GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 4:40-41
40 As the sun was setting, they brought to him all who were sick with various diseases. He laid his hands on each one of them and healed them. 41 Demons also came out of many people, crying out, “You are the Son of God!” He rebuked them and did not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
“As the sun was setting” tells us that the Sabbath was at an end, and people could travel from more distant places. News about Jesus was spreading already, and as the sun lowered and darkness fell, they began to arrive: the sick, the blind, the lame, the injured, the deaf, and the demon-possessed. One by one, for each and every one of them, Jesus touched them and healed them.
It’s not that Jesus’ touch was magic, or that his hands possessed all his power the way Samson’s strength was connected to his hair. With Jesus, it was, and still is, all about his divine will. If Jesus wants someone to be healed, there is nothing that can prevent that person from being healed. So why doesn’t Jesus come and heal everyone? Today he chooses to work mostly through natural means, to use the illnesses we have to bring us to repentance, and to teach us to trust in him.
But he also invites us to pray. Or prayers focus our thoughts and attention on God and on his promises. In the Lord’s prayer (which we will look at in detail in chapter 11), Jesus teaches us to glorify God’s name in our prayers, to pray for the kingdom of God and for God’s will to be done. He invites us to pray for the things we need, but also for forgiveness, and for God to guide us both negatively (do not lead us into temptation) and positively (deliver us from evil). By inviting us to pray, Jesus gives us an opportunity to examine our desires and to compare them with the will of God. I should ask: Do the things I ask for line up with my genuine needs? Do the things I ask for line up with God’s will? Do the things I ask for lead me into temptations I should avoid? Would God, by answering my prayer with a No, be keeping me from some evil?
However God answers our prayers, we know that he has both our good and his kingdom in mind. Give him glory, and don’t stop praying.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – Luke 4:40-41 Healing in his hands