FBC Daily Devotional – January 26, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:06

Well, a good Tuesday to you. I hope your week has gotten off to a good start yesterday and your day today already is going well.

00:15

Have you begun the day with the Scriptures, reading the passage for the day?

00:21

If so, you read Matthew chapter 9 and verses 18 to the end of the chapter and as well as a couple of verses in the book of Proverbs.

00:31

One of the things that struck me in the early section in Matthew 9,

00:38

Jesus is encountered by this ruler, probably ruler of the synagogue, who comes to Jesus and he's got to be heartbroken because his daughter has just died.

00:52

And yet get the faith of this man. He comes running to Jesus and he says, he tells Jesus, my daughter has just died, but if you will come and lay your hands on her, she'll live.

01:03

You can raise her up from the dead. Well, that's a tremendous amount of faith. Now when we read these stories,

01:10

I think it's really important for us to live them.

01:15

And what I mean by that is to, you know, just kind of put ourselves into the story. Make yourself the man, the father, whose daughter has just died.

01:29

Imagine the grief, but then imagine the hope that he has in Jesus.

01:37

Imagine the intensity of the feeling, of the emotion, the sense of perhaps anxiety, the sense of earnestness, the desire for Jesus to come quickly and to get there, just resolve this situation, the longing, the desire for resolution to his daughter's death.

02:06

But as he's going, Jesus agrees to go with the man, but as he's going, along comes another person.

02:13

Here's a woman who has been struggling with some kind of disorder for a dozen years, and she comes to Jesus and interrupts

02:26

Jesus's plans, and where he's going, what he's intending to do, and and wants him to heal her, which he does.

02:37

But think about that scene from the vantage point of the dad whose daughter has just died.

02:48

She's been dealing with this for a dozen years. You know, she's still alive. I mean, let her follow along as we go.

02:56

Don't distract him now. Don't disturb him. Don't interrupt him.

03:03

Jesus is on a very important mission to save my daughter, to restore her to life. Don't interrupt him now.

03:10

And yet Jesus isn't fazed. He's not fazed at all by this. He doesn't feel interrupted.

03:17

He doesn't give any sense that he resents the interruption. In fact, he very much seems to welcome it, and to be able to help this woman, and to to solve her problem, to cure her from her infirmity.

03:33

Well, the thing about Jesus is that he has time and patience and care enough to care and to work for all who come to him.

03:46

And even as you continue in this passage, you see that same thing. As two blind men come to Jesus and want their sight restored.

03:55

And then in the next section, Jesus heals a man that is unable to speak. He's got time and care for all who will come to him.

04:08

Now, one of the things I—one of the reasons I think Jesus has no sense of interruption by these people who come to him, and with their burdens and their cares, is because of the way he sees them.

04:25

When this passage ends, it's a very familiar passage. It's often preached by missionaries, and they come and visit church and so forth.

04:34

It's the passage where Jesus says, lift up your eyes, the harvest is plentiful, the laborers are few.

04:43

He says, you know, look on the harvest, look on the harvest. And he does so, looking at this crowd of people.

04:53

He looks at them as a harvest, but more significantly, why? The passage tells us he looks at them as sheep that are shepherdless.

05:05

They're just wandering, they're vulnerable, they're needy, they need care, they need compassion, they need help.

05:16

So it is no wonder that when sheep—shepherdless, hurting, burdened sheep—come to Jesus, they don't find him perturbed by the interruption.

05:29

They find him ready and eager to help. And so he is today.

05:35

So he is today. Do you go to him frequently with your burdens and your cares, your needs?

05:43

You can go without any sense that he feels antagonized by the interruption, any anxious, any anxiety over it, any sense of not again, they're not bothering, you're gonna bother me again.

05:58

None of that. None of that. Jesus has time and patience enough to care and to work for all who come to him.

06:09

So come to him today. Our Father and our God, we thank you for the grace and patience and kindness of the

06:17

Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that he's not rattled by our coming to him. We come to you through him today, and we thank you for all that he is and all that he does.

06:29

We pray for each one listening that whatever the care, whatever the burden, whatever the need, as we bring it to you through our

06:37

Savior Jesus, that that need would be supplied because our

06:43

Jesus has time and care and patience for all of us. And this we pray in Jesus' name.

06:50

Amen. All right, well have a good rest of your Tuesday, and I trust