anything.  He didn’t touch her with His healing hands.  He didn’t ask her to wash herself in the local river.  He sent into her the one thing she needed most, virtue.  Jesus sent to her all the things man kept from her.

Virtue is a sense of the highest standards of good.   It is the highest moral state that can be.  It is the right thing being done in the right way for all the right reasons.  It is the standard of good for all things good.

Something more powerful than healing went out from Jesus to that lady that day.  He restored to her all that man kept from her.  And this is what healed the issue of her blood.

Sometimes, we may find ourselves in similar places of bondage with the people around us.  And no matter what we do, we cannot seem to find a way to escape.  After many years we may feel hopeless because we have unknowingly begun to hope for what we want from the people who are holding us down.

But, like this lady, we must come to the end of our twelve years.  We do this by realizing that all we need is just a little faith in Jesus to do for us what all the hope in man will never do.  We must realize there are times when we need restoration more than we need anything else.

So, let this be the day you realize how a little faith is all that is needed to do in your life what 12 years of hope in man can never do.  If you want the things around you to change, ask the Lord to change some things within you.  Believe that He will meet you with His virtue and you too shall be made whole and restored and loved.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

I was reflecting recently on myself and on people in general and why it is that we don’t learn more than we know.  I was astonished to find that what keeps me from learning is often the things I have already learned.  What I have come to know gives me some sense of assurance and status and a sense of pride.  I like that.  But having this keeps me from wanting to learn more.

In Matthew 13:10-17, Jesus explains to His disciples why some people do not learn by explaining to them why He taught everyone in parables.  The scripture says this in Matthew 13:10-11.  “And the disciples came and said to Him, ‘Why do You speak to them in parables?’  He answered and said to them, ‘Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.’”

The “them” He is talking about was the Jewish leaders.  The disciples understood that the leaders did not understand what Jesus was saying because what they knew is what gave them power and authority.  They could not learn more because they thought they had learned all they needed.  We cannot understand more when we are unwilling to learn more.

Jesus’ response to them is even difficult to understand.  By telling the disciples it was given to them to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven He was saying this to them: Because you have hearts to want to know and to learn, your hearts desire has been given to you, even to understanding the deep things of God and of heaven.

But the Jewish leaders did not have hearts to want to learn.  What they knew made them more than the people who lived at that time. Their hearts were hardened by the very things they had learned.  They could not understand what Jesus was saying because they spent all their time trying to get Him to understand what they knew.  They were not willing to allow what they knew to be challenged by what they did not know.

I’m ashamed to say I have found some of the Jewish leader’s heart in me sometimes.  In times past, I could get so fixed on the one thing I knew that it would keep my heart shut from learning more and better things.  I had to learn to overcome this attitude and nature.

I know now that we should all feel blessed by the things God reveals to us in His Word.  But we should also feel fearful in some ways because there is more to know and to learn that we do not know.  I was brought to a good place of fear because I understood I knew a little but there was much more to know.

Proverbs 1:5 came to life in me, and it should live big in you.  It says, “A wise man will hear and increase learning, and a man of understanding will attain wish counsel.”  A wise person is simply someone who has the sense to pay attention to what is happening around them, to learn from things and to keep learning of the things that could be.

Being wise doesn’t mean we are smarter than anyone else.  It simply means we are prudent about what we know, and we seek to know what is not known or is what is hard to know.  Being wise means we learn as much from what has yet to happen as we do from what happened yesterday.

We cannot know the Lord the way we should if by what we know we limit ourselves to the legality of it all.  If what you know is of any real value, then the wise will never harden their hearts to stop learning and knowing.  The wise and prudent will allow what they know to be challenged because they fear missing out on something they could know but miss.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.  But fools despise wisdom and instruction.  People with hardened hearts despise learning more and they reject more instruction.  Let’s pray that this is not who we are.   Let’s learn to use what keeps us from learning as a way to help us grow in what we know and in how we learn.

If we stop learning and understanding more of what we do not know, we will miss the Lord when He visits us in ways we have not learned before.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Psalm 25 is a plea we should all have for deliverance and forgiveness.  Deliverance from the snares of ourselves.  And forgiveness because we are so focused on ourselves that we fail to see who we really are.  I have come face to face with a person inside of me telling me I could be better.  But times before I didn’t want to hear that.  I liked being who I was.

Psalm 25:4-5 encourages us in this way.  It says, “Show me Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths.  Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; On You I will wait all day.”  David is saying, show me Lord, and I will change and follow what You reveal.

I wish I had the faith of David.  Often the Lord will show me things, and often I will choose to follow my ways instead of what He shows me.

If I wish to have the faith of David, I must be willing to change from my ways to ways I do not know.  So, this is what I have learned.  I don’t want to read scripture so that I can simply be informed and aware of what God says.  I need to be transformed by scripture.  I go to scripture not just to read but to be read.

In Job 34:32, there is a little word that says, “Teach me what I do not see; If I have done iniquity, I will do no more.”  I am no longer satisfied simply by reading the scripture through my own eyes.  My eyes may never be clear enough to see what I do not see.  I have too many shortcomings and too many desires of my own that keep me from seeing His ways.

So, I now say, take my hands Lord and show me what I am missing that is right before me.  Instead of me reading scripture, let me now come to scripture and to Your Word so that it can read my life.  Show me my ways Lord and show me where I need to be transformed.

When Your Word looks for forgiveness in me and finds none, please show me my ways and teach me how to change.

When Your Word looks for grace and mercy in me and finds neither, please show me my ways and teach me how to change.

When Your Word looks for Love and understanding in me and finds neither, please show me my ways and teach me how to change.

I am grateful that I learned to turn things around.  The old me has always wanted to read God’s Word and to apply it to my life.  The new me wants to have God’s Word read me and to transform my life from what it is into what it is reading.

David learned this.  Psalm 25 isn’t just a cry for more of God, it is a cry for the Lord to deliver us from the bondage of being ourselves.  David understood this.  He knew that He could not rightly serve the Lord if he were not delivered from living his ways.  We should want this for ourselves.

So, today I ask the Lord to show each of us our ways so that we will be moved to change from the ways of our own to the Ways that He chooses.  If you can be delivered from yourself, it is probably possible that you can be delivered to Him in His ways.

Ask the Lord today to show you your ways and be ready to be transformed from your thoughts to His, from your actions to His, from your views to His, and from your life to His.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

John 13:6-9 tells of the time when Jesus washed the disciple’s feet.  The scripture says when He got to Peter, Peter said to Him, “Lord Thou shall never wash my feet.”  Peter didn’t understand what the Lord was doing.  He wanted the Lord to know things were backwards.  Peter thought he should be the one washing the Lord’s feet.

The Lord told Peter that he would understand fully what was happening sometime in the future.  Things just didn’t make sense to Peter.  Why was the Lord Himself washing their feet?  Today, we have enough things that don’t make sense to us.  It is a big thing when the Lord asks us to do something, and we can’t make sense of it either.

Peter had a habit of not making sense of what the Lord was asking him.  Once, when Peter and his friends were fishing, Jesus got into Peter’s boat and taught the people who were on the shore of the sea of Galilee.  Luke 5:4-5 says, “Now when He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, ‘launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.’”

Peter responded by telling the Lord they had fished all night and caught nothing.  “But since You asked,” Peter said, “I will do it.” Peter was saying, “Lord, I just want You to know the fish are not biting today.”  Well, Peter and his friends caught more fish than they could handle.  Their nets were full to the point of breaking.

Peter was a fisherman by trade.  He had probably been trained by his father and learned much from his own experiences. Nevertheless, after fishing all night using all his skills, he had caught nothing.  We are much like Peter today.  We must learn to stop using our skills to limit what the Lord can do with our obedience.

If you want to experience the fullness of life that God promises, you must learn to live each day in response to His word more than by your skills and experiences.  I am sure we have, at one time or another, started something we couldn’t finish the way we’d like.  We have gotten ourselves into some things we later needed help in getting out of.

Sometimes our skills and experiences will let us get into some things, but those same skills and experiences cannot free us from those things.  Jesus told Simon launch out into the deep and let down his nets for a catch.  We must learn that with the Lord we will always be asked to launch out far and deep from our own experiences and skills if we are to experience His power.

Peter, after having failed on his own, took Jesus at His word.  Many of us live powerless lives today as Believers because we try things first on our own instead of taking Christ at His word.  God does not fail at anything He starts.  So, when His word says to us to launch your life out into the deep, you must say, “Yes Lord, I will.”

We must get away from the shallow comforts of life where we can control all things ourselves.  It is in the deeps of life where our faith, our dependence, and our service to God and others are founded and strengthened.

The Lord may ask you to stand in the shallows and do His work.  That would make sense if you didn’t have a boat to go deeper.  But the people He wants to help through you may be out a little deeper in the water.  To help them, you must be willing to leave the comforts of the shallows and depend on Him to get you through the deep things of life.

With the Lord, we are never in over our heads with anything.  So, praise Him today, and ask Him to help you to be ready to launch your life wherever He wants you to live.  It may not make sense to you now, but in time it will.

The Lord shares enough for us at the time to see if we can be obedient to the things we understand, we should also be obedient to the things we do not understand.  If it comes from God, it makes sense to obey what we do not understand.  In doing that, He helps us make a great catch while others just toil in their own efforts.

To the believer, that makes all the sense in the world.

Lived A Delivered Life.  Love you.

When I started this message, I thought I was going to speak to you about the benefits of giving.  I’m sure most of you have heard reference to this saying, “It is more blessed to give than it is to receive.”  Paul makes reference to this in Acts 20:35. He tells us to remember that Jesus had said this to us earlier.

I cannot find the exact place in scripture where Jesus said those exact words.  But that doesn’t really matter.  What I understand is this.  Paul is saying to us we ought to position ourselves in life to be givers more than we are takers.

As I considered all this, I also understood that oftentimes many of us feel like we cannot give because we do not have anything to give.  And we believe that what we do have is only enough to sustain our lives and the ways we want to live.

So, I can see now the Lord wasn’t asking me to speak to you about giving.  He wants me to speak to you about being a place that gives.  A well is a place that gives.  A river is a place that gives.  We may not have much in the way of material things, but when we are a well, we will always have something that others can draw from to sustain a part of their lives.

In John, 4:7, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at a well—Jacob’s well.  Jesus was tired and exhausted from the trip He had made that day to reach that point.  A woman came to the well to draw water.  Scripture says Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

The woman was surprised Jesus would ask her for a drink.  She reminded Jesus that she was a Samaritan and that the Jews didn’t associate with them.  Jesus responded by telling her if she knew who He was and she asked Him, He would give her living water.

At this, she even said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.”  I believe we are in many ways like this Samaritan woman.  We are accustomed to going out to the wells in our lives and drawing for ourselves daily the things we need to sustain us.

But Jesus is asking us to be something greater.  In the world He wants us to live in we ought to be the wells others use to draw from for their needs.  People are around us daily who are tired and weary of the issues of life.  They are seeking rest and a break.  They want something to sustain them and to get them going again.

When they see us, they wonder if we have anything in our lives which they can drink.  Jesus wants us to dig wells of life sustaining blessing right into our lives.  He wants us to build wells that contain the things people need to keep going.  He wants us to dig wells that offer life to others.

Yes, all of us ought to understand that giving is better than receiving.  There blessings in giving, for if we live by a giving heart Jesus will measure His love back to us by the same heart.  But it is in being wells of life-sustaining blessing that we go farther.

So make sure you have dug a well of patience in your life for those who will come near seeking patience.  Dig a well of compassion and mercy and grace for those who come near seeking restoration.  And dig a well of love for those who will come near needing to be loved today.

If you have no wells in your life, you will have no way to meet what others will need in their times of need.  You see, if Jesus asks us to give what is important to us, we will hesitate to do that.  We will find it difficult to give up some of our hard-earned wealth to someone who we believe doesn’t deserve it.

But a well is there for anyone with a need who comes near.  The well is there for the good and the bad.  For the person of status and for the person who is unknown.  Jesus wants us to be wells of living water to the people He directs to come near and seek.

Dig your well today and be a well of blessings to others.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

Scripture gives us an account of how God made man.  After God formed man, He had to bring man to life.  In Genesis 2:7 scripture says, “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.”  Man was made from the dust of the earth, but he was brought to life with something that was Life.

Dust and dirt—we probably all understand what these are.  But what exactly is that thing that God breathed into man that brought man to life?  What is life?  This is a difficult question to understand.  But we must understand it because it is critical to having life itself.

Jesus later tells us something similar in John 10:10.  He says, “The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy.  I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”  Jesus is talking to the Pharisees about people who are His sheep.

His reference to the thief is to people whose purpose is to attack the life of the sheep.  The thief wants to limit your life, but Jesus came so that you may have life abundantly.  The Pharisees were thieves who wanted to keep life in people in bondage to their rules.

So, this is what life is.  Life is the thing that awakens what is possible.  Life does not bring death to life.  Life is the thing that brings to life something that is intended to have life.

An ocean or a sea or a river without water would be nothing.  Water is the thing that brings life to each of these.  Water is what allows the oceans to thrive in abundance.

I used to try to live an abundant life, but I didn’t have the Life in me to live the way I wanted to live.  I thought abundant life was about having much and getting even more.  I was all wrong.

Jesus is the Life we need to live the abundant lives we all want to live.  He teaches us to live a lot with what little we may have.  So, don’t be like I was.  If you want to live abundantly, get ahold of an abundant amount of the Life of Jesus.

If you want to live with the respect of others, learn to accept the life of respect Jesus offers you.

If you want to live with the love of others, learn to accept the life of Love Jesus offers you.

If you want to live a life of status and position, learn to accept the life of status and position in Jesus that He offers.

When God breathed this breath of Life into man, He was saying that man would come to life and that it would be possible for him to have an abundant life as he lived.

Now, listen carefully.  God was thinking of you when He breathed life into Adam.  Scripture referred to Him then as The Lord God.  It is as if God was saying, I am going to breath life into Adam now.  But later I am going to send Jesus to everyone else so that they too can have life and have it abundantly.

So, this is what life is.  It is Jesus running around in each of us stirring us up to a way of living that reflects the abundance of the breath of Life that is in us.  Life is crazy.  It says to the thief who would steal or kill or destroy, “You cannot have what is the life of Jesus living in me.”

Jesus will never stop chasing after you with His offer of giving you Life more abundantly.  Stop trying to live your life on your own.  Let Him catch you so He can fill the river of your desires with His life of abundance which He offers everyone.  This is what is Life.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

I am reading in the Old Testament, 1 Chronicles 14. In verses 5-12 it tells of a time when King David and his men were moving the Ark of the Lord back to its rightful place among the people.

At one point, the cart carrying the Ark almost fell over so a man named Uzza touched the Ark trying to keep it from falling. Verse 9 says this is what happened to Uzza. “And when they came to Chidon’s threshing floor, Uzza put his hand to hold the Ark, for the oxen stumbled. The anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzza, and He struck him because he put his hand to the Ark; and he died there before God.”

David was angry at God for this because he thought Uzza was doing a good thing. Uzza probably did what any good man who wants to do good would have done – even you and me. But what did he do?

Uzza acted presumptively. He presumed he knew what to do so he did it. Uzza died that day trying in his mind to do something right and good.

I asked myself as I read this today, why Lord did you have to kill him? He was doing what he was told, and he was doing what he thought was right. The Lord responded by showing me I was asking the wrong question.

“Ask yourself, Allen, this question. Who do you think you are that you can ask God to explain His actions?”

The Lord is God. He doesn’t have to explain Himself to me. Who am I to think that He should or would?

I was thinking presumptuously. I presumed I would know if God acted right if He explained Himself to me.

“Really Allen? Are you to judge if God is right or wrong?”

I presumed that I could know if He did what was necessary. My idea of necessary is not His.

The Lord is not anxious. He doesn’t get to a place and fret over anything. He does not worry about what is happening. He wants us to learn not to worry about what is happening as much as He wants us to take time in our moments of anxiety, even good anxiety, to ask Him how we should move.

“Instead, Allen, ask Me how you should move.”

When you ask how to move, God will show you what to do. We may feel like there is no time to ask how, but God is all the time we need.

The Lord has to be our standard for what is right and wrong, good or bad, necessary or not. There is no other. Even if we do not understand, we cannot presume that we know better that He knows.

Uzza it is said, died that day before God. I pray that the day that I die, it too will be before God and not before all my own ideas of how I have tried to do good for Him.

Learn how to do good before Him. You will learn to find areas of your own life where your assumptions lead you to think and act presumptively. Letting go to our presumptuous nature is one of the last things of the self we find and let die.

Put your hand out on your presumptions and let them die before God today. Free yourself from yourself so you don’t entangle others with the things that entangle you.

Live A Delivered Life. Love you.

Abundant living for the believer is not the same as abundant living for others.  God does not want us to seek after the abundance of the things we want in life the same way that nonbelievers seek to satisfy their wants.  The believer is called to find abundance in the middle of their needs rather than from the pursuit of their wants or desires.

But how do we know a need from a desire?  For most of us, it all seems the same.  I say that I need a car so that I can get to work, and I want a car so that I can get to work.  But these are not true statements.  We have a basic need for food and water and shelter.  But we may have desires for a steak, cold water and a big cool house.  Our wants almost always are bigger than our needs.

When we know the difference between our needs and our desires, we can move God to work on our behalf.  Philippians 4:19 says, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.”

Paul isn’t just saying God is good; we all know that.  He is telling us that God is a provider of all our needs when, with humility and gratefulness, we keep those needs before Him.  This is a spiritual principle that will allow you to live in greater prosperity when you know it.

Everyone—believer and nonbeliever—has the same basic needs.  God simply does not want us to act like the nonbelievers around us when it comes to fulfilling our desires.  When the Israelites were just 45 days in the desert, they complained to Moses because they had eaten the last of the food and water they brought from Egypt.  They did not see how their needs would be met.

We know God responded by raining manna, bread and meat, down from heaven to meet their needs for food.  He brought water from a rock to meet their need for water.  Still the people complained and wished they were back in Egypt where they could live by their wants and desires more than by their needs.  Exodus 16-1-14,

You must understand this principle of humble gratefulness if you are going to live abundantly just as you are.  When we are humbly grateful with the basic things that we have, God can multiply what we can do with the little we have to meet our needs.

With humble gratitude, He can feed a family for many days with a jar of oil and a can of flour.  Paul tells us that he knew how to live with much and he knew how to live with little.  Either with much or with little, Paul lived big.  Having your needs met with contentment brings joy to the heart of God.

The believer does not need to have a big house to live big in the house God has provided.

The believer does not need a big car to be the instrument God uses to provide a big ride to someone in need.

God can take the little money you have as a humbly content believer and make you spend it like it’s a million dollars.

God can take you, when you are humbly content, and use you just as you are and with just what you have to meet all of your needs and your desires too.

He does this because when we are happy with what we have, He is happy to give us more of what we would like to have but would never ask.

Learn to live in the prosperity of your need.  Humbly accept that you don’t need more of anything to live like you have more than you will ever need.  You must be both full and hungry; you must be both in need but completely fulfilled.

When you are humbly content, it does not matter what you have or how much you have.  Whatever it is, you will live better than those who live unfulfilled lives despite seemingly having more.  With the Lord it is always more than enough for you to live abundantly.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.

None of us need to think hard to find something about our lives that gives us great challenge.  I have often thought to give up on some things because I didn’t think I could endure.  This is especially true for us when we are faced with things seemingly outside of our control.

Sometimes we make simple things harder than they need to be.  Sometimes we allow hard things to make us hard.  We allow incurable things to make us sick.  We feel helpless when we feel like we cannot help someone overcome something.

All this happens because we want things to either change, or we want to give up and move on.  But often, neither giving up nor moving on is what is best for us.  We need to learn to stick with some things until we come through to the other side.

In 2 Corinthians 4:16, scripture says, “Therefore we do not lose heart.  Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”  Paul is saying that even though things are tough, he will not give up.

Paul saw that the key to living with tough things is to understand that tough things are needed to put to death a part of our humanity that keeps us from being renewed in our spiritual being.  Every time we allow something of our humanity to die, we give life to more of our spiritual being.

This is a spiritual principle.  Dying to live and living to die.  This will work for your good if you do not give up on the things that come at you.  God has given us an amazing treasure, the Love of Christ.  But this treasure is held in our earthly lives when we need to move it to our spiritual lives.

When we don’t give up on what the Lord can do for us, we learn to die more so that we may live more.

We can be challenged all around but never overcome when we don’t give up.

We can have the weight of the world come at us, but we will never be crushed when we don’t give up.

We can be wrongly persecuted and hated but we can always keep our joy and peace when we don’t give up.

We can be knocked down time and again, but we can always rise again when we don’t give up.

How can this be?  When we carry the life of Christ who died to the temporal, we will live with Him.  He has died for your wayward children.  He has died for your sick spouse.  He has died for your impossible work environment.  He has died for your addiction.  All this so that you may live in the glory of His victory.

You have great reason never to give up.  When you give up you are saying, “I love what I’m losing more than I love what I stand to gain in Christ.”  Don’t give up on that!

I know some of us face some difficult things daily and some of us seem to get no relief.  But you must not give up.  Learn to face your goliaths with a David-like conviction to live free of bondage to your humanity.

Use your challenges to free you from the things that hold you back.  There is a bit of health in your sickness; there is a bit of patience in your impatience; there is a bit of confidence in your fear; there is a bit of control in your lack of control.

When you don’t give up, all this you may be yours because the Lord will bring you a new life that is eternally perfect.  You can live this life today in an imperfect world when you decide you will not give up.

Live a Delivered Life.

John the Baptist and Jesus were cousins.  They were born just a few months apart with John being a few months older.  I think we all know John was set apart to go ahead of Jesus and proclaim the coming of the Lord to the people.

I imagine those two grew up together as little kids.  Perhaps they even played together.  But at some point, John took to his calling and started his ministry.  And after that, when Jesus was around 30 years-old, He started His work as the Lord.

John probably got to witness a lot of stuff with Jesus that is not written anywhere.  Imagine playing a game of baseball when Jesus is the pitcher.  Or imagine trying to beat Jesus running home from school.  Yes, John probably witnessed a lot of stuff.

But, even with that, John had his questions.  He had his doubts.  Not questions about Who Jesus was, but questions about if Jesus was.  John knew Who Jesus was, but he didn’t know if Jesus was the One that he was proclaiming to come.  How on earth could that be?

In Luke 7:22-23, John has been put in prison by Herod.  He sent some of his disciples to Jesus to inquire if Jesus was the One.  So, the disciples came to Jesus and said to Him, “John is wondering if You are the One Who is coming or should they look for another.”

Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things you have seen and heard.  That the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them.  And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.”

John had a moment when he forgot all that he had witnessed in his life and in the life of Jesus.  He was in prison for proclaiming the Coming One, but he let his circumstances move him to doubt if Jesus was the One.  

Sometimes, we are like that today.  We are so busy with doing the work of the Lord that we forget sometimes to let the work of the Lord do its stuff with us.  Jesus’s response to John was a reminder to John of the things done in life that only the Lord could do.

Sometimes we need a gentle reminder of the amazing things the Lord is and has done, not just in our lives, but also in the lives of the those around us.  Jesus told John’s disciples to go tell him what they had witnessed.  Sight restored to the blind.  Lame people walking again.  People healed of leprosy.  Deaf people hearing.

Like John’s disciples, we need to remember to be witnesses to the things we see and hear.  I have never seen sight restored to the blind or hearing restored to the deaf.  But here are some things we have all witnessed:

God tells the sun where to go and sit for the night.

He tells the wind where to come from and where to go.

He causes the ocean tides to come in and out.

He causes oxygen to sustain the humanity of our lives.

He keeps the stars above from falling down on us.

He tells the clouds when to stay put and when to move on.

He decided we didn’t need an ocean in the atmosphere, but it is from there rain falls to sustain us.

He tells the day where to go when night comes.

And though we cannot see love, He makes sure we can know it because He is love.

We are a witness to a lot more than we think or know.  We just have to open our eyes to the wonder of the things around us.

So, let this be your time.  Go and tell someone what you have seen and heard and witnessed.  And when they question you on these things, just let them know you’ve witnessed it all because we serve a living God and Lord who doesn’t live in a stone.

No, God is not a stone or a carved figure.  He is not the result of our imagination.  He is a living God.

Jesus lives in a place called anywhere.  And He operates in a time call anytime.  And He can be found in a place called any place because He is a living God.

Let people know you’ve witnessed that for yourself.  It’s there for them to see and hear for themselves.

Live a Delivered Life.  Love you.